God of War reviewed

The Gods of Olympus have abandoned me, now there is no hope!

And Kratos cast himself from the highest mountain in all of Greece. After ten years of suffering, ten years of endless nightmares, it would finally come to an end, death, would be his escape from madness.

And so began one of the greatest games ever made for the PS2, God of War. It was a game that reveled in brutality and blood so much that it became a Refugee of Audacity. It was a game that spawned a successful franchise. But back when this game was first released, we didn't know those things. All we had was decent box-art and then word-of-mouth as we popped this in our PS2's. So how awesome was this game? Well, then let's see.

Like the quote above suggests, the game begins with Kratos jumping off the highest mountain into The Aegean Sea. Then we flashback to how we got there as Kratos is off killing the Hydra as part of his 10-year servitude to the Hydra, which he does, awesomely I might add. After that, Athena has one final task for Kratos for him to seek his redemption. Kill the God of War, Ares, who has declared war on Athena's city Athens out of petty jealousy. So begins Kratos's quest to kill Ares, find Pandora's box so he can kill Ares and then harbor his revenge against Ares, I'm not going to tell you why so play the game if you haven't. If you have, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

I would like to talk about Kratos for a few minutes. In almost any other game he would be the villain. His deeds before he became the servant of the Gods were deplorable and his present self is not that much better. The only thing that's keeping him from being a Complete Monster is his plight and the few times he is introspective & feels regret for what he has done. Now contrast this to the God of War II Kratos where he's been Flanderized into a guy who screams and stabs at everything...and yes, there's a very good reason for that. It also helps that Kratos is a badass who rips up low-level mooks with his bare hands.

And while I don't want to be one of those people who points out how the sequel to things is inferior to the original, I do want to talk about the geography of the game. In here, you know exactly where you are, how you got there and how each area related to one another. It is a truly, living world filled with a few people you can talk to(not many but there are some) and impressive architecture, complete with awesome yet impractically-made statues. The second game pretty much degenerated this idea into set-pieces, granted they were very impressive set-pieces it just didn't have that feel of the first one.

Anyways, like I said the game is impressive in every areas. The game looks great and it's extremely seamless with extremely low loading times. The voice-over work is fantastic, especially Kratos and the Narrator(yes, the one played by Linda Hunt who narrates this like the second coming of The Illiad). The game has a great and easy-to-use combat system filled with lots and lots of dead bodies. If you're not playing this game you should go out and get it. If you don't have a PS2, get that too!

10/10