Friday 15 Sep 2006

There’s nothing better than a good dose of Greek Mythology every now and then when it comes to games. Unfortunately, not may games set in this genre capture the true spirit and depth of the stories told about this era. God of War is the pinnacle in accuracy and has really been well thought out far before hitting the game’s development.

The story of the character you play is epic and riddled with emotional conflict. After serving Ares (the Greek god of war) in countless battles, you are offered the opportunity to become a demigod as his apprentice, a great honour that you quickly accepted, but in your haste you did not consider the consequences that come with being not only a demigod but a servant to the god that controls all things evil; war, murder and hatred.

You soon become possessed with the might that has been bestowed upon you and you set out on a rampage destroying all that stands in your way. One dark night whilst ravaging through a small village, you kill and slaughter as many unsuspecting victims as “humanly” possible, but after everyone is dead you look down to see your wife’s lifeless corpse lying at your feet. Worse, at further inspection you find you have murdered your only daughter too. A rage starts to build from within, the god you have worshipped for so long has now betrayed you! He has blinded you from realizing exactly what it is you are doing. Filled with grief, you sentence yourself to death, but before you do that you must take revenge for what has happened… you must take revenge on the God of War.

This is a genre defining game, it is pure action adventure at its very best. You set out on your quest with nothing but the shirt on your back, or rather nothing but the loin cloth around your waist and a pair of lethal blades that are chained to your arms.

Throughout the games you will discover a host of enemies taken right off the pages of the great mythology books which include hydras, Minotaur, harpies and, my personal favourite, gorgons as well as many, many more. Each enemy has been paid full attention to get every last detail accurate. The movements and artistic interpretation is awesome to lay eyes on. They really seem alive and believable.

One thing about this game is its ability to make you believe everything that is going on around you. Although this is a fictional and mythological setting, everything is laid perfectly in place to really draw you into the whole idea of Greek mythology. I found myself wiki’ing all sorts of things that are touched on in this game. I wanted to find out everything from Athens to Zeus.

The combat mechanism is really innovative and well conceived. You are usually attacked by a whole hoard of enemy creature at once. This allows for you to create combo moves. You set up these combos by pressing certain button combinations as well as aiming with your analogue stick. The more important enemies you will have to fight will also require you to use your surroundings to help defeat the vile creature. You will also have to perform special moves that take form as a number of control combinations that are flashed quickly across the screen which you will have to execute perfectly and quickly in order to slay your foe.

The graphics have really been pushed to create the best atmosphere possible, and like you would expect towards the end of a consoles life, the developers know what works and what doesn’t, they know exactly their limitations on the system and have probably produced at least four or five games previously on the same console. The result in this game is spectacular, and you know me, I like to take time to look around the stages and admire the views, and they are very beautifully done.

The soundtrack is also on an epic scale and you can expect to find your self listening to lots of chants and heavy drum beats, all in theme with the era.

There is a lot of blood and gore in this game, which I don’t really like, but heck with a story line like this, I was hacking and slashing away and cussing at every second enemy that came my way. I don’t mind blood if it’s for a good cause (strictly talking about in games of course).

Pros: Excellent gameplay; gripping storyline; beautiful graphics and soundtrack.
Cons: A bit on the short side.

Final Thought: God of War is not only a defining game for the PS2 but it is really a triumph for console games as a whole. The game is slick and the amount of research that has gone into the characters, settings and story is easily identifiable. Often it is all this background work that goes into a game that can really bring it to life and make it so much better than just another third person action adventure game. A definite must for any gamer (so long as you are old enough not to be scarred by the graphic imagery).

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Contributor:	Justin

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