07 April 2010

God of War II

godofwar2_05

The second game in the series (I think it’s just a trilogy, but you never know), this game picks up with Kratos as a sulky God of War after defeating Ares in the first one. He’s a bad boy so the gods decide he’s not worth keeping around anymore. After playing with part of his godly powers removed for the intro, the rest are drained and we’re back to square one. Once again there’s an escape from Hades (much shorter this time though) and then Kratos decides to kill Zeus, and the fun commences.

It’s a pretty cool story with a bit of a Star Wars twist near the end and something of a cliffhanger ending setting up the third installment. Getting to the end is a fun journey of game-play very reminiscent of the first game while fixing a lot of the big problems and being a little less frustrating. The worst part of the first game was a few brutally difficult puzzles and obstacles. There are one or two in this one, but they were much less frustrating, and took about a third as many tries to get through them. The combat seemed a little easier too on normal difficulty. The bosses are more plentiful and interesting, and there are several new game mechanics such as flying/gliding, blocking/returning ranged attacks, and multiple sub-weapons instead of just one. It was prettier most of the time as well.

I had a few gripes. Sometimes lining up to flip a switch in a puzzle can be a little difficult, which makes timed puzzles all that much more trying. I still hate quick-time events, and there were a lot of those. A few times a failed quick-time button makes you go through a somewhat lengthy series of events before you can attempt it again. Bleh.

Altogether though it was more fun. I enjoyed playing it. Now I’m pretty pumped to play part III with its sexy PS3 graphics and purportedly massive blood-baths. It might be a while though as I’m on a bit of a spending freeze at the moment. Sucks.

No comments: