God of War II
Take arguably the single most bad-ass character in video game history, use basically the same engine from the original God of War, fix all the problems people had with the original game (not enough bosses, weapons, etc.) and what do you get? An unbelievably amazing game that had it not been the sequel to one of the best games ever and on a last generation system, could have really been memorable… but since it is both of those things (despite the many moments of sheer joy had playing it) when it’s over and done there’s an empty feeling inside leaving you wanting more.
I shouldn’t forget that I loved playing the game. (The climax of the third sister and Zeus fights are gaming gold!) I just didn’t feel like Kratos’ character grew. I didn’t feel like the high-res CGI cutscenes where amazing enough. I didn’t feel like the cliff-hanger, “finishing the fight” style ending was satisfying enough. I think I played through the first one 3 times, but I’m not 100% sure I’ll make another run on this one.
Obviously, I’m going to remember to get God of War III (Hell, I might even pick up the original storyline PSP game), but they better ratchet it up a lot more and really let Kratos loose.
Posted in gaming
March 21st, 2008 at 12:26 pm
[...] A year ago, I was playing through God of War II on Playstation 2. Building on the already insanely great God of War, GoW II did everything right… unfortunately, that just didn’t seem like enough. With the 360 out and games looking and playing better than ever before, GoW just felt a little dated.Now, a year later, we’ve got God of War: Chains of Olympus on the PSP and guess what… it’s damn near portable gaming perfection… but somehow it just doesn’t seem like enough… again. Yes, the gameplay is tight. Yes the environments feel massive. And yes, the stakes seem high. But sometimes you got the feeling like the developers spent way more time on getting the game to look and play perfectly than they did on giving the player strong reasons to continue through the story.It’s funny, but I noticed it more when playing through the second time around when I realized that there were 2 female gods I was dealing with (3 if you count Athena’s cameo), not just 1 two-faced female god.Additionally, the admittedly cool piece at the end where you resign yourself to a life of war and suffering felt almost tacked on. Like the developers thought that they needed a big moment, but didn’t really know what they were going to do until the end… then went back into the story and sprinkled in the tiny bits of information that would lead up to this final moment.Again, I should remember that this game is literally portable gaming perfection. It made the PSP do things I never knew it could… like get me to pick it up again. [...]