System: PS2
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: SCEA Santa Monica

Console fans know all too well that SCEA developed action games can be a hit or miss affair. Sure we all love Twisted Metal, but we also remember the disappointment of Rise To Honor right? Although Rise To Honor was SCEA Foster City’s folly, SCEA Santa Monica needed to go big to get some street credibility back for Sony’s US development studios and God of War has done just that.

God of War follows the adventures of Kratos, an ex Spartan general seeking revenge against Ares, the Greek God of War. After making a pact with Ares to save his life, Kratos is given ungodly strength and the Blades of Chaos, a pair of blades chained to his forearms. Satisfied with being even more fearsome and acting as Ares’ bringer of death; things take a turn for the worse when Kratos unknowingly kills his wife and child. Recognizing this as a scheme of Ares’ to make Kratos into an even more formidable warrior, he finally realizes what he has to do – he must kill the God of War.

The first things you’ll notice of God of War are the graphics. From the opening cinematic that starts off the epic in flashback style to the in game graphics, SCEA Santa Monica has spared no expense. In fact, the graphics in God of War are some of the best I’ve seen on PS2 and stand up well to even some of Xbox’s best. All of the models are nicely sculpted, the environments are well detailed and the lighting and shadows are spot on. All the environments have breakable objects and destructible backgrounds hiding plenty of goodies and items. While some of the enemies are palette swaps, there is still a nice variety of them and all the bosses are huge.

A nice thing about the environments is how they often take a lead role in the gameplay mechanics. For example, the first boss encounter will have you facing three hydras, one huge one in the middle and a smaller one on each side. While you’re wailing away on the smaller hydras first, avoiding all manner of attacks from all three beasts, you’ll finally get one of the hydras to fall down due to heavy damage and exhaustion. First instinct is to go in for the kill during its moment of weakness right? You jump in there and go to work even more trying to destroy the fiend. Imagine the surprise when the monster starts to regain its strength and rises up again to finish you instead! After wearing it down once again, you’re certain that you don’t want to make the same mistake twice. Then you notice that the boxes on the side aren’t just a boundary of the level preventing you from maneuvering too far, but are actually a staircase leading to a huge harpoon that you can jump on to skewer the hydra in the head. This time, when he starts to regenerate his health, he’s pinned down and you can go to work on the other two hydras. It’s this type of design that keeps you ever watching your surroundings for ways of using your environments in your strategies.

The gameplay of God of War is pretty damned hot. Combat is carried out via different normal hits, special moves and combos. You’ll also earn various powers from the Gods of Olympus by clearing certain trials. Examples of some such powers include Zeus’ lightning blasts, turning your opponents to stone by pulling out Medusa’s head (just like in Clash of the Titans!!) and bathing them in her terrifying gaze, the ability to breathe under water thanks to a power granted by Poseidon and more. In addition to this, you’ll find other weapons later on in the game that give you a different and unique way of disposing of enemies. You power up all these weapons, powers and abilities by collecting red orbs throughout the game either from vanquished foes or from chests. As your weapons and powers increase in level, they’ll often put new combat moves at your disposal.

I have to say that the weapons Kratos starts out with, the Blades of Chaos are my favorite weapon in the game. These dual blades are chained and strapped to Kratos’ arms and flame with fiery magic as Kratos slices and dices his enemies in so many different ways. The flexible system allows you to make up all types of combos on the fly such as slashing your foe a couple times, grabbing him with the chains attached to the blades and swinging him into his buddies before finishing him off. You could always opt to get in close and personal and use the grab button. The grab button provides many different things for you to do. You could simply grab a foe, pick him up off the ground and rip his body in half. You could grab a harpy out of the air, slam him on the ground chest down with your boot in his back as you rip the wings off (oh yeah, there is no shortage of blood and gore to be found here). Most of the different enemies have different ‘quick kills’ that you can perform on them after weakening them and going for a grab maneuver. If you try to grab them while they’re too strong, they’ll just parry any hold attempt. What’s more, some enemies (well, lots of them actually) have a more interactive way of putting these ‘fatalities’ on them. When you grab certain enemies, a sequence of button presses or analogue stick rotations will appear on screen. If you properly mimic these, you’ll unleash a fatality that will get you extra health, magic or blood orbs. This goes for enemies as well as bosses and make for some very cool struggles and does a lot to break up the monotony of fighting. It’s a nice evolution of the type of play style Yu Suzuki introduced with Quick Timer Events in Shenmue.

The sound hasn’t been overlooked in God of War either. The score has a very epic feel that perfectly fits the Greek mythological theme. The voice acting was also very good and convincing. That’s a good thing as you’ll find a good deal of cut scenes, pre-rendered and in game movies that progress the story along.

God of War is a real winner. The puzzle and platforming elements added in the game make it more than just a hack and slash combo fest. Even so, the combat system alone is so much fun that it never gets old. I found myself not able to put the game down, and mind you I had the excellent Jade Empire sitting in my Xbox Debug Kit getting no love due to this title. That alone is saying a lot. There are no doubt plenty of PS2 gamers out there still wondering whether or not they should pick the title up and I’d recommend it to anyone without hesitation. I really can’t find any fault with the game and it easily becomes the first game I’ve given a perfect score to. Pure class.