Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Grows on you"

God of War II has been regarded as one of the best PlayStation 2 games and action games of all time. IGN listed the game as the second best PlayStation 2 game, and both IGN and GameSpot consider it the "swan song" of the PlayStation 2 era. In 2012, Complex magazine named God of War II the best PlayStation 2 game of all time. The game has sold more than 4.2 million copies worldwide as of June 2012, and was the best-selling game in the UK during the week of its release.

The gameplay of God of War II is very similar to that of its predecessor, God of War. It is a third-person single player video game played under a fixed camera perspective. The player controls the character Kratos in a mixture of combo-based combat, platforming, and puzzle game elements. The player guides Kratos through different environments composing of a series of missions to achieve specific goals. Many of the combination attacks used in God of War reappear, and the game features four times as many boss fights and improved puzzles than the original. Combat includes a quick time event (QTE) feature that is initiated when the player has weakened a strong foe. The player performs a sequence of actions on the game controller shortly after an image of its circle button appears as an on-screen prompt. This allows for limited control of Kratos during a QTE cinematic sequence, which, if successful, ends the battle; failure usually results in damage to the player's character.