Cue Epic Battle Music

God of War is a game of Epic Proportions. The game revolves around two key characters. Kratos, who my be the most maligned hero in gaming history, and as the title suggests, Ares, God of War. At the beginning of the game we find Kratos poised on the edge of a mountain top and his own self destruction. Battle scarred, despondent and totally without hope, he throws himself off the top of the tallest mountain in Greece while telling us all that the Gods have abandoned him. Poor Kratos is tortured by something, but what it is we are not sure. As he plunges downward, the voice of the narrator comes on, Kratos is frozen in mid air and the narrator starts to tell us his story. Them game then takes us back three weeks, the beginning of the story, and we find Kratos on a shipwreck somewhere in the Aegean Sea. The ship is lousy with undead warriors and if that were not bad enough, there is a hydra to deal with. During these initial moments you glean several bits of information about Kratos. He is viewed as some type of monster, and he can kick some very serious amounts of ass. Kratos is a battle scarred Spartan warrior who is deadly in combat. During the first battles you are introduced to the default weaponry, the Blades of Chaos. These Blades never leave Kratos because the chains that hold them have been burned into his skin. These blades are very wicked weapons. Over time you will learn new combinations to use with these blades and event he most difficult of them is fairly easy to pull off. Other weapons become available as you progress through the game, the rest of the Gods seeming only too happy to aid you on your quest to kill Ares. Every God that you encounter seems to want to give you some weapon or ability. The gods promise Kratos that he will be forgiven for whatever it is, if he will just do them a favor.

It is this favor that makes up the story of God of War. Ares, the real God of War has seemingly gone insane and is intent on the destruction of Athens. While Kratos may be the meanest, most vicious Spartan that ever walked, no mortal could ever defeat a god, so he is sent on a quest to find Pandora’s box. This is a weapon so powerful that even the Gods are afraid to wield it. As you get deeper into the game you gather more snippets of Kratos’ past; from his fierce and well deserved reputation to being somehow tricked by Ares. Throughout the game we are only given minute amounts of information at a time but it is done so fantastically well that is causes no annoyance.

There are hundreds of enemies to vanquish in this game. Undead warriors, Minotaur, Sirens, Hydras, literally every weird and wonderful thing that can be found in Greek Mythology can be found here. Normal combo’s can be used to beat almost anything thrown at you in this game, but there is an option at certain points when certain button combinations will pop up above your enemies and if you follow the buttons little mini games will happen. It makes the game that much more interesting and sometimes makes you feel like you are actually in the game, fighting for your life so you can carry on and save Athens.

All the puzzles in the game are modeled after Greek Mythology. The puzzles range from switches and levers to moving statues and other large objects this way and that or to different locations entirely. Each one upon completion tend to leave you with a sense of wonder at the complexities of it to begin with. You are also left with a major feeling of accomplishment with the solving of each one. Boss fights are amazing. They are few and far between, but the are brilliantly choreographed. The boss fights leave you feeling satisfied and feeling like a warrior who has just vanquished a formidable enemy. The final confrontations with the God of War himself is almost beyond description it is so well done. By the time you get there, you will want Ares Badly. So badly did I feel for poor Kratos by the time it came down to it, I wanted blood, lots and lots of Ares blood, and I wanted it in a way that I have never experienced in a video game before. It had become almost personal.

The graphics in the game are very easily some of the best graphics I have ever seen on any console. The creatures are horrifying and incredibly lifelike. You can almost feel the hot breath of the Minotaur as it comes in to smash you with its battle hammer. The backgrounds are rendered perfectly so that you actually feel like you are walking through Pandora’s temple and you can almost feel the sand blasting your face as you walk through the desert. Serious traps of course call for a serious amount of ruined corpses around or in it to show you the brevity of the situation. They are so well done that you almost don’t want to touch them for fear of being contaminated by them somehow. Due to the very graphics that I applaud the game has an M rating. The blood and violence is extremely realistic. There is also some mild sexuality and for these reasons I would not recommend this game to anyone under the age of 13.

The music has been paired with theh game in the most harmonious audio blend I have ever come across in any game, EVER. The music from beginning to end is exactly as it should be, the audio engineers for this game have artistic genius. They have achieved pure audio perfection. Sound effects are another wow. You are in ancient Greece battling for your sanity and your life and the blood you just spilled made a wonderfully realistic splash as it hit the walls and floor. The voice acting is every bit as perfect as the soundtrack. Kratos’ voice is the voice you would expect out of this haggard, scarred beast of a man. The Gods all sound god like and all powerful and the narration is one of a kind.

Replay value is also there. God Mode is an option once you have beaten the game. While the game in regular game play mode is challenging enough for just about anyone, there are those of us that are going to attempt God Mode, just to see what can be unlocked. The OMG That Was Amazing: The soundtrack. This game has achieved audio perfection. The graphics are insanely well done. The realism is crazy. The final confrontation is one of the best and hardest battles I have ever endured in any game.

The Good: the puzzles throughout the game are very cool, complex, and they leave you with a feeling of accomplishment. The weapons and abilities are awesome and the fighting mechanisms in the game are very well done. The controls are tight.

The Meh Whatever. In exactly two spots in the game there were mediocre camera angles.

The Downright Annoying: For the first time ever, I have nothing to put in this spot. There was absolutely NOTHING annoying in any way about this game.

To Sum up: This is quite possibly one of the best games in the history of PS2. It is a gaming masterpiece with absolutely no major flaws. It is put together so that you are for all intents and purposes in the game. An absolutely amazing achievement by anyone’s standards. 9.9