The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Blood and Boobies!

Yeah, that sums up God of War pretty darn accurately, I'd say.

Foregoing the usual Something Something Log title for today. Thing is, I'm not quite sure what kind of log this is anyway. The King Ruler promised me he'd borrow me his copied copy, but I haven't seen him for awhile and I was getting kinda anxious, so I just rented it. But then, I had to play it on Bort's PS2, although it's not his game, so this is a Not Really Related Log, but I decided to do it anyway, to give you the DEFINITIVE lowdown on what is one of the most hyped games of this year.

So much so in fact, that it is one of the contenders for Game of the Year at many game sites. And, well, if I'm going to be honest here, the one other major contender, Resident Evil 4, has NOTHING to worry about as far as I'm concerned.
Really.
Nothing.

But let's talk business. God of War was released this year by Sony themselves I think, featuring a new hero at the firmament: Kratos, the Spartan Buff Dude, who one day decides to sell his soul to Ares, the ancient Greek God of War, in exchange for powers strong enough to defeat all his enemies. Kratos gets what he wants but looses most of his sanity and freedom by being forced to go on a rampage, killing everyone that stands in his way. Kratos has now had enough of this life and vows to kill Ares and reclaim his innocence.
The cool thing is, right at the start of the game you get to see Kratos commiting suicide (this is NOT a spoiler) and the whole game you're working up to that moment, which gives it a nice edge.

Anyhow, massive blood-shedding ensues, with EXTREMELY violent battles and finishing moves, and some naked hooters thrown in for good measure. Hey, it's all in the name of credibility, right? Right!
When Kratos has pummeled his enemies enough a Circle will appear over their head, cleverly referring to the circle button on your PS2 controller (it's not a Halo!). Pressing said button in the vicinity of that enemy will start a finishing move animation, that requires active participation on your part. For instance, Medusa's have to be finished off by twisting the left 3D control stick in directed movements to finally jerk off the Medusa's head, and Cyclopses have to be killed by pressing a certain random order of action buttons, to take out their eyes and rip open their guts. Yes, it's one friendly game.
Mess up the instructed moves, though, and the monsters will throw you off again and deal some damage before you can try again. Fortunately you don't have to finish them off like this. Just keeping to thrash them will also get them in the end, but succesfully pulling off a finishing move will earn you more rewards, like health and magic restoration etc. And Soul Points.

Soul points are gathered by killing enemies, and finding treasure etc., and they are used to upgrade your weaponry and improve your skills. Sounds familiar?
Yes, you've probably already done this in Rygar, Onimusha and/or Devil May Cry, amongst perhaps even others.
And that is my main gripe with this game, right there. If you take away the immensely violent finishing moves, which admittedly ARE nice and satisfying, this game is nothing but an obvious clone of the above mentioned games. Well, the only similarity with Onimusha is the soul gathering, but the set up of the game is reminiscent of Devil May Cry, and really, really really really REALLY EXTREMELY remeniscent of Rygar on PS2, also known as Argus no Senshi.
Really.
Very.

I mean, Tecmo would have a VERY good lawsuit on their hands if they ever found out, cos God of War is basically a complete rip-off of practically everything they did in their ancient Greek Monster Basher, even down to some of the EXACT same moves Rygar has. Of course the similar setting demands similar environments and architecture, which can be largely destroyed in both games of course.
Also, Kratos's Weapon wielding is criminally similar to Rygar's Diskarmor, with the same kind of flashy combo's and sweepy effects. It's odd that from the reviews I've read about God of War, NOONE has mentioned this blatantly obvious fact. Most people make the Devil May Cry connection, but none I've read have seen the Rygar plagiary.
Perhaps Rygar was not so much of a hit which is why it has gone by unnoticed?
I dunno, but it was a complete disgrace.

Admittedly though, God of War does everything Rygar does a lot better. There is no mistake that this is a VERY enjoyable game, with a very high "I just wanna see what happens next" element, and it is very hard to put down, but it definitely does not deserve the many claims to originality and boundary-shifting...ness...it has been
getting.
Rygar did almost all of this before, only 3 years ago, so that means it didn't look quite as good as God of War.

The biggest complaint I had with this game though, aside of the obvious ripping off, is the boss battles. There aren't enough of them!
In the beginning of the game you have to work through several boss battles in short succession, and you'll have to do a couple at the end, but there's, like, only 1 in the middle. In a game that takes 10 hours or so? That's weird! And a real shame, cos the boss battles are really good, and a lot of fun! The context sensitivity (there's that word again!) element of the battles is put to very good use here, making these battles very spectacular, and I definitely would have liked to see more.

Difficulty-wise the game is very playable. You only get a Health Gauge that looks rather short (it can be extended by finding the right items), but Kratos has good defense and he can actually take quite a lot of damage. You won't die by battling enemies that easily. No.
Frequent deaths are reserved for the platform elements. Oh yes
Miss a jump and you're DEAD. Or, ahaha, you're MYTHOLOGY, so to speak. Ahaha. Ha.
There's no being put back on the platform with some energy lost, no, there's INSTANT death. On the upside, there's numerous automatic Checkpoints throughout the game, even regardless of the many savepoints, so you'll never have to do a lot of things over again, but I wish they would have dealt with the platforming a bit more friendly-like.
Also, the camera can not be controlled! The camera is fixed throughout the ENTIRE game, swinging only when the creators meant it to. Most of the time it works. Often it does not. Especially the bits where you have to balance on VERY thin ledges and bits of wood, where even the slightest misstep will send you plummeting to your untimely death (cos you still have to do that later yourself), with a Camera moving freely around the place without warning. Yeah, that's REAL nice.
This was the only real frustrating element though, although enemies can be annoying at times.

In short, the game is spectacular enough to warrant a playthrough for most gamers, but it's not as unique as people make it out to be, and if you strip away the fleshy layer of the flashy combo's and finishing moves, you're left with an extremely standard Action game, most of which you are likely to have seen before.
Still, as I said, it deserves a full playthrough at least once, because there IS some awesome stuff in here.
I give it a 9, which is me being VERY nice.

posted by Ingen! @ 9:53 PM