Heavenly Swords
Believe the hype, kids. God of War II is everything a sequel should be; bigger, badder and, yes, better than the original.
Published: March 15, 2007
Those new powers are an interesting mix. Yes, you have secondary weapons (upgradeable at that), but the new swinging mechanic and the ability to stop time for about 30 seconds were the real joys in the sequel. Being able to bust out a bow and whip off a flurry of shots at far-off enemies instead of letting them snipe at you from afar was also one of the smartest additions that could have been added to the series. There are few things in games that piss me off as much as being hit by enemies I can't fight back against.
Not that God of War II isn't without some seriously aggravating parts, mind. Though nothing comes close to the Pillars of Hades in the first game, there are moments that will drive you to chuck a controller through the TV in how difficult they are. The difficulty as a whole is fairly even, but random spikes serve to slow and to a lesser degree ruin some of the fun and pacing that the game was building on. Puzzles, too, aren't always obvious. Some are forehead-slappingly obvious once you figure them out, but others (and I want to avoid spoilers here) will almost certainly require a guide or some advice from a friend.
Still, on the whole the game is expertly paced; puzzles flow into combat flows into boss battles with nary and ebb in intensity. In fact, it's fair to say that despite some of the more frustrating segments, the game wisely manages building things to a peak until near the end where it all sort of races to a conclusion -- one that will no doubt leave some screaming that they'll have to wait another couple years for a proper PS3 game, but still an immensely satisfying one nonetheless.
Most see this as sort of the PlayStation 2's swan song -- a massive, epic send-off not unlike some kind of Viking funeral pyre nudged out to sea. Yes, you'll still see strong PS2 games into the Summer, but GOWII lets you sort of watch the slow burn transition into next-gen happen with a certain grace. This is due in no small part to the fact that the game looks insane. Seriously, folks that were whining about the game not happening on the PS3 will likely shut right up once they see some of the mid-game environments.
Most of the game takes place in or around the Temple of the Fates, as it relates to Kratos' quest to... ahaaaaa, not gonna get me to spoil that. What it means, though, is that the PS2 is pushed to the absolute limits; texture detail, draw distance, level design and some of the absolute gnarliest animations you will ever see in any game in any generation are all here. The PS2 is nothing if not a console that has continued to grow over the years, a testament to two generations of Sony hardware at first crippling developers with weird tech and then birthing some of the most amazing visuals ever seen, and God of War II is the apex of that cycle; a game that despite taking place on six year old hardware, looks nearly as good as most current next-gen efforts.
There are bouts of slowdown, and the filter applied to make with the sexy so that icky bits like aliasing are banished means you'll see prevalent screen tearing as the PS2 struggles to keep up with the TV's refresh rate, but it's a minor annoyance when compared with what is actually kicked out onto that TV -- whether or not you rock the progressive scan, widescreen options or not. On an HDTV, you're still going to wonder how the hell a PS2 game could look this good. It really is that pretty.
The audio keeps pace perfectly. The score pukes out thick, brassy undertones, forces epic choir voices and ladles percussion into the mix in a way that never, ever lets the game feel like anything less than the story of one mortal's struggle against the gods. Despite having almost as many composers as you can count on one hand writing the score, the game still has a wonderfully cohesive soundtrack, and one that lifts an already impressive game into absolute system-defining territory.