Review

Some parts of the gaming press are all too quick to label any half-decent new game as “the best game ever” when most of the time these games end up being eclipsed by another in a matter of weeks. So I approached God Of War II with more than a little cynicism, despite the first game being one of the finest examples of action adventure gaming for the PS2 to date.

If you missed out on the original imagine a cross between Prince Of Persia and Devil May Cry – a seamless combination of platform jumping, puzzle solving and free-flowing combat. It was brutal, gorgeous to look at and brilliant, (it even managed to hold my attention for the entire duration!) all a sequel would have to do was to be the same but bigger, and that’s precisely what it does.

If the scale of Shadow Of The Colossus impressed you then this should blow you away completely. At every available opportunity the designers have made sure we get a sense of the awesome size of some of the enemies: whether it’s the opening battle with the Colossus of Rhodes or confrontations with one of the game’s many Titans. Usually this is achieved by having the camera pull out reducing the usually quite large Kratos down to the size of an ant at the bottom of the screen. It’s an effect that works fantastically well.

This is arguably the most impressive looking game ever produced for the PS2. I’m more impressed with how this game looks than I am with anything I’ve seen so far on PS3!

It’s a testament to the greatness of the combat that it never gets boring, as you’ll spend a huge portion of your time slaughtering minions on your way to the next objective. There is a huge array of fighting moves at your disposal including so fabulously brutal finishing moves. These usually require you to grab your foe by tapping circle before having to complete a timed sequence of moves or button presses.

It’s not all brawn either as the action is occasionally broken up with puzzles to tax your brain too. These more often than not amount to pushing blocks around or hitting switches but their inclusion is very welcome. As to are the Tomb Raider-style jumping and climbing sections. Only the flying sections, with Kratos sat astride Pegasus, are less than brilliant but thankfully these are brief and limited.

I’ve always been reluctant to give any game a 10/10 as this is usually perceived as meaning “perfect”. No game is ever going to be perfect, so perhaps it should mean “flawless” or “best in genre”, and these are both fitting descriptions of GoW2. Whether it’s the best game available for the PS2 is entirely down to personal preference, but it’s definitely one of them!

About the Review

Platform

Sony Playstation 2

Developer

Sony Santa Monica Studio

Publisher

Sony Computer Entertainment

Released

27th April 2007