The bar has just been set. You must be at least this high to call yourself an Action/Adventure game from here on out.
User Rating: 9.7 | God of War (Greatest Hits) PS2
The year is 2004. The place is the Los Angeles Convention Center. The time is E3. I'd been sent into a deep blue funk from the sheer number of completely uninspired games I'd seen and played over the last several days. In my despair I wandered aimlessly into the Sony booth. Like a light shining down from the heavens, one of the banks of demo stations called to me. There it was. The game I'd been searching for the whole week. I spent the next three hours monopolizing one of the God Of War demo stations and giggling maniacally. I started grabbing people at random and screaming "Check this OUT!" at them. A small crowd gathered around to see what this leatherclad candidate for the insane asylum was so amused by (for the record, don't wear leather in LA in may. It's a bit toasty down there for that). God of War is easily the best action adventure game of the last 10 years. I'd say longer than that, but my memory isn't exactly the best. Before I start effusing over it like a rabid schoolgirl, let's hit up the tech specs. Graphically, it's up there with the best PS2 games. I won't start on my rant about how the PS2 is dated and it's always sad to see a good game limited by its hardware. The frame rate is usually a constant 30fps, it's not too aliased, the modeling and animation are superb, the environments are large and detailed and 99% of the time it's a joy to look at and play (taking into account the whole weak PS2 thing, which i said i won't go into, and am desperately trying not to). God of War's audio is, for the most part, very good. The sound effects and enemy noises all work very well in the context of the game. I quite liked the music in the game, but several of the people who watched me play the game or played it themselves weren't quite so fond of it, so i'll say that's really dependent on your taste. It's well crafted and hey, if you really can't stand it you can always turn it off and put something else on. As with most games, God of War's voice acting is its biggest weak point. "Over-the-top" seems to be the only acting direction given to the voice actors, and the dialogue lapses into melodrama within the first 15 seconds and stays there for the duration. If you play a lot of games, you should be used to that by now. We can always hope for better, but until then most of us have learned to live it. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I can actually start talking about what makes this game stand out from all the others. Ready? Here it is: God of War is graphically and unrepentantly (i know, that's probably not a word) violent. Rather than worrying about what the ESRB will think and all the crap that normally goes into making a game, I can almost see the Dev team sitting around a table saying, "You know what would be really cool? Being able to grab that bad guy who just slapped you around and RIP HIM IN FRIGGIN' HALF!" and then proceeding to give high-fives all 'round and go stick that in the game. The combat system is extremely well built, allowing a large number of combos and attacks all designed to turn a large number of baddies into and even larger number of very, very small pieces. And that's just in the beginning of the game! As you progress, you can upgrade your weapons and abilities to get even more ways to mass-manufacture bad guy kibble. On top of all this hack and slash fun, God of War also has several different "Finishing Move" sequences that can be used on some of the harder enemies and bosses. Successfully completing the sequence rewards the player with the instant death of a hard enemy and usually a secondary bonus depending on the type of creature (Health, Magic for your abilites, or the game's equivalent of cash to upgrade your weapons). Once you've slaughtered your way through all these baddies, you want a payoff, right? God of War's Boss battles are there for you. They're involved, require a certain amount of planning and strategy, epic and whatever other term or phrase you wanna throw in there that means GOOD. The only complaint I can possibly come up with is that there really aren't enough of them. On top of all this combaty-goodness, God of War also sports a large number of environment and combat based puzzles. Most of these aren't all that difficult, but they provide a necessary and entertaining break from kicking bad guy butt. Occasionally they can be a little frustrating if you've put the game down for a couple of days and forget what you were doing, but you can usually get back on the ball pretty quickly. What else is there to say? They're good, and I'm tired from writing all that good stuff about the combat, so I don't feel like going into more depth. And there's MORE! Once you beat the game on regular or hard, you unlock "God" mode. "God" mode in God of War means the exact opposite of what it does in every other game. You become extremely weak and vulnerable and all the enemies become right next to invincible. Every area has to be played perfectly, or you have to go back and try again. I know, that sounds unbearably frustrating. And it would be if God of War's combat system wasn't so good. Every time you get hit, every time you screw up and die, you're never left with that controller throwing "What the HECK was THAT?" feeling. If you die, it's your fault, not the game's. All right, enough all ready. I've ranted on about how good this game is for long enough. Just go out and rent it, buy it, do whatever you have to, but sit down and PLAY THIS GAME. 
