Ares! Destroy my enemies! And my life...is yours.
User Rating: 9.9 | God of War (Greatest Hits) PS2
This is like the most fuggin awesome game I have played to date. It's an experience I can relate to watching the Lord Of The Rings. Everything about this game is just quality, quality, quality. The FMV's are really good (Final Fantasy quality FMV's if that helps). The graphics in-game are also amazing. I've never seen another game on the PS2 which looked this good. No jags, no loading times (well actually yes but they happen in-game and take only about 5 seconds, more or less). Another surprise is that the game has never slowed down on me even once. You'd think with such great graphics that when tons of enemies appear on-screen everything would get bogged down. But no, that has not happened, everything just flows smoothly. Another thing, whoever voiced Kratos is awesome, Kratos really sounds like the kick-ass brute that he is. Next thing I want to address is the music in this game. They are so orchestraic and memorable. I can still hum that patriotic theme song at the beginning. Other sounds are of your Blades Of Chaos cleaving your enemy's flesh or colliding with walls. They're loud and clear, very detailed. This game would only be 2/3 as great as it is if it wasn't for the large variety of different sounds. But how does it play? It sure seems great, but if it doesn't play well, why bother right? We got the Lord Of The Rings right? I assure you that if you dislike playing this game, you are retarded. The controls are simple really. You move Kratos around with your left analog stick, pick your god-blessed spells with the D-pad, and mash those 4 buttons like any other game. Enough with that, it's pretty easy to remember different combinations of attacks. One of the more awesome features of this battle system is how you can block any attacks from your enemies WHILE attacking them. Say you are busy sending those bastards to hell and one of them was behind you and about to attack. But you're attacking, how can you possibly block the inevitable blow? Just press L1, and the enemy's attack is deflected, whether Kratos is facing the other direction or not. It's really cool. And the hit counts you can achieve in this game can range from 30 hits to the hundreds (some in the Gamespot forum claim to have achieved over a thousand). Sometimes if you wear down a tough enemy a lot, "O" appears above them and you begin a button pressing mini-game which when executed in time causes Kratos to brutally murder that enemy (think lots of blood and heads getting ripped off). I know many people say gameplay is what matters the most. That would be true, otherwise games wouldn't be games. For this game however, I think sound, graphics and gameplay are equally astounding. I give them all perfect scores for being so good and giving me such a great experience. I've recommended this game to my friend Kye Won and he repeatedly tells me how "f***in awesome" it is. Bottom line: You either play this game or you're gay. 
