God of War 1 blew me away, and God of war 2 did the same
Kratos, the main character from the original, 'God Of War' has returned, now all the more powerful after having slain, Ares. With his newfound powers of a God, Kratos is unleashing Hell upon his enemies. That is until, the Gods can stand this no longer, he is stripped of his godly powers and Zeus kills him. But we all know Kratos will not go down without a fight, he beats Death once again and manages to start another journey of revenge. From here on, your goal is to find the Sisters of Fate to change your past and kill those who did you wrong. But this is easier said than done, along the way, you will encounter many vile creatures and obstacles that will try to stop you from reaching the sisters. It's a long and bloody way to the top, but Kratos is up to the challenge. The story in the original was great, but in my opinion the tale in this entry was more solid, and after you see the ending, one can only imagine what will go down when the third game is released.
The gameplay is reminiscent of the original with some changes for the best, Kratos has all his attacks from the first and even more now. His blades still dish-out the same amount of damage from the first with some new moves added that can wipe-out an entire room of enemies in mere seconds. And speaking of enemies, there are even more bad-guys to take out this time around, all with very gory and satisfying fatalities. For example, instead of merely stabbing the Cyclops in the eye like he did in the original, Kratos now rips the eyeball from the socket in brutal fashion, it's awesome. Another aspect that this game has improved upon are boss battles, the first game had only three, but memorable, boss fights. This entry has roughly ten or more, each are fun to battle and have their own unique mini-game to defeat them, one involving bashing your opponent's head in-between doors until he is dead. One of the newer elements added to the game is the ability to fly, this was talked about in the first, but they didn't implement it at the time. Surprisingly though, it's not as cool as I thought it would be, as you can only glide really, but luckily, the sequences involving the Pegasus, make up for this. Flying around on the back of the Pegasus while engaging in combat with others is an enthralling experience, jumping from one back to the other and slicing their wings off is a sight to behold, fun stuff. One of the other cool features from the original that has made a welcome return are the mini-games (Context-Sensitive Attacks) that are used to defeat certain enemies, when a specific button icon appears on screen, press them in the order they follow to witness a gory death scene. These are relatively easy to perform and very exciting to watch when done correctly, mostly all of your enemies end up dying by getting horribly dismembered. Kratos also has the ability to scale walls and slide down them with his blades, he can also engage in battle while climbing, he is also able to swim and can hold his breath under the water for as long as he likes. Sadly, there aren't any underwater creatures to fight against. He is also able to use his chain-blades to grapple certain objects and swing from them, to get to higher areas or across deep drops, this is a new feature to the franchise and it works really well. Kratos also has more weapons at his disposal, in the original, he only had access to one other weapon, which was the 'Blade of Artemis'. In this entry, he has 'The Barbarian's Hammer', a massive hammer taken from the slain Barbarian king, 'The Blade of Olympus', the blade that ended the great war, and more. The game also incorporates more challenging puzzles as well, some involving Kratos having to slow-down time in order to progress. Magic attacks have also returned and are more powerful than in the original, one being 'Atla's Quake', where Kratos stomps the ground until fiery-rocks erupt from the floor and crush nearby enemies. All in all, the gameplay is very refined and simply outstanding, if you're a fan of action games, you need to play this.
'God Of War II' has incredible graphics, plain and simple, these are some of the best graphics I've seen on the PlayStation 2. Environments are huge and detailed to the extreme, character models are amazing looking and the animations on these guys rock. It makes me wonder what the third game will look like on the PlayStation 3. The amount of polygons per character are awesome, just wait until you see some of the large bosses that you encounter, and best of all, the game never slows down a bit with all this stuff on the screen. Textures and weather effects are also impressive, one level had nice snow effects, coming down in heavy waves and looking realistic. The water was also handled with care, it looks real enough to swim in, the Santa Monica studio deserves a tip of the hat for all their work. Sound effects are fantastic, when breaking objects, slashing and tearing enemies apart, and clashing your blades against others, pay close attention to the sound. It is flawless and done to perfection, the score is also worthy of an award, it sounds as though it was recorded for a big-budget film. Controls are handled well in this title, they also feel much better this time around. Kratos swings his blades with fury with simple presses of the Square button, he jumps with the X button and moves around in all-directions with the left analog-stick. And now instead of tapping away on the R1 button to perform certain tasks, you do it with the O button, which is much more user-friendly. Kratos has many abilities and uses basically all of the buttons on the controller, to list all would be nonsense, so just believe me when I say the controls are placed immaculately.
'God Of War II' also has an insane amount of unlockable content, and the game ships with a bonus DVD. Which reveals a bunch of things about the game, including a making-of documentary. After completing the game, you gain access to other costumes for Kratos, higher difficulty levels and other game modes that will test your skill. Completing these other game modes and beating the game on harder difficulty levels unlocks even more things for you. So the replay value is high on this one.
Overall, 'God Of War II' is a worthy follow-up to the original game in every sense of the word. It not only does everything the first one did right, it manages to improve upon it and be the better game in the end. This is not something that is easy to do, considering how amazing the original is, so this game definitely deserves to be played by all who are fans of action games and excessive amounts of blood and gore. If you own a PlayStation 2 or a PlayStation 3, you simply must purchase this game, it's an amazing experience that rivals most epic movies. So go out and grab a copy of 'God Of War II' and immerse yourself in another brutal adventure with Kratos.