Neo attempts to review "God of War Collection"

God of War Collection

(Playstation 3)



Much like Pandora’s box this is a curious package, normally I would balk at the sheer audacity of a games company repackaging their old wares and selling them back to you five years down the line (that isn’t a dig at Nintendo, honest) but Sony’s Santa Monica studio has at least managed to do something slightly different here.

The collection packages the two original Playstation 2 God of War titles on one Blu-ray disc, complete with the requisite sets of extras, bonus tomfoolery, and a code to obtain the demo of the forthcoming PS3 finale to the series. I suppose a port of the PSP only title Chains of Olympus was a bit too much to ask however. What is interesting though is the care that Santa Monica and Bluepoint Games have taken with each port. Rather than take the easy option and simply dump the game files onto a disc and hope that no one notices, they have gone back to the source code itself and re-written it to make sure it plays on every Playstation 3 system, not just the launch models. Meaning recent adopters are not punished for Sony’s cack handed approach to backwards compatibility on the system. Bluepoint have gone to the effort of using the extra power afforded to them, sorting out the rough edges and maintaining an ultra smooth frame rate throughout, and of course outputting in HD resolutions for those with a new telly box.

For the uninitiated the God of War games concern lone Spartan warrior Kratos, and his quest to kill Ares the titular God of War. Steeped in Greek mythology both games created a real unique atmosphere and setting, one that as feels fresh and inviting as it did five years ago. Both titles are a distinctly adult experience too, with lashings of violence, sex and mature themes, it’s not like kids won’t get off on the boobies and removing of limbs however-so there is something for every body. Game play is kept relatively simple, no overly convoluted combo attacks, but with a fee reasonable head scratching puzzles to keep you busy in there.

The transition to the PS3 is for the most part an excellent one, however the first game does come off a little worse when put up against modern day standards. The visuals especially do seem to be somewhat lacking in detail, despite looking good enough to eat a few years ago. It would seem those rose tinted goggles aren’t all they used to be. The difficulty level also is perhaps a touch too harsh, for those raised on Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden this may be a treat, but for mere mortals the sheer repetition and general cheap nature of the enemies is a nasty fault. However the level designs and overall epic nature of the game still manage to keep you in that sweet spot until the end of your journey.

There is a real ‘night and day’ difference when you move on to the sequel; the first thing to hit you is the ramped up and highly polished visuals. Vastly improved from the original, the detail and sense of scale is often of a jaw dropping standard. Imagine for a moment the first time you see Ares in the original game, but imagine every set piece being that good, helped mostly by the ingeniously designed Titans.

The enemies too have been tweaked, repeating themselves far less often than before, and generally being a touch more fair on Kratos. Though the overall difficulty curve is still pretty hardcore-if you dare to step above easy. Add into that some excellent and incredibly varied level designs and you have a game that near enough beats its predecessor in every conceivable area. Both episodes also have a suitably epic and sweeping orchestral score (note to Prince of Persia for those that remember-no rawk guitars) and above average voice acting to boot. Both games also have full trophy support, the only fly in the otherwise perfect ointment is that there is a small sound bug in the second instalment that seems to turn Kratos into a mute, nothing serious, just makes me giggle that something like that would get through play testing.

This is a great package for fans of the series and newcomers alike, the two games alone will give you around eight to ten hours game play each, and then you get the cavalcade of extras and bonus features to play with. Though I also add that due to Sony Europe’s general “meh” attitude to releasing any kind of game over here, the only way to get this gem is to import from the United States, which then makes obtaining said demo a royal pain in the Ares.

(Pun intended.)

8/10