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Playstation 2 : God of War II Reviews

Gas Gauge: 92
Gas Gauge 92
Below are user reviews of God of War II and on the right are links to professionally written reviews. The summary of review scores shows the distribution of scores given by the professional reviewers for God of War II. Column height indicates the number of reviews with a score within the range shown at the bottom of the column. Higher scores (columns further towards the right) are better.

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ReviewsScore
Game Spot 92
Game FAQs
GamesRadar 90
CVG 93
IGN 95
GameSpy 100
GameZone 95
Game Revolution 85
1UP 90






User Reviews (11 - 21 of 145)

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Better than the first one!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: April 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I just finished this game and I have to say I think it is more fun than the first installment and I liked the first one a lot. First of all the story is interesting and there is much diversity in both the places you visit and the enemys you fight. The graphics are pretty good for a last gen game and the boss battles are awesome. The save points are fairly distributed and the game's length is adequate. My only complaints are that the combat involves some button mashing and the lack of camera control is frustrating. I played this on the PS3 so there was no rumble, but frankly I didn't miss it. The game is a bit gory and there's plenty of nude breasts, so its not for small children. To me this was easily the best PS2 game I ever played.

As Good As God of War, But Camera Angles Are Still Bad

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: April 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Pros:
- Fast-paced continuation of story from the first game and good plot twists. Despite the success of the first game, very, very few developers have explored mythology to this extent for game content, which is a shame.
- New weapons, updated weapons, and weapon combos offer huge amounts of action. You feel like you can do pretty much anything with the weapons Kratos has.
- Multi-dimensional puzzles and platform style gameplay inject lots of variety into the game.
- Good mix of story, action, and puzzles keeps the game fresh.
- Nice unlockable content adds some replay value to the game.
- Enormous sense of scale makes the game all the more larger-than-life.
- Proves that the PS2 can still deliver the goods graphics-wise, and makes me question why it took developers so long to deliver games on DVD format when the PS2 supported DVD format at its launch 7 years ago.

Cons:
- Camera Angles: I think they're worse than the first game. Found myself on numerous levels getting behind monsters and enemies and not being able to see what was happening. Camera isn't dynamic enough and doesn't change viewpoint very easily. You will be attacked by enemies off-screen because the camera doesn't adjust properly, a no-no in modern games.
- The game's very short. About equal to the first one, maybe a bit longer even, but short nonetheless. It's on DVD, and yet the game is as short as it is, and there's little excuse for that. Like I said about the first game, if you have the resources to put all sorts of "making of" material in the game packaging, then you have plenty of resources to make the game more than what was delivered, and just didn't do it.
- Some save problems, but not enough to totally ruin the experience. Save points are plentiful, so it balances out somewhat.

All in all, an excellent continuation of the Kratos vs. the Greek Gods vs. the Greek Titans saga. Once again, parents should take the rating very seriously. The game is violent, as in rip body parts off of bad guys and beat them with same violent, and there are a lot of mature themes in the game. Kratos does some morally questionable things to move the story along, and he's the standard to which all flawed "good" guys will be measured. Parents, you have been warned, by me *and the box label*. 'Nuff said...

I'd like to see more branching storyline, but that's just me. This game series has the potential for it without drowning action-oriented gamers into the minutiae of RPG-style games, or making people pull out the flow charts to remember what happened where and when. Here's hoping God of War III (me thinks there will be a sequel) on the PS3 takes advantage of all that processing power for gameplay additions and enhancements. Developers get a bit caught up in the eye-candy aspect and forget that all that CPU power can be used to branch the storyline out, too.

By all means, play this one and enjoy the experience of being a Greek God/Hero/Titan Avenger. It's worth your hard-earned cash.

A perfect way to end the PS2 generation

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: May 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you liked this review, feel free to click my name and check out my others.

I'll admit, like most of the reviewers you'll read from here, I'm quite biased. I played through the original God of War multiple times and loved it. I find this game just as exemplary as it's prequel in being a practically perfect fantasy hack n' slash platformer. This game will go down in history as the PS2 game that consistently outsold other games for next-gen consoles for several weeks straight. There's a good reason for that, it's brilliant.

Story 5/5: The developers are cheating here. They are drawing from the most famous works of Greek Mythology to provide the player with a rich universe of jealous and fallible Gods at war with one another. Many of the scary beasties from the era show their ugly faces here, some with new twists since the first game. You'll face gorgons, satyrs/fauns, cerberi, cyclopes, and even other classical greek heroes like Theseus, Perseus, and Jason. I won't ruin the story except to say that it deals with the classic greek cycle of generation after generation of supreme beings rebelling against their forebares. For most players it will be entertaining, and for people such as my self with more than a bit of familiarity with greek mythology, it's a neat fantasy that falls right in line with the types of things you'd expect from ancient Greek characters.

Visuals 5/5: Stunning. From the very beginning you are treated to eye popping visuals. As you clear out your first room of enemies the sinister glowing eyes of a newly animated colossal "Statue of Rhodes" peers through the windows searching for a way to get to you. Like most background objects in the game you eventually come face to face with the menace. You won't see a single structure in the game's background that you won't eventually visit. One of the highlights include seeing 4 Titan-sized horse statues reigned to an island far off in the distance as you hack up baddies. It won't be long before you've fought your way through various situations to find yourself atop the magnificent horses themselves, all the while battling to gain access to the next area. Enemies are well rendered and range from statuesque to grotesque. The art direction was well done. The realization of the Titan's themselves is something spectacular. Sounds like the designers drew more than just a little inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus. It's fantastic having these living speaking goliaths cursing you as you attempt to climb them and overcome the obstacles they create for you. Definitely some of the most memorable graphics of any game I've ever played.

Combat 5/5 (I'd give it a 6 if I could): This is one of the few games where the player's reflexes are the most powerful tool in the game, because the game actually let's you use them. You don't have to be frustrated by sticky controls, useless delayed moves that have no practical use, or moves that get triggered accidentally because of poor layout. Let me put it this way, Kratos can be controlled with the finesse and versatility of a fairly agile character in a Street Fighter video game. In fact he'd probably be right at home in a Street Fighter. But even with the most impressive weapons and moves, Kratos can get a good beating if you do not make effective use of his blocking/parrying/dodging abilities. Also, though Kratos learns many super combo moves to dish out dozens of hits in a few seconds, many enemies can break through or evade them and make you pay for "spamming" the moves foolishly. It's important to utilize these combos at moments where the enemy is compromised to capitalize on their effectiveness. The nice thing is that even then, a lot of Kratos' moves can be cancelled if you need to do an emergency block. You really have the flexibility of control to let your reflexes do the work, especially in the extremely challenging "Titan" difficulty. This is one of the few games where I actually get more addicted trying to complete the hard difficulties because despite it being extremely tough, it's fun to try and outbox the enemies knowing one false move could end it all. Another nice feature is the addition of new and even effective alternate weapons. I am on my second playthrough of the game and found the Barbarian Hammer to be a devastating weapon if you familiarize yourself with the many moves it has. I've heard others remark that they have become just as adept at fighting enemies with the Spear of Destiny as Kratos' Blades of Athena. Finally, the Blade of Olympus which can only be used to play through the game once it's been beaten feels like cheating. But then again you sort of are.

Puzzling/Platforming 3.5/5: The puzzling in this game doesn't approach Zelda proportions but a few moments might stump you for a while. The cinematic outcome of each solution tends to be fairly rewarding. Still, nothing to pat yourself on the back too much for, but just enough to add some breaks from the slaughter. There are more than enough hidden items and chests to keep you looking around for weak walls and obscure nooks. My one complaint would be that the first games seemed to have more of these in lots of devious places. But then again that might just mean that I've missed a bunch of them in the new game still.

Sound 5/5: They got rid of the repetitive nature of the previous game's musical score. The music here has the advantage of a little more variety plus it benefits from the same type of context sensitive music environment. The music makes fairly smooth transitions as you travel from area to area swelling for dramatic effect where appropriate such as when a battle has just been completed. Voice work is quality here as well. The characters are all voiced by competent talent without making the mistake of kitschy cartoony voices. It all works. The only complaint I have here is the sound when blocks are successful with the Golden Fleece item. It's a high pitched sort of screamy sound. In places where you do a lot of blocking, it can really get on your nerves especially considering that if you counterattack after blocking there is a loud explosion that follows. So you might get tired of hearing SCREEE-BOOM, SCREE-BOOM, SCREE...you get the idea.

Conclusion: They save the best for last. If you liked the first game, then you owe it to yourself to play this as well. If you've never played them, then get the original God of War first, right now. They are setting a standard for exciting well designed gameplay with awesome characters in an awesome universe. Ancient greek mythology is like society's first comic books. It's even more exciting on your console than it is in your Edith Hamilton book. Check it out.

Kratos is still out of bubblegum

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My God, this game is beautiful. It took me four days to beat it (on normal mode, and at 5-6 hours at a time) and while I can't sit here and say it's better than the first GOW (which had a much more challenging finale) it certainly lives up to it and then some. The scenery in this game is breathtaking, especially the level that featured the Steeds of Time (walking on a mile's worth of chains... nice). I can't wait for GOW III, although I guess I'll have to shell out $600 for the PS3.. oh well it'll be worth it:) WARNING: If you played the first game and became really good at the GOD mode, go ahead and select the hard mode on this one. Trust me.

Awesome game, but it made me want to pull out my hair

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game. Very fun overall: great voice acting, fun weapons (even if some are basically useless), cool enemies, and good battle mechanics. It was a lot of fun, until the very end.

This game, along with some other recent PS2 games, have a horrible feature that seems to be popular: Button-Press puzzles. I hate button-press puzzles!

Fortunately, most game developers seem to have realized that nobody likes complex, instant-death jumping puzzles (although, there is one version here, which was kind of cool, but still frustrating).

Unfortunately, at least on PS2, some developers have replaced them with button-press puzzles. You're enjoying a cut scene, and suddenly a button flashes on the screen. You have about 1 second to push the button, and if you don't, you die, and have to start the cut scene over.

At the end of the game, there's a cut scene with 4 or 5 button-pushes in a row, and if you miss any of them, you die instantly, and have to do the entire scene over. I don't want to do that in a game, EVER!

5 stars overall, minus 1 star for stupid button-press puzzles. I hope developers are over this stupid idea. If I wanted to play Dragon's Lair, I would have bought that game. It wasn't fun then, and it isn't fun in any other game either.

Lets try something new

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: March 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am a fan of the first GoW. I loved the how brutal everything was. The sheer power of the presentation alone captivated me enough to play for hours on end. I simply didn't have that feeling this time around. There have been many improvements in this installment, and they are apparent right off the bat. After about three hours of play, I grew bored. This game is simply missing the wow factor of the first one. Don't get me wrong, this game is good. I was looking for something a little more.

The last reason to own a PS2!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: March 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Bravo!!! This is a game that not only holds its own in the coming era of next-gen games, but does so on a PS2! God of War 2 is a fitting end to the PS2 legacy. I thought that there could not possibly be another 5-star game for the PS2 after the GTA franchise (GOW1 notwithstanding) but this game is clearly of that calibur and then some!

The closest I could come to a criticism of this game would be not being able to control the camera... but in all honesty, the game is so well designed that it simply doesn't need it. The camera is always exactly where it needs to be and I didn't see a single glitch. Tight!

Gameplay is smooth and seamless. Load screens are few and short. Fighting is SUPER INTENSE and bloodier than ever with some absolutely BRUTAL kills!! Puzzles are smart and challenging. Level design is superb. And the cut scenes are stunningly beautiful! The sound design is no less impressive with top notch voice acting, sound effects and full-on original score orchestration. Even the storyline is gripping. A far cry from your typical cheezy "video game-esque" script, this game sucks you in and pulls you through the game moment by moment. Even at 3 AM with headaches, red eyes and sore wrists, I just couldn't put the controller down! This game is an absolute marvel of production! Can't wait for GOW3!

Again... Bravo SCEA!! You've totally outdone yourselves. Take a bow. Standing ovation!!

The best video game ever. Seriously.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: March 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

God of War was the best video game of 2005 (not just my opinion, it won more awards in 2005 than any other game), and many people thought that it was impossible to eclipse it. Wrong. SCEA did it again. More moves, more bosses, more levels, better graphics, more everything. From start to finish, and absolute roller coaster ride of awesome. Perfect.

A great game, just falls short of the original

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

A pretty good game that fans of the original will like. In my opinion, it is just fun and has some memorable moments, but is not earthshattering like God of War 1 was. Since GoW 1 pressed the limits of the PS2, this game is more of a continuation of the storyline (think GoW 1.5). I think we'd all have it that way, though, as opposed to the team messing with perfection.

Really the only reasons I gave four stars is that the story is not as good or cohesive as the first. Instead of having motivation built through story line, level design and character development, everything (for the first 1/2 or 2/3 of the game or so) seems very contrived. You'll be going somewhere and get sidetracked by a very artificial plot device way too often. You feel like they ran out of ideas and wanted to lengthen the game. Second, it is very unclear what you are supposed to do sometimes. I felt the puzzles in the first game let you see where you needed to go, you just had to figure out how to do it. In GoW 2 you find things instances where you have to break this pillar to create a bridge, but how do you know you can do that when all the other pillars are indestructable? Then you get an item you didn't know you needed to advance. While many people will notice that most enemies are the same, the team took the liberty of making many more boss fights (one thing lacking in the original) and most of them are pretty amazing. A good game, just not legendary like the first installment.

If you liked God of War, go buy this game. If you're a parent and wanting to know if this game is approriate for your child? It absolutely is not.

Also, I think the game really picks up towards the end with some great boss battles and visuals. Sadly, though, GoW2 pulls a Halo 2 on us and the game ends before you are treated to a final chapter. Kind of sad that after $50 and around 10 hours nothing is resolved. At least this game was a great sequel and didn't suffer from the Devil May Cry 2 disease.

Great game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

One of the best games I've played in a really long time. The action, story, characters, environment, ambience, music, gameplay, graphics are all top notch. Definitely reccomended for any video game fan. Don't miss out. If you've played the first one, you owe it to yourself to play this game. You will not be disappointed.


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