God of War Review (God of War Collection)

God of War Collection: God of War

Platform PS3 (Originally released on PS2)
Created by SCE Studio Santa Monica
Published by Sony

Overview

God of War tells the story of Kratos a man haunted by nightmares after selling his "soul" to the God of War; Aries. He then starts a mission after one faithful night to end his servitude to Aries and kill the god that enslaved him. Will he succeed? God of War Collection is a visually upgraded version of both God of War and God of War II; both games have gotten increased textures in some aspects as well as a frame rate that runs at a constant 60FPS (Frames per second). Another cool thing is that they added Trophies to the games as well.

Gameplay

The gameplay is like your typical beat-em up game where you have a strong and normal attack. Plus you gain various magic attacks throughout your progress in the story. These can be activated by holding the R2 bumper and pressing the square button. Besides fighting the game also features puzzles which range from being very easy to somewhat difficult. There's also a platforming aspect where you have to climb up cliffs or avoid spikes and what have you these can be sometimes very frustrating like at the end of the game you have cross a spinning board that has blades, think of the thorn things from the first sonic game. This part is very frustrating. Another aspect the game features is real-time events when you get certain enemies and bosses down in life. Real time events as I said occur when you get an enemy or boss down to a certain amount of life then you press the circle button to grab onto them and start the event for example a cyclops you'll press any one of the four face buttons X, O, Square or Triangle then do that again three times to get an instant kill and red orb bonus. The orbs are divided into three types: Red Orbs are used to power up your weapons and magic, Green restore life and Blue orbs restore magic. You collect "gorgon eyes" to increase your life bar and "phoenix feathers" to increase your magic bar. The best way to describe this game would be "Clash of the Titans" meets "Devil May Cry". Despite having some frustrating aspects the game gets an 8.5 out of 10 in gameplay.

Graphics

As I stated in the overview the God of War Collection is upgraded ports of GoW and GoWII. While the graphics aren't something special by today’s means they are pretty good for a game that’s going on five years old. The new effects make the game very bearable not that it was bad to begin with. There's rarely any slow down on the screen like there used to be and some textures looked really great. 9/10

Sound

The sound is one of God of Wars strong points from its orchestral soundtrack to little sounds that make it feel as though your fighting a mythological creature. 9.5/10

Content

The story is decent enough to keep you hooked but sadly the game is pretty short, experienced players can beat the game in under five hours in fact there's a trophy for doing such a task. Plus the game really doesn't leave much for replay value unless you want to go back and try the game on a harder difficulty other than that there's a challenge of the gods mode which I haven't tested out yet and then with Trophy support you can go back and get some that you missed in the first place. 7.5 Out 10 just because of the lack of replay value.

Overall 8.6

Pros
-Engaging Story
-Neat Boss Battles and classic mythological beasts
-Trophies and visual enhancements

Cons
-Short Game
-Barely any replay value