Counter-Point: God of War II Review

[robwright]

God of War II is out and winning the critics' praises all over. But TwitchGuru's Rob Wright and Travis Meacham had some conflicting opinions about the mega-sequel and decided to air them out in another installment of Counter-Point.

 

[ninjahedge]

I have not played this yet, seeing as my PS2 is hooked up to the Plasma and vying for time with both the 360 AND "Dancing with the Stars" (Thanks hon ), but it looks to be quite outstanding and I may need to get it once the hype dies down a bit ($$$).

As for "what's next", I think they are stuck. I can't see how they would be able to have Kratos as the lead in the next one. If anything, it would probably be a relative (a son? You know he got bizzy).

Maybe the next would take on the role of the sappy hero trying to fix all the damage he did while a LOT of angry gods still throw stuff at him in rememberance of his line.

Hard things to mix with it would be additional RPG elements, or Co-op. But having an all out smash-brothers like carnage contest might be an interesting extra that would give the story-line game a second life.

 

[bwilliam13]

I have not played this yet, seeing as my PS2 is hooked up to the Plasma and vying for time with both the 360 AND "Dancing with the Stars" (Thanks hon ), but it looks to be quite outstanding and I may need to get it once the hype dies down a bit ($$$).

As for "what's next", I think they are stuck. I can't see how they would be able to have Kratos as the lead in the next one. If anything, it would probably be a relative (a son? You know he got bizzy).

Maybe the next would take on the role of the sappy hero trying to fix all the damage he did while a LOT of angry gods still throw stuff at him in rememberance of his line.

Hard things to mix with it would be additional RPG elements, or Co-op. But having an all out smash-brothers like carnage contest might be an interesting extra that would give the story-line game a second life.

Well, there's two discs in the game. The 2nd disc picks up where the first's gameplay ends, and kinda shows you where they are going with the story.

 

[Parhelion69]

Actually, this would be the first time I agree with the author :lol:

I think that GOW2 isn't as good as the first one. While I agree that it has improved in almost every area (specially the graphics, they look like a low res first gen xbox 360 game, it's that good...), I can't find it as fun as GOW1 was, and I recently played it for the first time (I know, kinda late, but I was waiting to get an HDTV, it's hard to get one in my country...)

First, it lacks the first title's originality. I can clearly say that it feels more like a GOW 1.5. It plays the same, feels the same, it even has all the first game's enemies (it has its own share of badies of course). The action gets very repetitive once you played gow1. The music score is great, but not as memorable as the first one.

I like that it has much more boss fights (the first one had... like 3) and as I said the graphics are incredible (it seems hard to believe it's running on PS2 hardware), but the whole game concept isn't fresh anymore.

The franchise needs a remarkable overhaul for GOW3, they should take their time and improve it as it deserves, otherwise, the press won't be as forgiving (and the press loves bashing the PS3 )

Anyway, I'm not saying it's a bad game. It's a great one, it's just not as memorable as the first one was...

 

[Dyno]

I liked GOW2 equally if not more than the first because they took a fantastic game and tweaked small improvements out of it. There is much wisdom in that course of action. One advantage is that there was nothing in the game that was worse than before, only things that were better. Even if you are not as impressed by virtue of having played the first one, there is nothing for you to criticize about this game itself, only that context.

Kratos had a better fighting style in this game. His moves were better and they incorporated nicely into the overall flow. The wall-crawling element received an upgrade and I thought ceiling walking was quite fun and a great way to see the levels. While you did fight all the same monsters there were some new ones. I don't mind if they keep adding to the bestiary. Overall the boss fights were just as good as the first only there were more of them. My personal favorite in the original was the minotaur, but for me the sea monster fight was just as good. The new gliding, slo-mo, and chain swinging gave you unprecidented access to the environment and let you solve different kinds of puzzles.

The addition of Greek heroes was great. I like that they were not slavish to the material they were presenting. They were more than willing to destroy Greek myths in order to tell their story, with cool results. Stylistically there were some great advances. The environment were just plain better than the first, and the first were quite good. Other neat cinimatic effects like the 2D shadow fight that Kratos has was also really cool.

But most of all it was the pacing in this game that was awesome. There were no filler scenes or laps in action. You went directly from killer fight, to puzzle solving, to majestic cutscene at a fantastic pace, and never felt pulled out of an epic adventure. It's a great story, certainly one of the best and internally consistant - which is rare in a game. Kratos is a product of his birth and the world he lives in, a place where gods toy with humanity for sport and intrigue when they are not crushing cities with impunity. THEY DESERVE to perish and who better than Kratos, as heartless and cruel as they, to bring it about. He's a villian to be sure, but he is still the most heroic character in the tale.

Sure the next one needs to take advantage of the new console and I think that alone will cause the team to be more adventurous, but this is an admirable sequel that was perfectly executed. It makes me think that all sequels are judged a little too harshly, and at least more harshly than the first offering of a franchise.