Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Masterpiece"

The story is about how the former leader of the Spartan army(named Kratos)was told by the goddess named ''Athena'' that the evil deeds from his past will be forgiven if he destroys the God of War named ''Ares'',who is attacking Athena's patron city Athens.The God of Gods named ''Zeus''forbids Gods from attacking other Gods,so a mortal must stop Ares and Kratos goes to stop Ares.However,Kratos is tricked by Ares into killing his own family and Kratos is now filled with a murderous rage,and all he cares about is avenging the death of his family,and he doesn't care how he does it or who he has to kill to do it.

The gameplay is a very brutal button masher with lots of QTE commands.You can kill many of the enemies by just pressing the attack button constantly,but what makes GoW so fun is the different ways you can kill enemies.If you do the QTE's correctly,you can kill an enemy by jamming Kratos's blade down their throat or impaling them.

Also,when you're climbing,you can grab an enemy and bash them into the wall,or you can grab them and pull them down and let them fall.

When you fight some of the bosses,you will need to do QTEs to finish them off,and it looks very spectacular watching Kratos taking on huge mythological creatures that are much bigger than him and finishing them off in brutal fashion.

Right from the start of the game,you can deal out combos of over 40 hits on enemies.The way Kratos attacks enemies looks so cool,his weapons extend so far out and cut down enemies so easily,so even when he's surrounded by many enemies,he can make light work of most of them so easily.Kratos can level up his weapons and learn new attacks and magic too.

Many of the enemies that Kratos will encounter,will be giant creatures that have horns,demonic looking things,flying beasts,Medusas(the Medusas can turn Kratos to stone and you will need to quickly perform a certain action to stop it happening).Some of the bosses will be giant serpents,other giant creatures and Ares himself.

The gameplay isn't just about combat,there is quite a bit of puzzle solving,platforming,balancing sections,climbing etc.The game also has a sex minigame too.

To be honest,the numerous puzzles slowed down the pace of the game too much for my liking.Also,some of the puzzles involved too much wandering around for my liking.There's a section where you had to balance and dodge these rotating blades,and if my timing was a tiny bit off,I ending up dying and had to redo a bit of work,I found it a bit frustrating.Also,on some of the platforming segments,I ending up falling to my death a few times because I couldn't control the direction of Kratos's leap the way I wanted to.However,these things didn't stop me from liking the game a lot.

Kratos plays the role of an anti-hero very well.You will see certain story events where he could save somebody's life,but doesn't do so,or will kill people who get in his way,and will use woman just as sexual objects.But you will also see a more caring side to Kratos when he meets his family again.

The game is gorgeous for a PS2 game,whether it's during gameplay or during the cutscenes.The style of the buildings in the game go well with ancient Greece and I liked seeing Ares destroying the city and countless arrows being shot at Ares in a desperate attempt to stop him.The mythological creatures look quite dangerous or huge.The atmosphere in the game is good too,it tries not to be too colorful,and goes for a darker atmosphere,more serious atmosphere with good detail.Besides being in the city,you will also be in scenery where there's water and vegetation and also in the desert.

The music in the game suits the ancient Greece theme.Kratos sounds pissed off all the time,but it goes well with his bad a**,vengeful self.

Overall,Gow is an awesome,action/adventure game,and should be given a try by every PS2/PS3 owner.