God of War: Epic Fail
I just picked up a copy of the award-winning, critically acclaimed PS2 game God of War. Sure, the game is a few years old, but I’ve never had the chance to play it and I found the greatest hits edition on Amazon for $20. I figured I might as well give it a go.
Video game magazines around the world have literally praised this game as the “best ps2 game of all time”, and on more than one occassion. Throwing around such words as “epic” and “instant classic” in big bold typeface all across magazine covers and game reviews, it seems like nobody has ever has anything bad about this game.
Until now.
This game is not “classic”. It’s not “epic”. It’s not the “greatest ps2 game of all time”. And it’s definitely not anything you haven’t seen a million times before. It takes gameplay and design elements from other action/adventure games and loosely mashes them together. It fails to be truly innovative and unique, and that’s where it ultimately falls short.
First and foremost - this game is so ridiculously hard, it isn’t even remotely fun. It’s frustrating. It will test your patience and make you want to choke puppies. I threw my controller across the room more than I played the actual game. After about the first hour of gameplay, the levels in God of War become so impossible and difficult, that you will have to replay them 50 times before you are able to advance to the next, equally-as-frustrating level.
The graphics look great and serve as alluring eye candy, but that’s about all God of War gets right. The levels look impressive and deep, but they are way too linear and predictable. Because of this limited exploration, the gameplay feels claustrophobic and lacks depth. It feels like you’re always being told where to go and what to do. The game takes you down a set path and rarely ever strays from it.
The action is intense, but it’s very rarely ever more than a quick session of frantic button mashing. There is virtually no strategy involved. Clearing out a room of enemies simply involves pressing the buttons as fast as you can. That is, until you come up against the enemies that are just plain annoying. One enemy in the game can freeze you to stone and then shatter and kill you in one hit. This enemy occurs throughout the entire game and attacks you in vast numbers, which results in a very frustrating experience by having to replay the same levels over and over.
As you progress through the game, you collect reb orbs which allow you to power up your weapons and special powers - which makes your character more powerful. It would have been nice to see this upgrade feature designed a bit better, but it’s killed by it’s own simplicity. Collect orbs. Power up your weapons by spending these orbs. Wow. Way to think outside the box.
Storyline? Please. Like the Greek mythology theme has never been done before. The voice acting feels forced, and the story is too cliche and way too overdone to really get into. I would have skipped the cutscenes, but this game doesn’t allow you to. You have to sit there and watch every single one in it’s entirety - bad acting and all.
And let’s not leave out the puzzles. The game does have some innovative puzzles but they are poorly presented and seem more like half-assed attempts at making a more dynamic gaming experience. One “puzzle” involves you having 60 seconds to save some dumb oracle who found herself in some stupid predicament (it doesn’t matter). You have to find your way up a cliff and navigate several obstacles in order to rescue her… all within 60 seconds. Stupid. Why not make the actual path more challenging by adding some enemies and more innovative obstacles instead of some pointless, meaningless time limit?
My question to all the people giving this game stellar reviews - Have you really, truthfully played the game? Or are you just jumping on the fanboy, hype bandwagon?
This game fails. God of War is nothing more than a cliche story mixed with a button-mashing series of lacking puzzles and frustrating levels.
My Score: 3 out of 10
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ridiculously hard? are you fucking kidding me?
I completed the game with my foot on controller and eyes closed. c’mon just admit yer a n00b