Playstation 2 - God of War II Highly recommended

Format
Playstation 2
Publisher
Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer
SCE Studios Santa Monica
Country of origin
US
Genre
Scrolling Fighter

Whispers of God of War II

By David Rasmussen
7th May 06

Sometime ago we saw one of the greatest games ever for the PS2 release.
When we first got ahold of the original God of War we were highly entertained by it. While the game was short we didn’t seem to mind, and yes while there was also abit of a repetitive play to it again that didn’t stop us from playing this highly addictive hack and slash bloodfest over and over and over again. Ownership was the only option, and embracing the violence of the ultimate candidate for prozac infusion (the depressed sad sack killing machine Kratos) was a no brainer, oh, and the game had a kind of sex game that wasn’t very graphic but did show topless twins.

Well with the promise of a sequel (that was teased before your eyes in the extras section of the game which required you to beat the game over and over until you unlocked all the teasers) you were kept waiting forever and ever to see if you will ever return to the killing fields of the ancient Grecian world in order to once again bring forth the rage of the gods. While you were waiting, of course, other companies attempted to court you with their ancient world hack and slashers, trying to tempt you with gameplay they thought would equal the addiction of God of War. The big one, of course, (and probably the only one that comes to memory) being the attempt by Rome : Total War’s creators to create a hack and slash for the consoles called Spartan : Total Warrior. Yeah, people loved Rome : Total War and they probably figured if Tim Schaffer could defect to the consoles and make a successful platformer they they could do likewise… of course it didn’t work out that way, but nuff said.

Well if you thought you would have to go forever without another God of War fix the people over at Sony are ready to prove you wrong. Not thinking of keeping your eyes on this year’s E3? That would be a mistake because odds are great that E3 will dust off a brand spanking new look at the long awaited sequel to God of War, God of War II, slated for an Early 2007 release for the (hallelujah) PS2!
Yeah, if this is catering to the no signs of going downhill PS2 that can only be seen as a deathkneel for PS3 holder outs because it means there’s one less title being geared for the release. And I don’t know about you but that seems to me to be something to worry about when it comes to rumors that Sony is going to fudge the release of the PS3 for another year (which you most certainly do not want if you‘ve been waiting forever to get your hands of Sony‘s new next gen console). Still, just because this is possible bad news for the PS3 that doesn’t mean it can’t be good news for PS2 fans, after all this means the PS2 is nowhere near coming to the end of it’s road (despite the fact that the not so good game Black was supposed to be that end of the road game for the PS2).

Did I just say that the E3 thing will be new and not it‘s first showing? Yeah, well apparently this isn’t the first time God of War II was talked about. Back at GDC 2006 SCEA gave the good word that God of War II was on it’s way, showing the first trailer promoting this 2007 release title.
From this trailer people got a few early impressions of the game to come.

1-Kratos picks up a swing style maneuver described as a “new Bionic Commando-style swing”. I am not sure what that means, so I guess I should pick up the classic retro collection of games featuring Bionic Commando as one of the games you can play. I do know one thing though from this, I guess this means you’ll have more swinging about platforming action to do in God of War II (which wasn’t seen much in the original if memory serves me correctly).

2-Kratos steps up to a brand new buffet of killable animals and creatures to try his manly killing powers on. From gutting his own char sui pork take out in the form of a boar, a Cerebus style 3-headed dog, new cannon fodder enemies to to rip, shred, and yank apart, a giant ogre (Cyclops?) to give non-elective eye surgery to, and a giant flying griffon you can take a spin on and pull the wings off of in midair highlight the new flavor of monsters Kratos can get his blood stained hands on. (Yeah, if you remember the joys of pulling the wings off the harpies in God of War you’ll enjoy doing it on a larger scale to bigger bird type monster things).

3-One sad point is that nobody has yet talked about showing this impressive trailer to the public at large. Huh? So how do I know about it? Well it was talked about in an article, but as you know that is just not the same thing as getting to see it first hand for yourself. Somehow, though, because Sony is not rushing this into public consumption it makes me wonder if the “trailer” wasn’t just slapped together by the gamemakers at the last second to have something positive in terms of PS2 2007 releases to show off.

If that is the case then the present trailer may be nothing more than eye candy to promote a promising future for PS2 players without there actually being a ready made demo to show off at this stage of development. In fact some of this stuff in the first trailer might not even reflect final content, which is just par for the course in these first gen trailers. For a comparable example take the first trailers out for Star Trek : First Contact (yes, the movie). If you remember the earliest teasers you might remember that there was supposed to have been a scene in the movie with a Borg cube facing off against an older class Constellation vessel (which was supposed to be Captain Kirk’s Enterprise). This, of course, never made it into the movie but you can see how some early trailers show off things of a product that are later axed for some reason. The same may hold true with God of War II as things might be removed during development.

4-Word is that the game might have a demo ready for E3 2006. That I feel may be more wishful thinking than actual thought. At best, if I were to hazard a guess, we‘ll see a 30 second or so trailer for God of War II to tease about it‘s release, with an actual demo not being rolled out until Tokyo‘s big video game convention that happens awhile after E3.
It would be nice, mind you, if we have a taste of the gameplay at this stage of the game (even if it is a barebone simple demo) but I still don’t think that’ll happen at this stage.
If it does I’ll applaud the effort of Sony to get this out to the masses, and hope Playstation’s magazine has that demo for people in their post E3 wrap issue. Because even a limited brief demo at this stage would be better than nothing in my opinion.

5-We have this much on what the story will most likely be in God of War II. It’s not much, mind you, but it is a taste of what is to come.
Kratos had a nice ending at the end of the original game, didn’t he. After he offs the God of War, and then has that whole Dr. Phil can’t help you now bout of maniac depression that has him throwing himself off a cliff in suicide thing, he somehow ends up “moving on up” as he takes the throne of blood over in Olympus as the brand spankin’ new God of War… guess that means we need to rename the fourth planet “Kratos”, and call Rei “Sailor Kratos”, and rename series into such titles as Kratos Daybreak, as well as the not so rider safe attraction Mission to Kratos and so forth.

Anyway Kratos, who apparently didn’t change much after the end of God of War (still being the whiney grumbler that he was in Game 1), is just not content with “retirement” as the new God of War, what with those pesky memories still plaguing him and all. Heck, not even Zeus’ “Take My Wife Hera and See True Hell” jokes can get Kratos to stop being a whiney pisser, so he decides to go groundside towards the Earth to “end his continued torment”… what? Again?

Well you probably won’t see his fellow gods complain as the dark streak on the golden clouds of Olympus takes off to head Earthside where he tries to change his destiny, which everyone says can’t be done. Right. Well everyone also said that William Hung embracing his 15 minutes of fame couldn’t be done and he did it, so (if nothing more than to assure us a sequel) who can’t say Kratos can’t finally wipe his overdue account on his memory bank and come up with a clean slate! To this end he ends up decapitating new flavors of entities like the Cyclops (no, no, not that whiney Summers guy), and a Flying Gryphon (not to mention the beasts talked about above) as he does something to forget.

Oh, and whether or not God of War II treats you to a sex mini game featuring Aphrodite and Athena remains to be seen… eh… probably not. But in future months, when more on the game lands on my lap (or somewhere on this desk) I’ll be sure to draft up a First Look at the game then… I mean wow, there is NOTHING on this past what I just told you and ONE (ONE) single image on the net I know of!
Stay tuned, and in the coming months we’ll have an update. Promise!

-- David Rasmussen 7th May 06

Playstation 2 God of War II Images