"God of War II: It Lives Up to the Franchise Name"

In 2005, we all had the great pleasure of playing God of War. The game has gone down in history as one of the best, if not THE best, action-adventure game of all time.

It's now 2007, and the badass mamma jamma Kratos has returned for God of War II.

Rarely do we see sequels live up to the original, so here's the burning question: Does God of War II live up to its predecessor?
The answer to that question is a resounding, "Yes!"

Gameplay 10/10

Instead of making any drastic changes to the gameplay, GoW II sticks to its roots. Kratos still executes exciting, brutal combinations to his enemies ranging anywhere from fifteen to two-hundred fifty hits in a row!

What separates GoW II from the original is the fluidity of the movements. There seems to be less clipping with enemies, and the moves just flow together naturally.

GoW II adds new weapons as well. In the original God of War the extra weapons one received had little use, so it was best to just stick with Athena's Blades. However, GoW II adds a giant hammer and a spear. You can switch to either with the press of a button making it easy to string together combos with either.

The hammer was one of my favorites. While the weapon itself is big and clumsy it is easily three to four times stronger than Athena's blades, so mixing in a few hits with the hammer can take down even the toughest of enemies in no time.

If brute force is not your style, the spear has a great balance of speed, reach, and power. It's a great alternative to Athena's blades as it is quick enough, and powerful enough to be used on its own.

The magic in GoWII is nicely implemented, but aside from a single weapon, the bow, it's essentially the same as the magic in the original.

The environment in the game is beatiful and adds greatly to the overall atmosphere, which brings us to graphics:

Graphics 10/10

I own a very high-end PC, so my standards for graphics are quite high. However, GoW II is by far the best looking PS2 game I've ever seen. It's even better looking than quite a few recent PC games.

Kratos' facial expressions are stunning considering the hardware limitations of the PS2. The blood, the magic, ALL simply fantastic. This is truly art.

Of course, with the PS2 there is some noticeable aliasing, but it's not bad at all considering the dated hardware. Framerates never suffer even with multiple enemies on screen.

The enemies themselves are extremely detailed. I especially enjoyed the Minotaurs, cyclops, and ogres. A lot of times you cannot tell how a game really looks from screenshots, but the game is really as great looking as the screenshots show.

If this were a PC, PS3, or Xbox 360 game, it would have obviously received a lower mark, but I'm basing this score on the PS2 hardware capabilities.

Story 7/10

This is where the game lacked. It's hard to give a spoiler-free review of the story, but I'll do my best. Minor spoilers ahead (You learn all this in the first level of the game, so it's nothing major):

Kratos loses his powers thanks to Zeus who seems to believe Kratos has become too reckless. Zeus tricks Kratos into channeling all his godly powers into the Sword of Olympus in order to defeat a giant statue destroying Sparta.

Kratos puts all his powers into the sword, defeats the statue, but gets injured after the battle due to his arrogance. He loses the sword, but instead of recovering it, Zeus grabs the sword and steals all of Kratos' godly powers.

Zeus attempts to kill Kratos, but of course, he survives. This is where the quest begins.

Essentially, Kratos spends the rest of the game trying to change his fate. It's completely one-dimensional. There are no side quests, no second agendas, no interesting characters along the way, or character development. Nothing.

I suppose I was hoping for some epic battles, where Kratos fought alongside his Spartan comrades. But all I received was a one-dimensional, boring, story with no memorable characters. Kratos, at one point, even seems to give up on his quest at a completely random time for no apparent reason, which I thought was stupid and showed the poor writing of the game script/screenplay/whatever. You'll know when you play the game.

Overall 9/10

God of War II has, bar none, the best graphics of any game on the PS2. It's also got some of the best gameplay of any action game ever released. It takes what the original accomplished and made it even better. If you're a fan of the original GOW, you'll love this one just as much. If you didn't like the original, you won't care for this one either.

The story, while lackluster, is there, it just requires a lot of work from the authors for the final game of the series. Hopefully we'll see a vast improvement in the Trilogy's finale.

This is a great game for any PS2 library. It's beatable in two rentals (Or one if you still live with your parents), but it's definitely a game worth collecting in your PS2 library.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/30/07