God of War Collection

[ItsThere]

Loving this currently. Kratos is Epic in himself, just so brutal and OTT it is still as thrilling now as when it was released.

[hudson]

The unlockable Treasures i.e Making of videos are really interesting. Showing you the long quest of coming up with the correct look for Kratos. He almost went with dreadlocks and right up to the last minute or so, his tatoo and skirt was blue.

Also, the character graveyard is really cool too.

[Darwock]

First impressions then -

The style and atmosphere is very nice, and graphically it's actually better than I was expecting. I'm not even bothered by the FMV cutscenes to be honest, it's not that bad. Kratos is definitely a cool character, and although I'm not very far in the little flashbacks of his violent past have been the highlight so far.

The gameplay is rather simplistic for my tastes. These games are not actually THAT old, so I don't want to be patronising and say that's a sign of the times they were released in, but it all seems a little bit 'easy automatic'. It reminds me a lot of DMC4's Nero, in the way you hit the circle button to initiate QTE style attacks. DMC4 did it better though as it blended the timing cues into the game world, rather than putting a honking great big button indicator above the enemies head.

As it has a lot of mature content it's odd to that it treats the player with kid gloves. After so long playing Demon's Souls, I was actually shocked to die in a boss encounter and find out that GoW put me right back in front of the boss!

I've uncovered a few treasure chests that I haven't been able to get to, I hope that all items obtained carry over to the next play so I can max everything out without having to start again.

Oh, some of the big baddies do look a little goofy to me, and it's not the lack of polygons. Sorry to compare it to DMC again (that is the archetypal big monster fighting game as far as I'm concerned) but that big dude Ares looks kind of stupid and non-threatening when you look at other examples from the same era like Beowulf or whatever.

[Darwock]

P.S. I noticed you get a trophy for having sex, presumably with the birds on the boat. They would only talk to me. What did I miss?

[hudson]

There should be a circle button prompt above their heads. Maybe you have to jump onto the bed to see the prompt?

[Largo]

Never played GoW 1 or 2, so this is defiantly on my list to try, looks good tho

[Btang84]

My first experience of God of War was the PSP version and that was thoroughly enjoyable, so was definitely waiting for this collection since I didn't have a PS2 when these came out.

I'm fairly far through the first game and it's been terrific so far. The combat system holds up pretty well these days but one minor complaint is that the combat itself feels slightly floaty and lacking real weight to it and maybe part of this is down to the fact the game runs at 60fps. However, I'm loving the fights throughout the game so far, superb fun so far although not quite as epic as I was expecting. But this may change as I get towards the end of the game.

Oh, and any recommendations as to what I should upgrade? I've upgraded the Blades of Chaos (the default weapon) once and have 3 out of the 4 magic weapons and have upgraded

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Poseidon

but I don't know where else to sink those red orbs into. I am slightly tempted to upgrade the Blades as much as possible seeing as I use them the most, but anybody have any other ideas?

[hudson]

I max'd my Blades of Chaos first, followed by the electricity. After that I concentrated on the

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fat sword and Army of Hades (excellent for final battle). By or probably during the final battle, you should be easily able to max the lot for the trophy.

[Jebus]

There should be a circle button prompt above their heads. Maybe you have to jump onto the bed to see the prompt?

You jump on the bed then you press "O" and a mini game ensues.

[reektan]

Finally got my copy from HK so looking forward to getting into it this weekend. N.B The boxart is a lot better than the USA/CAN version it seems.

[hudson]

Nice. Does it feature English text/speech?

[Btang84]

Yeah, I have the Asian version as well, and it's completely in English with text and speech. The manual is in English and Traditional Chinese, but there are no Chinese options in the game itself.

I've gotten pretty far in the first game and should be beating it soon, but have problems scaling that ****ing

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rotating spiked column

. It could be one of the most infuriating parts of any game ever made. The combat and the to-ing and fro-ing are fine, but this takes the absolute biscuit.

Tell me I'm not the crappiest gamer in the world and that there are other humans in this world that have trouble with that section.

[Jebus]

That section is widely recognised as a total ball-breaker mate, so you aren't alone.

I believe there's actually a trophy specifically for finishing it without damage.

[hudson]

You can get past it and get thy trophy if you just have a bit of fight Save at the bottom. If you get hit, just choose to Restart at last Checkpoint. It's not that hard to be honest. You can "eventually" (could take years :P) see a pattern (maybe you have to have a bit of Rainman in you to see it though). Places where you can jump past and places where you just have to be patient for a few seconds.

Luckily, you only have to climb the first one to achieve the trophy.

[Btang84]

I did the first section pretty much straight away after posting! And even got the trophy!!! Then I continued and saw the second column! That took me another good 15 minutes.

Clocked the game thereafter. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although it didn't quite meet my expectations. I had heard all the things about it being the best looking game on the PS2 and so on and perhaps it's the case that the game has dated more than I thought it would. I loved the PSP version and the appeal was probably due to it pushing the machine more. Also thought it could have done with a few more boss fights, but solid stuff all round.

Looking forward to playing GoW2 but giving it a break and will probably come back to it after Christmas when I get back from abroad.