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Sunday 13 January, 2008
GAMEPLAY
Gameplay got noticeably better the second time around. New types of enemies were introduced that require new attention to evasion and using combos. Also, combos were introduced along with a new spell that allows you to freeze your enemies (before I only had a spell to do damage in a circle around my character). The combos are a bit hard to remember, but so far they greatly add to the game.
The hack and slash nature of the game has started become more prevalent with stronger enemies that continually respawn until either they are all defeated or a certain puzzle is solved. This isn’t so bad, but in the case of respawning minotaurs who must be executed in a certain manner, the death sequences can become repetitive and lose their original zeal. These instances are also quite tolerable because you continually get magic and health orbs upon defeating enemies.
The game’s visuals are really quite interesting. As I progress, I have been gaining new combos that provide new ways to destroy the enemies. Each one gorier than the last, they provide quite a bit of entertainment to the hack and slash repetition. The levels have also been providing a new level of interest as I noticed more and more secret item and orb chests hidden throughout the game. And again, there is more unnecessary female nudity.
DESIGN
I don’t think God of War has any unique game mechanic to it, so far at least. Mostly, it seems to generate interest from its fluid combat. As I said, the combos become increasingly gruesome and fun to watch (as long as you thinking tearing apart undead warrior enemies is cool). Collecting the orbs necessary to buy new combos also helps to provide a goal and motivation to explore the levels more thoroughly. Also, as stated before, combat isn’t really too much of a nuisance as defeating enemies provides more health and other status boosts. The new variety of characters in the second session also proves promising as the new enemies present the player with different styles of combat to be used.
So far I think the game only really needs to have a stronger storyline. I know generally what my goal is (kill Ares, the god of war), but there isn’t any real depth or interest in the story itself, all interest has been generated by gameplay (for me, at least). The cutscenes so far have seemed good enough, with decent graphics and voice acting. I think the game could benefit from stronger cutscenes, maybe more or longer ones, with more storytelling being done in them.
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