God of War

Much like Keith a few months ago, I relished in the opportunity to finally play this game- having never had a PS2, I was unable to play God of War, but luckily a port with updated graphics was recently made in preparation for God of War III. God of War is an action-adventure game where you play as Kratos- the merciless "Ghost of Sparta," a man who has sold his soul for victory on the battlefield but eventually sees the error of his ways and decides to set things straight. I'll be honest, what really surprised me about this game was the story- it started off very vague and seemingly pointless, but by the end plenty of things started to come together to make perfect sense. It was also very brutal, maybe more than the actual gameplay itself. I credit this to the fact that the game came out five years ago and has inspired scores of imitators, but while the whole game played smoothly and fun, it wasn't much I haven't done before- curse you, Darksiders! A lot of times it came down to button-mashing which has a tendency to get old, but there's plenty of times when the more fun to use magic was necessary, which was definitely a plus. Poseidon's Rage, the first spell you learn, came to be my personal favorite- Kratos casts a large circle around him, doling out plenty of pain to any poor sap in the vicinity. Also, you better like QTEs, because God of War practically invented them. But I'm being too harsh. Just because God of War may have led to some uninspired copy-cats doesn't mean that it's not inspired itself. While it may not have been the thrill-a-minute roller coaster of a game I was expecting, it offered up some great gameplay and fun puzzles, which is really good enough to warrant a spin in the Playstation. I admit, I'm still very much looking forward to God of War II and III. But I've still got stuff to finish- TONIGHT!