Consolation Prize

Recently I played through God of War II on the PS2. I was a fan of its predecessor and was very much looking forward to this game and overall it was a very enjoyable experience. For those unfamiliar with the series the game sees you playing the role of Kratos, once a Spartan warrior but as the game starts now the titular God of War. The game is based on Greek mythology and is an action fighting game with some puzzle solving elements thrown in for good measure.

Kratos is an angry man, and most of that venom is directed at the gods of Olympus. He really does have a right to be a bit hacked off with the gods. Not only was he tricked into killing his own wife and son by Ares, as told as part of the story of the first game, but in this second installment he is fooled into becoming mortal and into losing his godly powers. Thus this is a story of betrayal and revenge as Kratos seeks out the Sisters of Fate so that he can change his own destiny and destroy the Olympian gods.

Once Kratos has lost all of his abilities you’re slowly introduced to the various button combinations and as you progress through the game a number of magical abilities and additional weapons become available. These can be powered up using the collected souls of your defeated enemies giving you additional moves or attacks. What you power up really depends on how you prefer to play the game and what you find the most effective. Personally I chose to power up Kratos’ default weapon, “The chains of Athena”, along with the magical attacks “Cronus’ Rage” and “Atlas Quake. What I like about this game is that not only can you string together quite complex combo moves, but you can also get away with a bit of button mashing without being penalised. And in this respect the game finds a good balance for both the casual and hardcore gamer alike.

There are a number of difficulty levels available, however I played through the game on normal and on the whole this is well balanced and provided a good challenge to my limited skills. I did find that the game had the occasional difficulty spikes as you take on a number of the set piece enemies, and just as you breath a sigh of relief you suddenly find that more enemies have just spawned into the battle and finish you off. This can lead to some moments of head banging frustration but I always found that a specific strategy would be required and it’s just a matter of learning the attack patterns and not trying to wade into battle without defending yourself. If you die a number of times in a row on a specific section the game humbles you by asking “if you want to change the difficulty to easy”. I found this spurred me on rather than face the indignity of playing on easy, but at least the option is there should you and the game come to an impasse. Generally checkpoints are generously spaced so you don’t have to repeat vast sections of the game again should the worst happen but there are a couple of notable encounters that left me feeling an additional checkpoint was required.

The game has a rich enemy selection and some of the boss encounters are spectacularly memorable. Once an enemy has been weakened you will be able to perform a finishing move which is activated by pressing the relevant button icon floating above their head. This then launches a series of “quick time” events of button presses and / or joystick movements and if successful Kratos sends them packing to Hades in a number of brutally violent ways.
This game certainly showcases that the Playstation 2 can still deliver graphically and it’s still spectacular even by today’s “next-gen” standards. Both characters and backgrounds are expertly modeled with some fantastic animation and the level design is of an exceptionally high standard with some great puzzles. I wish I had played the game on a PS3 as its ability to sharpen and upscale the graphics from the standard PS2 resolution for my HDTV would have enhanced what is already an impressive graphical accomplishment. Not only are the in-game graphics excellent but there are some great FMV sections that progress the storyline throughout the game.

It took me about 18 hours to complete the game but there are some extras available once completed including the “Arena of the Fates” and additional costumes should you wish to glean more from the game. Unfortunately the story doesn’t really conclude at the finish of the game and leaves the door open for the inevitable “God of War III”. I really enjoyed this game and although towards the end of the game I found it difficult in places, I never felt like giving up and always knew that there was a logical solution to tackling the situation. On the evidence of what has been delivered with this game I can’t help but look forward to the next installment.

Sony’s E3 conference was held yesterday at 19:30 BST. As with the Microsoft conference I’ve extracted some interesting titbit’s of information.

Unfortunately a European price cut for the PS3 was not mentioned but apparently there will be some sort of announcement tomorrow.

PS2 Snippets
Now has an installed base of over 118 million, thus according to Jack Tretton (CEO and President of Sony America) makes it the most popular console of all time.

160 new games for the PS2 are scheduled for the US this fiscal year.

PSP Snippets
Weekly sales of the PSP have gone up by 90% since the introduction of a price cut.

A New version of PSP was unveiled and it will be available worldwide in September. Although the revision looks very similar to the existing model it’s apparently 33% lighter and 19% slimmer. It also makes use of a more efficient battery and loading times will be a lot faster too. It also incorporates a new bit of functionality in that it can now be hooked up to a TV (Sony Bravia) and output any of it’s content (videos, photos, games) directly to the screen.

The new slimmer PSP will be available in the regular black and the new “ice silver” colours in an entertainment pack which includes a 1GB memory stick. There will also be a “Star Wars Battlefront” entertainment pack which features a white PSP emblazoned with Darth Vader on the back. Both packs will retail for 199.99 USD and will be available in the US from September. Sony Europe and Sony Japan have yet to announce pricing and packs that will be available.

140 new games are scheduled for the PSP in the US this fiscal year.

PSP UMD sales are up by 35% since 2006.

PS3 Snippets
80 first party games are in development worldwide.

The PlayStation Network now has 2 million registered users, 950 thousand of which are from North America and the service has seen 20 million downloads.

PlayStation “Home” can now have client software running on mobile phones. The example given will allow you to take pictures with your mobile and have them sent directly to your “Home” lobby.

Sales of 60GB PS3 have doubled in North America at Sony’s top five retailers since the cut was announced on Monday and Sony are going to ship 11 million units by the end of the year. There’s no news as yet of a price cut for Europe.

Unreal Tournament 3 was announced as exclusive for the PS3 until the end of the year.

Metal Gear solid 4 was reconfirmed as being exclusive to PS3. Hideo Kojima has also stated that MGS4 would be the last in the series. The game is due for release in spring 2008.

The PS3 has helped the sales of Blu-ray and it is now approximately outselling HD-DVD by a ratio of 2:1.

Yesterday I thought it was about time to play some of my back catalog of games before I buy any new ones; First up on the list is “Shadow of the Colossus”.

So I dusted off my PS2 which has not been fired up for many months, and after messing about with the “rats nest” of connections behind the TV managed to locate the power and SCART cables. Popping the disc into the PS2 the disc whirred into life, the intro started and then unexpectedly froze. Wondering if it was because I’d set the game to 60Hz mode I tried it on 50Hz, but to no avail I received the same result. As a last ditch attempt I took out the disc and gave it a good clean. This time after a few moments, the intro finally continued. Something has to be said for trying out a game straight away rather than just leaving it on the shelf for months!

Onto the game…

The intro is beautiful, you see Wanda travelling on horseback across the land. The music is melodic and haunting setting the atmosphere for the game. Eventually Wanda reaches his destination, dismounts, and lifting a bundle from the horse he proceeds into what appears to be shrine. Placing the bundle on an alter Wanda removes the shroud to reveal the body of a girl. This is your first taste of the story, Wanda has travelled to this far off land to restore the soul of this girl. After talking to some entities that live in this place he is told that it may be possible to restore her to life if he seeks out and destroys the Colossi that roam the land.

To find the colossi you loft your sword high in the air, and using the reflected sunlight scan the landscape until the direction is shown as a beam of light. After riding across the landscape and scrambling up a cliff face you have your first memorable experience with a colossus. A huge foot passes in front of you and the camera pans around to reveal the behemoth in its full glory. Your first few thoughts are “wow, that’s huge” followed by “how the hell am I going to defeat it?”. Luckily there are some handy hints that appear to help you learn how to kill this colossus.

Locking the camera onto the colossus you run around trying to find a place to clamber on. The beast is fully aware of your presence and is not standing still, but it is slow and after dodging a few huge attacks you get close enough to climb onto its foot. Grabbing on as it moves across the land you slowly work your way further up onto its torso and then finally up to the head. This is where you find its weak spot, shown as a glowing tattoo and where you must plunge your sword. Of course the colossus is not taking this lying down and tries to repeatedly throw you off, shaking Wanda from side to side. This was just the first colossus, Wanda must destroy 16 very different colossi in total.

Although this is a two year old game the graphics are gorgeous with a distinct appearance and push the PS2’s aging hardware. So far I cannot fault the atmosphere, you’re launched quickly into the game with just a fragment of story but that’s all that’s needed at this point. I don’t really need to know the full history between Wanda and the mysterious girl, just that he’s willing to do anything to try and bring her back to life. There is a real sense of scale to this game, the landscape is vast and spectacular. The colossi that I’ve seen so far are all immense, intricately detailed and fantastically animated, and I must say that I feel a little pang of guilt when I finally kill one of them.

There are some minor issues so far, I initially found the controls to be a little bit fiddly but I think this may be because I’m out of practice with the PS2 controller. Also, the camera isn’t perfect and seems to require some attention from player every now and again. Neither of these faults though detract from the game experience.

Shadow of the Colossus is a very unique game. There’s nothing else quite like it on the market and I look forward to continuing to hunt down the remaining colossi. I’ll post my final thoughts when I complete the game.