I picked up the first God of War when it was released, and while I didn't think it was worth the $50 I had some good fun with it. I've been dying for an action game with solid production values, so I was thinking about checking out GOW2. I haven't thought much about the series in the past year or two, but I'm curious to see if anyone has any opinions on the series.

So. Have you played GOW? How does GOW2 hold up? What about GOW PSP? Should I just play POP Sands of Time again?

I really liked the first one but felt the first half was far more interesting than the second. I gave the sequel a miss but have just started playing the PSP version and its remarkably impressive. I'm not far into it but it seems like more of the same, which for me is no bad thing. I have heard it's really short though.

I think that's one of the most accomplished PS2 game, visual-wise (though I'm not a fan of a skin-head lead) but the gameplay was not my cup of tea. It was for the most part just pressing the buttons 10 to 20 times to kill one enemy, which might be stress-relieving but made me a little bored. The boss battles and puzzles were, while very interesting, small in number. I hear the series was much inspired by Devil May Cry, and that's convincing.

That's really dead-on.  At least in the psp version, you wander around a huge romanesque cathedral and eventually some rooms are blocked off by red stuff (a la DMC) and once you beat the enemies, you get to leave.  As your combo counter increases, you get more red orbs (once again, DMC) and so on and so on.   Oh wait, God of War has boobies.

Really, if you like a good hack 'n smash 'em with a little bit of sophisticated-ness thrown in, you'd be hard pressed to find something better.  But please, don't spend 50 bucks on it.

I don't like it.  The games are fun for what, as others have said, they are - simplistic, fairly easy, hit-a-key 20 times affairs, but I don't feel they deserve the huge praise they get.  The setpieces are sometimes also pretty interesting, but it mires itself in tedium when you are forced to do the same 'fatality' some ten times in a row (forced, also in the sense that its otherwise it takes forty some swipes to defeat an enemy otherwise.)  It may be inspired by Devil May Cry, but DMC is by far a much better game (and I really don't even like DMC.)

EDIT:  I was just thinking, Bare Knuckle and Final Fight are also called simplistic, but compared to God of War they've got quite a lot of depth (well, the original Final Fight/F.F.2 are maybe on par with GoW.)

I've played both GoW and GoW2 and I think both games are entertaining. The second one is better than the first. Bigger set-pieces, larger bosses, just more interesting in general.

I haven't played GoW, but I would like to try it. So, if someone has a copy of the first FS or FT, drop me an email

cheers,

-avatar!

Well, playing God of War on anything but Heroic or Spartan difficulty (whatever the two names for the hardest difficulties were) and yes it does degenerate into just a button masher.

Never found a copy of GoW2, and I'm too lazy to order it, so I never played it.

I've only played the first of the series, but I'm willing to put myself down as a steadfast hater.

I could discuss the game from a critical angle and rant about the shallow gameplay or dull soundtrack, how the most interesting part of the game is the first half-hour, etc...but absent of everything else, my main complaint is this (spoilertagged for the easily offended):

Kratos is a f---ing douchebag.

I hate him more than any other video game character ever, even eclipsing previous titleholder Shion Uzuki. He's stuck in Gravelly Fury mode, kills everyone he encounters even (or especially?) if it's unnecessary, and the less said about the sex minigame, the better. The game tries to offer an allegedly shocking explanation for his rage (which you can see coming from ten miles away) but it's no excuse for repulsiveness on this level.

I'm OK with a character who's a bit of a prick, so long as they aren't nasty for nastiness' sake. But Jaffe seems addicted to this idea that sociopathy is a perfect substitute for characterization.

Really, I'd recommend DMC 1/3 (haven't played 4) or Ninja Gaiden Black over GoW in an instant. Not only is the gameplay richer and the challenge deeper, but you won't hate yourself for playing them.

Hahahahahaha! Awesome.

I really didn't have a problem with Shion until Xenosaga II where they made her look like a bus station skank, but then I had a problem with that entire game.

As for character characterization, some of the villians in WA5 were terrible: it's one thing to have a psychopathic villian but it's another thing to have a cardboard cutout psychopathic villian that seems there mainly for shock value even if he acts as a antagonist to one of the better fleshed out characters. Psycho for psycho's sake is boring!

100% Agreed on the Kratos thing, Sonic.
That said, I REALLY liked GoWII though.
The first game didn't do much for me, but they definitely improved on it for the sequel.

He's still a Douchebag though. Perhaps even more so.

Not even considering DMC3's Dante?  Wow, he must really be bad.

I quite like it that Kratos is a dick. I just finished the PSP version. Yeah, it's an enjoyable game but ridiculously short. It's not just short (I don't mind short in this day and age), it feels short. Like it wasn't quite complete or something. But what's there is enjoyable and pretty amazing for the PSP.

God of War never had the depth that DMC had but then it never really went for that. It has things I hate (like QTE commands) but what it does I think it does well.