God of War

This week turned out to be sorta busy. I went on one of my frequent Back Bay Cruises in Virginia recently. It's later in the year then we usually go but I hadn't gone much during the summer so I decided to go. They have a 4 hour trip in the morning and 2 2 hour trips during the afternoon (the afternoon trips used to be a single 4 hour trip but Captain Barry decided to have two trips and charge maybe 2/3 the cost of the 4 hour trips to make a little extra money). First he shows off the town of Chincoteague Virginia where it's based off which is nice for the tourists but a little boring if you've done the trip before. Then he goes out to the barrier islands and you get to explore them and they change every year so it's always different. On the 2 hour trips he just does tourist stuff and stops on 1 or 2 nearby islands so I tend to shy away from those. The trip I went on was a 2 hour one cause I'd have to get up at 6am or earlier to make the 4 hour one but since it was just mom and I on the boat we skipped the tourist stuff and went straight to the islands. One of the ones we went to is normally closed off because an endangered bird species nests there during the summer but by October they're gone so it was opened up. That was where I found most of the stuff, a whole bunch of whelk shells, horseshoe crabs, and the egg cases for whelks and this giant badass piece of driftwood I kept for some reason. I didn't take any pictures cause I'm so used to going on Captain Barry's boat that it doesn't seem like something to take pictures over (though dad takes plenty on the trips he goes on). We also saw two different pods of dolphins out swiming around and jumping out of the water so that was cool. They came really close to the boat too.

A crazy asian woman has been calling my mom and leaving messages in a foreign language. She called while we were riding up for the boat trip and mom flipped out at her and told her she would call the police if she didn't stop. I told her it probably wasn't a big deal (I honestly thought the whole thing was sorta funny) but later on when the lady left messages on mom's cell while we were on the boat mom called and talked to a detective (since then she hasn't called back).

I also saw Zombieland and liked it a lot. I sorta messed up and thought Colin had bailed on me to see it with his girlfriend but the plan was for all three of us to see it on Friday so I saw it early by myself which messed things up. Regardless, I enjoyed it a lot and the surprise guest star was awesome. I recommend it.

Lastly of importance before I get to the game reviewing was my date! A girl named Tarin I knew from when I was young and my dad would take me to the firehouse. It was nice to see she hadn't become a wild hambeast since I last saw her. We had dinner at Ruby Tuesday's and got along pretty well. We decided to go see a movie sometime in the near future but didn't lay any exact plans then. Hopefully this will go well. Actually I had met with a high school friend the day before at Ruby Tuesday's but you guys know I'm not gonna complain about eating the same thing twice in two days.

I'm not quite far enough in Crackdown to review it (Colin and I are playing it together so I can't just power through it) so today I decided to review God of War (the first one).

God of War

Overall:

This is the first of the highly acclaimed ultra violent hack and slash series, God of War. You are Kratos, "The Ghost of Sparta" and instrument of the Greek Gods. You used to lead Spartan soldiers around to kick all sorts of ass until one day you were going to die in battle until the Gods gave you supernatural powers in exchange for doing their bidding. Now Ares, God of War, is going on a rampage and destroying Athens and Athena wants you to stop him (the Gods can't fight eachother so they need you to do it). Kratos has some backstory with Ares but that would be a bit of a spoiler. Kratos has access to his chain blades and various magic he gets from the Greek Gods as he progresses through the game. The game focuses on fluid combat with lots of combos and dodging and moving around.

Pros:

This game has very fun and fluid combat mechanics and it's easy to string combos together. You also have a large variety of moves to choose from. Your weapons and magic level up as you spend the experience orbs you get on them so you have some light RPG elements mixed in. There are also a bunch of secrets hidden throughout the game behind hidden walls and over ledges and stuff that upgrade your health and magic meter so you have some exploring to do. The bosses are also very impressive and definite "Oh shit!" moments that are memorable battles. The graphics were very good for a PS2 game and the cut scenes were very well done so it gets a nod for it's character visuals though the backgrounds are hit and miss. The audio is ok and does it's job of bringing the game to mind when you hear it but isn't something that I would say is incredible, it's marginally in the pro category.

Cons:

They throw in some other melee weapons but they're generally not worth using as they're never better and you have to relearn all the timing and moves all over again. While there are hidden goodies, the game path itself is rather linear which isn't a huge complaint as it doesn't detract from the game very much but it wouldn't hurt to have a few branching ways to do things. While the bosses are awesome it would have been nicer if they had more of them as there are only 3 or so (the second game does this but makes the fights a little less epic). There are a few tricky bits that are a pain in the ass (usually instant death stuff or non-combat related things) and anyone who has beaten the game remembers the hellish spike wall thing near the end of the game that I know frustrated many gamers. While the combat is very engrossing it can get slightly stale after an extended time with it but it never gets annoying or painful. The story also takes itself a little too seriously when it's about a guy that half the time sounds like the guy from the Doom Comic (the RIP AND TEAR guy).

Overall Rating:8.5/10

Closing Remarks:

While the cons seem a little big compared to the pros for it to be an 8.5/10 most of the cons tend to be rather minor while the pros are pretty significant. Overall this is a fun game that won't win any awards for it's writing but has a fun combat system that has spawned several imitators (usually a sign that you did something right). You feel powerful kicking ass and taking names as Kratos and while the non-combat parts aren't as fun as the combat they do serve as a nice break from the hack and slash part and without them the combat would probably get boring. If you have a PS2 and don't mind intense violence and like action games with a tiny bit of platforming and RPG then I recommend this to you.