God of War Collection Review

And Kratos cast himself from the highest mountain in all of Greece… again.

"God of War Collection = $40 = God of War I + God of War II + Demo for God of War III + Trophies"

[image1]And that’s about all there is to it. The end. No, seriously. It’s a freakin’ collection. It’s a graphically enhanced port of two spectacular PS2 titles on a Blu-ray disc in a $40 bundle. It’s "God of War III Prologue".

What, you’re expecting more? Really? You obviously don’t know me well enough. *twiddles fingers*

Don’t you have something better to do? Look, just scroll to the bottom of the page for the grade and call it a day. I won’t be offended, and I won’t know anyway. *taps feet*

You’re still there, aren’t you? *sigh* Why don’t you just re-read the first sentence over and make your own decision? That’s what Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw would say. And he’s just as funny as we are and his reviews are videos, so you don’t have to read.

Or maybe, you think I’m supposed to be “professional”? Or maybe your expectations of Game Revolution can only be satisfied by reading eight or more blocks of text that have the occasional beer joke, geeky gag, or Penny Arcade comic link? Or maybe you just like reading text from a tired reviewer who’s just trying to fill his quota for the month ramble on paragraph after paragraph, not really saying much, going on like a college essay to fill the minimum word count? (Hmmm… sounds like one of our podcasts.)

[image2]I am Some of you are thinking: “Oh, Nick, stop being a selfish, depressing, cynical bitch for a second and review the game properly, please.” Fine, have it your way. But I’m not going to try very hard. At best, I’ll try as hard as Bluepoint Games, who simply took the PS2 code for God of War I and II and spent 15 weeks (that means they started in late July/early August) running it through their money-printing rendering pipeline. It has the same textures but at a much higher resolution, so The Chin of Kratos looks all current-gen now. But of course, the only thing some of you care about are “HD tits” (…oh, look, you’ve made up your mind).

In fact, since I’m really reviewing a value-based “product” instead of an actual “game”, I’m just going to spew some fun facts from news articles from Joystiq all over the Internet about the collection. If you want actual criticism, read our reviews for God of War I and II. (Trust me, copying and pasting those reviews here and adding a line of asterisks as a divider is extremely tempting.)

Everything has been given a crisp and fresh makeover, as if the technical polish from the development of God of War III has become a new coat of paint for its brothers in the series trilogy. Competitive players can earn two Platinum Trophies, one of each game, with some Trophies asking you to perform nigh-impossible tasks, like beating God of War I under five hours and ascending the Spiked Column in Hades without getting hurt once.

The God of War III demo is the same as the one that was at E3. But it’s at least twenty-minutes long so you’ll get your hands on a few of Kratos’ new abilities and weapons as you slice and dice enemies through several epic locales. The collection also comes with God of War II Bonus Content with behind-the-scenes videos.

[image3]Apparently, God of War Collection only saw the light of day because of an official Playstation survey that resulted in the Sony community sending an overwhelming amount of fanboy comments on wanting a God of War remake for the PS3. So there, you are to blame for all of this. The only good that come out of this is if Sony gets a whole lot of cash from this – which they will – and they finally get it through their thick skulls to make a Fumito Ueda collection with HD remakes of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, and a demo (or perhaps more than that) for The Last Guardian. If that (and only that) happens, I will forgive you for reminding me what letter comes before ‘B’.

In other words, get it already. The only people that shouldn’t are those who have already played the first two God of War titles on the PS2 and couldn’t care less about whether it was in 480p or 720p or 859ipa (or whatever). Of course, if you found that last bit insulting and haven’t played any God of War title at all, then we should expect you standing in line. God of War Collection doesn’t really change anything about the God of War series other than a graphical facelift and there’s no way to go back to the game selection screen other than reloading the game, but it’s hard to complain about two HD-enhanced ‘A-‘ titles for $20 apiece.

I need another bloody bourbon.