God of War Series Review: part 3

Before I move onto the grand finale of the series, time to have a quick look over the collection box set and ask two big questions:

What can we learn from a game design perspective?


And is it worth buying?


God of War I and II are the extremely popular games which defined the spectacle brawler and have spawned numerous clones over the years, but what has made this series so popular?  So with my game designer hat on lets investigate what was done right, what was done badly and what could have been done to improve it.

Interactivity is worth a 1000 cut scenes
The plot of the first game is fairly complete, justifying the players actions and giving him direction through the levels.  The second is pretty much of the opposite feeling muddled and unnecessarily complex.  Both however have the flaw of telling a lot of the pregame action to you rather than getting you involved. 

Wouldn't it have been more fun to have had some gameplay sections of Kratos before becoming the Ghost of Sparta and his actions that annoy the gods during I and II.  Interactivity is the main component of video games and its shame to see things relayed to you via cut scene rather than getting stuck in.  Think of the potential emotions that could be roused in the players from coming across the barbarian king that couldn't be defeated and slaughtering your family with your own hands.  Similarly why be told that you have made Zeus angry, why not have some slaughtering in Greece just to show how rotten the heavens think you are?

Blood and Blades
Combat in the game is really satisfying due to several elements; the choice of main weapon which allows ranged and close combat, elementary combos, followed by a variety of enemies which require you to master them in order to succeed.  The combat always appears to be fast, fluid and brutal with each use of sound and visual effects to emphasize the speed of the blades along with the gallons of blood and gore in the game.  Some negative points for including weapons in both that tended to be just far less effective than your standard weapon, usually asking you to trade off speed and reach for damage, with both often required to survive encounters.

Quick time events usually make you character do something that is usually impossible for your character to do.  In this game these moves are all feasible for the type of character that Kratos is, feel suitable for each enemy type and feel especially satisfying to pull off, giving the player a small reward even in the midst of combat.

Here be Dragons?
Level design here is fantastic, with the emphasis on vast.  This adds to the epic tale feeling the game is creating.  God of War II however came with the issue of bad level structure.  It's not only important to make beautiful levels with awesome feature but for each of these levels to flow naturally from one to another, especially in a game that doesn't have a mission structure.

Is it worth Buying?

On their own these two games provide a lot of game to the pound and have suffered little for being old.  If you missed them the first time round and have some time and money on your hands then grab them.  If a bit strapped for either than it might be better to go straight to number three as you will still get the same good gameplay in a shinier package.

For game designers out there these two games are definately worth a look in for being the definition of the genre and even its errors can teach much.