They’ve taken God of War and God of War II from the PS2, re-textured the game and retooled it to run on the PS3 as the God of War Collection. The result, the same games running at an anti-aliased, 60 frames per second 720p resolution.
I’ve got a backwards compatible 60GB PS3 and kept GoW and GoW II around, so I was skeptical of needing to pay to play these again. Sure, folks without BC could get another shot at these games but I wasn’t convinced they would be much better.
Boy was I wrong. While it’s not up to current-gen standards, the graphics in both games are still very pretty. Anti-aliased and in HD, running smooth as silk makes what was an already excellent pairing of games even better. What’s really surprised me is how much fun I’m having playing through the games again. The core gameplay is exactly the same. The combos, the quick kills… the same. The outstanding orchestration and sound effects… the same. Only the graphics have been improved. Either it’s been such a long time since I went through them it all seems fresh and new, or their new treatment really has breathed new life into old games. Either way, they are still a blast to play.
I pretty much dismissed the GoW Collection as a cheap effort to drum up visibility for the upcoming God of War III, and maybe that’s what it is. But they developers put enough effort and love into it that “cheap” definitely does not factor in. It’s the only thing that has taken me away from Left 4 Dead 2, which even Modern Warfare 2 couldn’t do.
Anybody else out there getting reacquainted with our old buddy Kratos?
It will also be interesting to see based on the success of the collection if others try to do the same thing. I’d sure pay money to have Shadow of the Colossus remastered in the same way.
I’m out of pocket for a few months but am looking forward to this when I get home. I love the GoW games. All of them are great. Even the PSP one is loads of fun. They are some of the few action games I can play through over and over.
When does GoW3 come out? I get home in Feb and want to get this collection but if GoW3 comes out before then I may have to jump straight to it.
Part 3 is due out in March of next year. The GoW collection also includes a code that lets you download the E3 demo of GoW III. Even though it’s not anywhere close to the final build, it sure is a pretty, pretty, horribly gory, pretty game!
I’ve just now gotten to Pandora’s Temple in part I. I remember getting here and thinking the game was almost over.
Of course that means I still have Hades to look forward to, in all of its whirly-bladed log-rolling glory.
So I got home this weekend and ran out and grabbed this collection for $25. Well worth the money and these games are still fun as hell to play. They look great with the updated resolution, though the cutscenes didn’t get the same treatment. I cannot WAIT for GOW3.
If you really don’t like action games then you probably won’t like these as they are the best action games of the last 2 generations and inspired pretty much all subsequent action games.
They are so entertaining though that I would watch someone else play them for the story. They have good stories.
But really, the most annoying part of the game is not the enemies you face. (I found the enemies on the whole to be pretty easy at normal level.) It’s the jumping puzzles/log rolling/blade wall climbing, etc. And those aren’t affected by difficulty. It can get very frustrating if you aren’t the type who’s into jumping puzzles (like me). Also, there are a decent amount of quicktime events, so those can get a bit annoying as well.
Making my way through GoW 1 right now and forgot just how fucking ridiculous all of the rolling blade and balance beam sections are. I’m not even to the rolling blade wall climb yet that I remember so horribly.
