ARES!!!!

I just finished playing God of War and man, is it ever an amazing game. From start to finish, I never had the slightest bit of boredom set in, which is rare these days when it comes to games. It totally deserves the lavish praise heaped upon it in all of the reviews.

What to say (aside from go play it and if you can't, read the reviews)? It's got amazing graphics, a kick-butt fighting system, nifty characters and a pretty cool story. Add gorgeous backgrounds where there is always something neat going on and some awesome boss fights and you're talking about a game that is probably one of the best I've played in a couple years.

I honestly can't think of anything that's really wrong with the game. Most games leave me complaining about SOMETHING, but this one did everything it was supposed to. Sure, it only took 10 hours or so to finish, but not one second of that felt like padding.

Some of the reviews were complaining that there weren't enough bosses, but frankly, I felt there were just enough. Sure, one more would have been nice, but half of the 'minor' enemies would be bosses in most games. And as far as I am concerned, Pandora's Temple and all of its fiendish puzzles and platforming was a boss in and of itself.

Not to mention the fact that it has one of the coolest final boss battles ever.

I also liked how they broke up the straight CGI cinematics with little in-game sequences where you either pressed buttons or actually controlled the character. The entire end sequence would normally have been played out as one big CGI movie, but here they broke it up into at least 2-3 parts with controllable bits between. Nifty.

The unlockables in the game are fantastic too. It's got more behind the scene features than a lot of the DVD's I own. I really like how they actually have designer commentary over the various concept art movies which gives some context as to why they tried the various designs and also why they settled on the ones that they used. The "Deleted Levels" unlockable was pretty neat too. You don't usually get to see the levels that were cut from a game. Having the lead designer explain why they were cut is interesting too.

Man, I want to just play through again on God Mode and unlock everything, but I was getting destroyed when I tried it. Oh well. The great thing about getting GoW done now is that my console plate is clear for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, which I'll be picking up first thing tomorrow after Garrett has his breakfast/nap. From Ancient Greece to super spy. Woohoo!

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What I'm Reading: Same book as yesterday
What I'm Playing: Same games as yesterday
What I'm Watching: Same stuff as yesterday, but with more salsa!