Even though I’m playing a four year old game I can’t believe just how awesome God of War feels in today’s day and age. Combat, platforming, story, voice acting and background score all come together to form the perfect package. Making it even better is the fact that the game is now available in High Definition.
In case you were laying low in a nuclear bunker since the past few months, Sony announced both God of War 1 and 2 on Blu Ray after an overwhelming response from fans via a survey. The God of War Collection is Sony’s way of allowing PlayStation 3 owners to experience God of War 1 and 2 in 720p with anti-aliasing running at a solid 60 FPS. Even if you’ve played both the games before (and please jump out of your window if you haven’t), playing them all over again after so many years in HD is a treat to the senses. You’ll still be impressed the first time you encounter the Hydra and then cringe in glee as Kratos disposes it off with much prejudice. Ripping Medusa’s head off, stabbing Cyclops in the eye, tearing the wings off Gryphons and many more such atrocities brought a tear to my eye as I watched Kratos violently carve his way through all of Greek mythology.
The only shortcoming with this package is the fact that developer Bluepoint Games haven’t upscaled in-game cutscenes and pre-rendered CG videos. This doesn’t pose too much for the CG videos and GoW II since it’s a surprisingly good looking game but the in-game cutscenes in GoW look pretty terrible and the transition from HD gameplay to SD cutscenes is jarring. Now I know this may come across as nitpicking but spamming R2/R1 to open up a crate or a door did seem a tad archaic. I’m not saying they should have added in new levels or new weapons but just a press of the button would have gotten the job done as well right?
But seriously if you own a PlayStation 3 you owe it to yourself to pick this collection up since it offers two of the finest games on the PS2 for just Rs. 2,000 (current Play-Asia.com price). The bad news is that the game won’t release officially over here anytime soon so you’ll have to get your fix from sites like Play-Asia or other sources.