Review: God of War (PS3) Collectors Edition

One of the greatest Hack and Slash series I have ever played is about to get its third installment. The first time I heard of that games through a Youtube Let’s Play which I watched. I did not know what to expect from it as I started the first part of that video guide. Then I was stunned and well surprised. As a big fan of the Soul Reaver series I knew that I am going to like the God of War games, too. Making my Playstation2 ready again and purchasing part one and two from the low-price-box in the supermarket. I played 5 hours per day and finished both games inside one single week and I was still screaming for more! God of War III will come soon and now I get the chance to replay this two epic stories again on my PlayStation3 by exchanging my old PS2 releases through the Collectors Edition.

There is no need to explain the story of the game because it would spoil too much. All you should know is that you play as Kratos – one of Spartans greatest Warlords – but his fate condemned him to serve the gods and to obey their orders in reverse for everything he once loved. Terrible nightmares make him suffer in his sleep. Godess Athena offers his soul peace after one final task:  He needs to destroy Ares – the god of war – the one that ruined Kratos life.

Most of the time you will slaughter, tear up and kill enemies in a very brutal and bloody way. You collect orbs of different color to regain health, mana and to upgrade your blades and powers which you need to unlock while playing through the game to solve tricky puzzles. The games won a lot of prices, including “Game of the Year” honors from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and is listed in almost every Top Playstation 2 game ranking of admitted sites and magazines.

The game was re-released on the Playstation 3 this year in a Collectors Edition, featuring a trophy system and remastered for rendition in High Definition. I got it for 23 EUR in reverse for my Playstation 2 releases at GameStop and played it today. Lets see if the promotion campaign that promises “a much better experience of two greatest hits” is justified.

Collectors Edition

Lets get straight to the point: The Collectors Edition for PS3 is better as I have expected. You get both games, including all their features and mini games that were inside the original releases and every “Making of” episode + new “Making of” content can be found and viewed directly from the blue ray disc. The games itself were remastered f0r rendition in 720p HD. That means that every texture and model was edited and drawn again by hand to give the edges the look of a 2x AntiAliasing (AA cant be rendered by the PS3 graphics chip) and better sharpness. But there are still some weak points:

All with the with ingame engine premade cut scenes of God of War I still look as awful as they did in the original release for the PS2. Only the animated videos beat their predecessor versions by far! The graphic inside the game looks a way better as before but always reminds you on the fact that the God of War games were first released on the PS2. Some textures look very blurry and misplaced, but this is what you need to accept if you buy a game that was mentioned to be played on a platform from the last console generation.

The graphics of God of War II look better as before. They didn’t looked bad in the original release either, since the team of Santa Monica learned to use the Playstation2’s power better as in the first game. Part 2 definitely deserves the achievements which were promised on the game box.

Please dont misunderstand me, the Collectors Edition is great and the games look really awesome and you can see that they put a lot of effort into the remastering. I only wish that they had put in a little bit more time into making it. The same goes for the trophies. Only the trophy for the God of War II Challenges is really thought because of the very high difficulty in the last arena. The gameplay remains the same and the game’s atmosphere is still the greatest you will ever experience in this kind of games. God of War I and II are outstanding games that I really love to enjoy both a second time. It’s a dirty, brutal and violent world in which Kratos lives and a MUST BUY for every fan and people who never had the chance to play the originals.