By Jonathan Lavigne
Editor-in-Chief

I have killed thousands upon thousands, destroyed nations, driven civilizations to ruin, and faced the fiercest of their warriors. My blades have tasted the blood of my enemies—and relished it. All that is to be expected when you are the God of War.

My journey starts off with a bang. I reprise the role of Kratos, newly appointed God of War after dethroning Ares. Athena pleads with me to stop all the wars with the Greek cities because the pantheon of gods are starting to grow weary of me, but I choose to ignore her moaning.

I shoot down from Mount Olympus to lay the final decisive blow on Rhodes, the next target my people (the Spartans), have chosen as their prey. A blasted magical bird flies by, steals some of my power, and shrinks me down to human size. Then the pest flies off to transfer that energy to the Colossus of Rhodes, who then comes to life...and with that, welcome to my first boss fight. In the opening five minutes of the game, mind you.

To say that my journey gets any easier from here on would be a farce. Before all is said and done, I will have all my powers removed from me entirely by Zeus, form a pact with the Titans and the Sisters of Fate to get my revenge, and kill some 5,000 or so who dare stand in my way. Not that it’s all hard work: I do stop every once in a while to pleasure the ladies. A god’s job is never done.

Game Specs

This game should never have existed in its current incarnation. The PS2 is supposed to be dead; long live PS3!

Still God of War 2 (GOW2) is a PS2-exclusive game. The graphics are astounding and well detailed. You can almost see the goose bumps on the bodies of each scantily clad Greek goddess. To be perfectly honest, this is a logical successor to God of War; I’m just really surprised that, with the hype this game has, it wasn’t launched for the new and shiny PS3. It would have made much more sense.

GOW2 star Kratos is the Sony equivalent of Halo star Master Chief on the Xbox, or even Mario for Nintendo, when it comes to console-associated recognizable characters. Sony might have shot itself in the foot by not making GOW2 a PS3-exclusive game with their current track record in sales.

It might seem like a close race when you add up the income generated, but the Nintendo Wii has more units sold for half the price, and half the cost of a PS3.

Maybe Sony will get it right by PS4.

Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Violence, blood, gore, nudity and more violence.