By PMinton

I have to admit I had a little trouble finding words to describe my first impression of God of War II.

Brutal. Insane. Bloody. Over the top. Beautiful. Breakneck. Unbelievable.

Aside from describing my last family reunion, all these words apply to the newest GoW entry from Sony Computer Entertainment, but they all fall short of fully describing it.

To illustrate: in the first few minutes of play, your character, Kratos, kills hundreds of Rhodean (not to be confused with Greedo’s race in Star Wars) soldiers, repeatedly evades the colossal Colossus of Rhodes, kills tons more soldiers, then picks a fight with the aforementioned Colossus by smashing a boulder into its head and then gouging the thing’s eye out!

It’s hard to describe the scope of what I’m talking about here. Imagine standing in front of a two-story building - then imagine that same building is shaped like a hand. Got it? Now, imagine that the building jumps up into the air and comes crashing back down right on top of you. That is what fighting this colossus feels like. The enormity of the enemies (either in number or in sheer size), the backgrounds, the environments and the plot are overwhelming - and just breathtaking.

That’s the first really astonishing aspect of the game: how breathtaking it is. Almost everything is rendered with the in-game engine - including cutscenes. The transitions from cutscene to combat and back is very nearly seamless, and never leaves the player wanting or waiting. The textures, reflections, lighting and facial expressions during gameplay look as good or better than most other games’ pre-rendered video sequences.

I want to know why Sony has waited until the end of the PS2 lifecycle to bring out these big graphical guns. Why haven’t we seen this level of detail and eye-candy until now? “Well, if you want to see graphics like this again, just shell out $600 and get a PS3! HAHAAHAAHHHAHHA!” At any rate, and Sony bashing aside, this is probably the best-looking game available for the aging PS2 (aside from Final Fantasy XII).

That said, there are a couple of visual hiccups, though. On long camera pans and crane shots there are skips and lines that interrupt the smoothness of the shot - and at one point during battle, Kratos jumps onto nothing and starts hacking away. It’s obvious that he is supposed to be mutilating more soldiers, but he ends up humping air. Small glitches, minor annoyances - nothing that takes you out of the glorious, bloody melee for more than a few seconds.

The real gem of God of War II is its gameplay. Never, not even with a Wii-mote, have I ever felt such a connection to what was happening on the screen. The controls are pretty simple compared to some other action titles, but they allow for incredibly deep combat and platforming sequences. With just two button presses I managed a 96-hit combo. At first I felt that that was almost too easy, but then as more and more enemies surrounded me I realized that if the combo were more complicated, I would be overrun by the time I pounded out a longer string of buttons.

As with any great franchise, something new is introduced in GoW II: flight combat - Kratos on Pegasus-back using his blades to maim and kill griffins. I really don’t have words to describe how cool this is, despite slightly wonky controls.

The game is mentally and physically exhausting to play, mostly due to the epic scale of everything. There is no obstacle in Kratos’ path that is small. Nothing is easy. Everything is outrageously difficult for him. For the player, the only thing that is overly difficult is putting the controller down and doing something else (showering, eating, feeding pets, etc.).

If you liked the first God of War, you should definitely pick this one up. Even if you never played the first God of War, you should definitely pick this one up. It’s still first quarter 2007 and I’m only a few hours into it, but I’m ready to declare God of War II game of the year.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. It is the blogger’s curse that life continues outside the blog - interfering at every opportunity. But it’s also a blessing, because busy is good.

Real quick, I wanted to shuttle some hits over to this very cool, very classy blog: The Uber-Review.

There are more cool gadgets, accessories and nerdy-what-have-you’s than I have ever seen in one spot. And most of them I’ve never come across before - which is saying something.

+ IGN is counting down the hits with its Top 25 Games of All Time. So many great titles…

+ Oh, my. It really is a Life-sized Whale.

+ Never buy batteries again. Thanks, sun.

+ Midnight at the oaisis. Er…maybe 3:28 p.m. at the oasis.

+ Beacause you asked, Biff answers the questions.

+ According to this guy, I can rest easy about the new TMNT movie.

By pminton

Apparently Sony has it.

Coming this fall, Sony is unveiling Home for the PS3. According an article on cnn.com:

Sony Corp. will unveil Wednesday “Home,” an online network for its new PlayStation 3, which supports streaming video and advertising and will host virtual characters in common areas and private rooms…. “Home,” a free download, will be available globally beginning in fall 2007.

Now take a look at your Wii. If you don’t have a Wii, then go look at someone else’s. I can wait.

Did you look?

Did you notice that the Wii already does what Home proposes (minus the advertising)? Did you see that Sony plans to “host virtual characters in common areas and private rooms”? I believe Nintendo called them Miis and Channels. And Nintendo lets you not only stream video but check email, look up stock quotes, order from Amazon.com, etc. as well because they gave us an Opera-based web browser.

Now, before people jump me: I see the differences both in style and audience. However, I also know a Johnny-come-lately when I see one. Now that PS3s are backing up on retail shelves, Sony is trying to imitate the console that is still consistently outselling them.

I do have to (grudgingly) admit that their other upcoming online release, LittleBigPlanet, looks pretty cool. LittleBigPlanet is supposedly “a game where users play, create and share what they build with other worldwide PS3 users.” The article spins LBP as game-development for everybody. I can get behind that. Who wouldn’t love to create a little flash-style game and share it with their friends? But on second thought, I know my friends…and I’m a little afraid of what I’d be getting in my LBP inbox.

LBP also pulls elements from several different websites including SecondLife, Google Video/Youtube and Myspace enabling users to create profiles, share media files and network with others. LittleBigPlanet is slated for release early in 2008.

Sam Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Ziff Davis Media Inc.’s 1UP.com video game site, said the projects end many months of waiting for Sony’s online strategy and show the Japanese electronics giant has been on top of advances in online software and services. “What it tells me is that they’re clearly paying attention. I’m glad to see that side of Sony,” Kennedy said.

What it tells me is that they’ve been paying attention…to Nintendo. And they should be. It looks like Sony might have a little more artillery in the next-gen console war - a war that I still don’t understand. The Wii shouldn’t really even be in competition with Sony. They’re not similar enough. Sony should be competing with Microsoft. For example, take a look at the video below. Everyone knows the PS3 looks better than the Wii. We all know that Sony put more processor and graphical power into their machine. However, it’s the idea they’ve copied not the look.

I can understand being jealous and I guess a little Mii envy never really hurt anyone.