, God of War: Il fantasma di Sparta

The first God of War showed what can be done when one pays attention to story and game play. As with the previous titles the graphics of this game are gorgeous. The game play is much of the same. And had the story been good that could have been forgiven. But compared to previous stories this is the weakest one. So out of the blue Kratos has this brother Deimos who he has to find in the Land of the Dead. So now get to learn more about Kratos past. For the most part this isn't as interesting as it should be. Although we finally get to understand why Kratos is so enraged all the time. While the cut scenes are spectacular,they never had the magic the cut scenes had in previous games. The strong use of mythology from the previous game has been diminished severely which took most of the fun out of the game. The lack of diversity in the enemies and monsters Kratos encounters also was tedious at times. For some reason Ghost of Sparta has very few boss battles. I think Chains of Olympus had more and better ones.When playing Chains of Olympus I couldn't stop. For Ghost of Sparta I needed to motivate myself into finishing this game. And even then I finished it earlier. This because the game play is about five or six hours which is far too short. Let me make it clear,for newcomers this will be an excellent game. For fans this will be somewhat disappointing.

In Ghost of Sparta Kratos takes a second Journey to the psp on with it we get to see sides of him that never before has been seen. According to me, one of the highlights of GOW is the protagonist Kratos, this bitter and sad anti-hero who repeatedly screams out glorious one-liners while he fights against the gods, titans, etc.. But I have to admit that he can become a little monotonous in his pursuit for revenge. So I think that GoS is a very welcome and important part of the series. In GoS, we see parts of him that has not previously been shown much such as love and sympathy. In GoS Kratos is not out for revenge, he just wants to save his brother from his terrible fate. Personally, I actually think that GoS has one of the most engaging stories in the GOW series.

But the gameplay, then, does it hold up to the other GOW titles? Oh yes! I remember when I sat down with Chains of Olympus for the first time, remember the fear I felt that it could not meet my expectations, that Ready at dawn wouldn't be able to fit the GOW experience in a psp. That was a fear that soon disappeared when I started playing and realized that it held up to the ps2 titles, well as far as graphics and control wise go. However, was missing one important component, namely the bosses. GOW is largely about big, fat, epic boss battles and awesome quick time events. These elements were shown very little Chains of Olympus. But it's clear that Ready at Dawn has listened to the fans because there's a lot of them in GoS. GoS contains at least as much bosses and events like their PS2 counterparts. Almost even more. Gameplay wise I thought sometimes that GoS was more like GOW 3. Even the graphic I think, surpassed the PS2 titles which should not be possible, but true nevertheless. A new weapon is also available in GoS, Spartas weapon of choice, the shield and spear, At last! why they did not exist in the previous games I do not understand. The spear is incredibly fun to impale yo enemies your enemies with!

Cons, are there any? Yes, I think so. One of the reasons why I like GOW so much is because I love Greek mythology and on Kratos journeys he usually encounter lots of characters from the Greek mythology like Zeus, Hercules, Medusa, etc.. In GoS you wont see a lot of them, unfortunately. GoS is a tale the concentrates a lot more on Kratos on a personal level and because of that they probably had take a lot of that away, I get that but a few guest appearances would have been nice.

But, that being said, GoS is still an awesome and engaging game that should not be missed out on, and now you don't have to have a psp to enjoy this excellent game as its available on ps3 with HD graphics. However, I think that if you own a psp version, then you should go with that version just to see what is possible to squeeze out the small and the old system. Points, um, it was difficult, but it may be 9 out of 10 Medusa's heads.