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God Of War Collection: |OT| Of It's Only Just The Beginning

StuBurns

Banned
Just played a little more, I'm at Pandora's Temple (about half way through I think?), really enjoying it, the game has been giving me a kicking, I mentioned earlier in the thread I remembered having my ass handed to me in combat first time I played it when it came out, but I guess I hadn't got the point it really kicks in.

Performance has been perfect so far, I'd heard of crashing issues and stuff, but nothing so far, my only real issue with the package at the moment is the dog shit CG crap, they should have redone the cutscenes in-game I think.

Have Jaffe or Barlog commented on the package at all? Any links?
 

thechemist

Member
StuBurns said:
Just played a little more, I'm at Pandora's Temple (about half way through I think?), really enjoying it, the game has been giving me a kicking, I mentioned earlier in the thread I remembered having my ass handed to me in combat first time I played it when it came out, but I guess I hadn't got the point it really kicks in.

Performance has been perfect so far, I'd heard of crashing issues and stuff, but nothing so far, my only real issue with the package at the moment is the dog shit CG crap, they should have redone the cutscenes in-game I think.

I haven't had any issues either. Nothing like glitched trophies or random crashes.

As for the video cutscenes, God of War 2 looks cleaner overall.
 

thechemist

Member
dofry said:
Wut? Which country do you live in? I see the GoW Collection boxes on shelves in Finland constantly.

Hi iam in the UK its not out here, are you sure its out in Finland, I thought it was only avialable as a import from the US.
 

StuBurns

Banned
If you're going to buy an import, consider the Asian version as it's cover is slightly less horrific.

I just played till the Challenge of Poseidon bit, very cool so far.
 

SmokyDave

Member
StuBurns said:
If you're going to buy an import, consider the Asian version as it's cover is slightly less horrific.

I just played till the Challenge of Poseidon bit, very cool so far.
The Asian cover looks awesome, it's the same as the cover for the US versions manual I believe. The Hong Kong version is in full English too. I'll be interested to see if the GoW Collection that comes with the Ultimate Edition has a special cover.
 

StuBurns

Banned
SmokyDave said:
The Asian cover looks awesome, it's the same as the cover for the US versions manual I believe. The Hong Kong version is in full English too. I'll be interested to see if the GoW Collection that comes with the Ultimate Edition has a special cover.
It's definitely a lot better, that's why I got it, and yeah, it's all fully English. I suspect the UE's Collection cover will be something very cool.
 

dofry

That's "Dr." dofry to you.
kikanny said:
That seems to be the US version since it has the ESRB rating...

Just an image taken from the net and used as an advertisement. If regular non-gaming shops (e.g. food markets) have this game too, it's not an import. Anyhow, not that this matters. It's out in some countries in Europe.
 
first translator battle is killing. (titan mode)

I used gate trick for the first two waves.

I then tried Atlas Quake to no avail.

I tried the steps GuardianE borrowed from some one else on his walkthrough...still the translator died.

Man that battle is hard.
 

GuardianE

Santa May Claus
LLaMa-Tech said:
first translator battle is killing. (titan mode)

I used gate trick for the first two waves.

I then tried Atlas Quake to no avail.

I tried the steps GuardianE borrowed from some one else on his walkthrough...still the translator died.

Man that battle is hard.

Ugh, yeah. There's no way around it. That part's going to take multiple tries and a whole lot of luck.

I never actually tried out that "flawless" strategy that was submitted to me. The guy said he did it twice in a row and it worked, so I figured I'd throw it in there. Take out the summoners as soon as you can, grab those puppies, and try to herd the regular soldiers away from the translator. This is easily the most frustrating part of the game.
 
GuardianE said:
Ugh, yeah. There's no way around it. That part's going to take multiple tries and a whole lot of luck.

I never actually tried out that "flawless" strategy that was submitted to me. The guy said he did it twice in a row and it worked, so I figured I'd throw it in there. Take out the summoners as soon as you can, grab those puppies, and try to herd the regular soldiers away from the translator. This is easily the most frustrating part of the game.

I did get down to the last summoner and the translator got axed (after two hours of retrying I gave up).

The most frustrating part is the five or so minutes just to get to past the first two waves. I get past the second wave, pause the game, and read the walkthrough and get psyched to beat the summoner part. Then I don't.

Rage.jpg
 

GuardianE

Santa May Claus
LLaMa-Tech said:
I did get down to the last summoner and the translator got axed (after two hours of retrying I gave up).

The most frustrating part is the five or so minutes just to get to past the first two waves. I get past the second wave, pause the game, and read the walkthrough and get psyched to beat the summoner part. Then I don't.

Rage.jpg

Yeah, the buildup is terrible. Carefully going through the motions of the first two waves, then it all ends so quickly on the third wave that you feel helpless. It's pretty awful. But you'll feel amazing once you beat it!
 

carlosp

Banned
LLaMa-Tech said:
I did get down to the last summoner and the translator got axed (after two hours of retrying I gave up).

The most frustrating part is the five or so minutes just to get to past the first two waves. I get past the second wave, pause the game, and read the walkthrough and get psyched to beat the summoner part. Then I don't.

Rage.jpg

that part is even extremely hard on God Mode. The waves or not so dificult to beat. Those guys who read shit are annoying. Just shoot them all the time.
 
carlosp said:
that part is even extremely hard on God Mode. The waves or not so dificult to beat. Those guys who read shit are annoying. Just shoot them all the time.

you shoot them with the bow and arrow thing or are you talking about Cronos Rage electricity thing?
 
I thought they said they locked this at 60 FPS? I played the first troll part in the first game last night, in the Athens courtyard, and I feel like I was getting some major frame drops that I don't remember seeing in the PS2 version.
 
I finished God of War from the Collection on Tuesday. Thought I might as well bang out a mini-review, though this is the 2nd time I've played through this game. I got most of the trophies, the only pain in the ass being the fact that I was 2000 orbs away from maxing out everything -- especially since the reason for this is that I intentionally skipped two mega-chests in that one super-annoying part of Hades (with the horizontal rotating spike beams). Oh well.

GAMEPLAY:

Just like when I played this game for the first time, this time I also marveled at how well designed this game is. It's absolutely a master class. This game is a perfect balance of combat challenge, QTEs, epic situations, and clever puzzles. It's like the game took DMC and games of that type and took out all the shit I usually find annoying. You DON'T have to worry about saving before a risky fight. You DON'T have to plan health potion usage. When you die, you get to try again with zero loading. There is no loading between areas (in fact, there ARE no discrete areas). You can (nearly) always backtrack. The game never fucks you over with "missables." The puzzles aren't hard, but they're not brain-dead a-la Uncharted, either (in fact, here's a tip for Uncharted 3: combine combat WITH puzzle-solving sometimes). And while you're never stuck for a long time on any one puzzle, when you do complete it, because of the physical epicness of it all, you really feel like you've accomplished something awesome. For example, when you solve Pandora's Temple, it's really satisfying, even though at no point was it impenetrable like some Tomb Raider tomb. To tie into that, the level layouts are clever. It's not a straight line; you get to revisit areas and see them in a new light.

One thing I've noticed this time around is that the game is, with the exception of two parts, rather easy on Normal. It didn't seem easy the first time I played (though obviously still 10 times easier than NG and DMC), but I think because I got most of the orbs and maxed stuff out in the right order, it was mostly a cake walk. Basically, the controls are so tight and responsive, and magic is plentiful, so few encounters present any challenge if you're used to God of War.

That was a lot of praise, but the gameplay has some flaws for sure. Of course, the spiky column of death near the end of Hades is infamous. This time I actually figured out how to do it quite smoothly -- you just have to realize there's always a way out -- but there's just something infuriating about falling ALL the way down each time you fail. The fact that there are two of these is just obnoxious. Then, there's the final boss. Now, people complain about final bosses and call them bad. But there's a difference between just an unremarkable boss (like the last one in Uncharted 2) and a prick like the final boss's final form. They take away your normal weapons, change the camera view, and give Ares an unblockable ***** move. Basically, the only way to beat him is to hit him when he growls and win the mini-game several times, or to get lucky. There's no adaption or improvisation, it's my way or the highway. It sucks.

In general, it seems like the game lacked boss fights. The first one looked cool, the second one was fun, and the third one was ass. And that's it.

The camera in this game is great -- thank GOD it's a fixed camera and not controllable -- but there *are* a few times when it gets in the way of a fight. As I recall, this was mostly eliminated in the sequel. Also, I think it goes counter to God of War's generally fair design to make getting to some chests hard only because you can't move the camera around to see around you. It doesn't make any sense and is cheesy.

STORY/WRITING/ACTING:

Top-notch. Kratos is a fantastic character, the story is well done, and obviously the epicness of this game blows everything else in the genre totally out of the water. I also like how this game shows Kratos to have a human side to him, in comparison to God of War II, which is about him just being a huge prick.

GRAPHICS:

Still looks great. Obviously competing games these days have better textures, better lighting, better everything. But then, at no point do those games involve you climbing on top of a temple on top of a titan, all the way SEEING the fact that said titan is moving the whole thing across the desert. The 60fps smoothness is a god-send, as is the utter lack of jaggies (except in the in-engine cutscenes that are really FMVs). It's sort of hard to give the visuals a grade, because on an objective level, they suck (except the frame-rate and resolution), but the overall effect is still , somehow. So, as if to split the difference between a C and and A, I get a B.

MUSIC:

God of War has probably the best music in the history of video games. Period. The main theme is unbelievable. Granted, half the soundtrack consists of variations on this same theme, but hey, if it works, it works. Basically, there is nothing bad I can say about this game's soundtrack. I recall that when the sequel changed the theme around to something new, I was pissed.

VALUE:

Not great. Then again, these games rarely are. This took me something like 12 hours, and if I didn't look for every chest and explore every nook and cranny, it would probably be like 8 hours or even 6. The length seemed about right, but there's not really any replay value -- let's be honest. The challenge of the gods seems tacked on, though it's fun. One great thing is all the bonuses that get unlocked. The Deleted Levels video was just awesome to watch. More games should do this.

OVERALL:

It's classic. I know there's this big debate about whether games that sacrifice super-precise combat for accessibility -- like God of War -- are inferior to DMC/NG/etc. Well, I know which camp I'm in. This game owns. And while its own sequel exposes some problems in this game, it still stands up amazingly.

GAMEPLAY: A- (A at time of release)
STORY/WRITING/ACTING: A
GRAPHICS: B (A at time of release)
MUSIC: A+
VALUE: B-
OVERALL: A- (A at time of release)

===

Also, at least this time I figured out how to beat the final phase of the final boss. I'm sure everyone here knows and/or can look it up elsewhere, but I figured, why not post it?

Basically.... He's got one unblockable Pussy Move, the firey punch followed by the back spikes. There's not really much you can do about it, except maybe detect he's about to do it and dodge. But beyond that, all his moves are blockable. Except when he teleports and does the pillar thing -- just starting running (not dodging) from his teleport target once he re-appears. Run around the arena, and you should be well away from the pillars when they collide (and jump at the end, just in case). Can very easily dodge this 100% of the time.

The key is that there's no real way to damage him without risking being damaged much more, except to hit hit three times in a row and the do the mini-game. If you just attack him, he'll block and then Pussy Move you. So, block constantly. If he fires Souls of Hades, block (preferably not right next to him). If he teleports, do the running away thing described above, then once the threat is over, block. If he starts walking towards you -- block and prepare to strike. If he walks towards you and does the Pussy Move, you'll probably get hit (unless you can discern it and dodge). No biggie if you damage him much more as follows. Now, if he walks towards you and hits your block a few times, get ready for him to GROWL. RIGHT as he starts growling, do L1+X. If you did it early enough, you'll hit him three times in a little animation thing, and a mini-game starts. Hit circle really fast -- you'll damage him a huge shitload. After that, you can get it another hit (maybe with Triangle for max damage). Then he'll teleport. Escape that, then rinse/repeat. ONLY hit him as he growls. I think it takes 3-4 times on Normal to take him out.
 
I just recently got the platinum for both GoW1&2 recently. I had a lot more trouble with GoW1 than 2 because I found the Challenges of the Gods to be much harder than anything else. Challenge 8 in particular was really tough because of all the Gorgons. Not only that but you have to beat CotG in one sitting unlike the Titan challenges in GoW2.
 
I tried to pre-order the Ultimate Trilogy Edition in Holland yesterday but no luck...seems that the stores which are carrying the bundle are already sold out.

sorry if old but has SCEE EVER commented on a standalone release for the Collection in PAL territories ? Otherwise I have to Axelmusic or VG+ this baby.

Thanks in advance.
 

onken

Member
RedRedSuit said:
I finished God of War from the Collection on Tuesday. Thought I might as well bang out a mini-review,

Uh 2 games + all the additional content/challenges for $40 and you give a B- for value?
 

fixuis

Member
Somehow I managed to totally skip the god of war games when they first came out on the ps2, grabbed the collection for the ps3 and all i gotta say is, simply epic. Had no idea what was in store when I was started god of war 1, just finished it, my head is blown. Will be starting part 2 soon and with 3 right around the corner the timing couldn't be better. Completely sucked into the story and world, part 1 is by far one of the greatest games ever made, on to part 2 and from what I hear it's even better wow, rock on.
 
onken said:
Uh 2 games + all the additional content/challenges for $40 and you give a B- for value?

As clearly stated, the review was for only the first game. $20 is the Greatest Hits price for the game, so that's not THAT special. Finally, the grade is not about price but about replay value. God of War does not inspire me to want replay the game many times.
 

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
RedRedSuit said:
As clearly stated, the review was for only the first game. $20 is the Greatest Hits price for the game, so that's not THAT special. Finally, the grade is not about price but about replay value. God of War does not inspire me to want replay the game many times.

So, despite all those good features of the game, you really have no desire to ever play it again? It saddens me that unless there are explicit rewards in a game, people can't muster the motivation to play it again, even if they really liked it.

The whole concept of replay value as a separate review factor needs to be dropped as it doesn't seem at all independent of the other scores (graphics, gameplay, etc).
 
hey_it's_that_dog said:
So, despite all those good features of the game, you really have no desire to ever play it again?

I first played it in 2005. The second time I felt the desire to replay it was in 2010 (when it was majorly remastered, and when I more or less forgot what the game felt like). That speaks for itself. A game with a lot of value is either long (while staying fun throughout!) or one that is enjoyable to replay in various different ways.

It saddens me that unless there are explicit rewards in a game, people can't muster the motivation to play it again, even if they really liked it.

That's not what this is. I will consistently not replay games even if there ARE rewards -- cool ones, even -- if I don't feel it's going to be all that enjoyable the 2nd, 3rd, etc. time around. It's not about rewards or achievement/trophy whoring, though those are nice, too. It's about engaging the player in different/exciting ways for a prolonged period of time. God of War doesn't do that IMO. As you can see by my overall grade, I don't really hold it against the game, as (a) it's typical of the genre, and (b) it more than makes up for it in other ways.

The whole concept of replay value as a separate review factor needs to be dropped as it doesn't seem at all independent of the other scores (graphics, gameplay, etc).

I disagree. A game can be super-awesome while it lasts, but this can be fleeting. For example, if I were to review CoD4 as a single-player game only, I'd give it a quite high mark for gameplay and graphics -- as I enjoyed both very much -- but a very low mark for value -- as the game is a 100% linear tube with no variation upon subsequent replays (just insane frustration on Veteran). Gameplay score = how fun it is. Value score = how much fun the game provides over time (note that a game being long due to long sections of crap does not increase this score). Both are valuable pieces of information.

I do think that many review sites, like IGN, assign random scores to Value, however.
 
Blu_LED said:
I thought they said they locked this at 60 FPS? I played the first troll part in the first game last night, in the Athens courtyard, and I feel like I was getting some major frame drops that I don't remember seeing in the PS2 version.
I notice some framerate drops when there are lots of orbs on screen. Probably too many alpha effects at once, or something the PS2 was faster at processing. It's a rare occurrence though and the game is still 60fps about 99.99% of the time.
 

JDS 1977

Banned
hey_it's_that_dog said:
So, despite all those good features of the game, you really have no desire to ever play it again? It saddens me that unless there are explicit rewards in a game, people can't muster the motivation to play it again, even if they really liked it.

The whole concept of replay value as a separate review factor needs to be dropped as it doesn't seem at all independent of the other scores (graphics, gameplay, etc).

I loved these games for the epic experience they were. The music and the atmosphere and everything were excellent.

I would totally replay them except for all the annoying parts I had to die on 50 times. Spike column. Fiery swingy thing beam walking.. underwater moving wall thing... push button and awkwardly fly/jump through opening and of course messing up Zeus qte,dying and being forced to re watch cut scene on each new attempt.

Obviously most people are better at this stuff than me, but I don't think my sanity would last through some of that crap again.
 
Heads up, my GAF brothers: God of War Collection is now U$29.99 @ Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002NN7AKU/?tag=neogaf0e-20
:D I think it's a great price for two awesome games now in HD. For those still undecided, enjoy! I'm not sure if this has been posted already (apologies if it has), but the search is acting up on me. I didn't want to create a new thread (there seems to be quite a lot of things on sale @ Amazon.com, saw Uncharted: Drake's Fortune @ U$18.00) but if anybody wants to do it, go ahead.
 

Oni Jazar

Member
RedRedSuit said:
The puzzles aren't hard, but they're not brain-dead a-la Uncharted, either (in fact, here's a tip for Uncharted 3: combine combat WITH puzzle-solving sometimes.

You make a good point about the puzzles in Uncharted. They need to be more like God of War instead of whatever namby pamby time wasters they have currently do.
 
Good review RedRedSuit. I might pick it up since its been years since I last played the games. I agree about the Puzzles. Uncharted simply tells you how everything should look, and your job is to do it. In my opinion, Soul Reaver had some of the best puzzles of any game. I barely recall any puzzle in specific, but remember having fun solving them.
 

Miggytronz

Gold Member
FunkyPajamas said:
Heads up, my GAF brothers: God of War Collection is now U$29.99 @ Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002NN7AKU/?tag=neogaf0e-20
:D I think it's a great price for two awesome games now in HD. For those still undecided, enjoy! I'm not sure if this has been posted already (apologies if it has), but the search is acting up on me. I didn't want to create a new thread (there seems to be quite a lot of things on sale @ Amazon.com, saw Uncharted: Drake's Fortune @ U$18.00) but if anybody wants to do it, go ahead.


dang i knew i should of waited.
 

DonJuan

Neo Member
For those who can't get it at Amazon.com, GoW Collection is now $29.99CDN at VideoGamesPlus.

Shipping is $7.49CDN for Portugal, do not know for anywhere else.

Total is $37.48CDN, which is €25.26, $35 US dollars with shipping, so I think it is a great price for an awesome collection.
 

fixuis

Member
Just Finished god of war 2 as well. Holy shit it's on now. Totally breathtaking ride from start to finish. This series totally ranks up there along with the lord of the rings movies in terms of epicness and grabbing its audience into a surreal world of fantasy and non stop action. Amazing. Can't wait for god of war 3.

it sucks that athena died, maybe she'll come back in some form in part 3
 

nyong

Banned
It's pretty good so far.

Is there any sort of NG+ feature in GoW1? Do my purchased upgrades carry into higher difficulty settings?
 

Mest30

Banned
I'm stuck in GOW2. After the fight with
Medusa's sister,
you proceed into the next room that is filled with switches and water.
After you slow down time and go under the first gate and hit the switch that opens the other two gates I'm guessing that you are suppose to swim very fast through the gate before it closes. But I can't do it. I tried for over an hour. I even made it to the gate before it closed several times and the Kratos just stopped and would not proceed even though the gate was still up. What am I doing wrong???
Please help me. This game is awesome, better than the first, but parts like these are soooo fucking frustrating!
 
nyong said:
It's pretty good so far.

Is there any sort of NG+ feature in GoW1? Do my purchased upgrades carry into higher difficulty settings?

None unfortunately. You can pick an alternative costume for you second playthrough though which some give infinite magic, double red orbs etc.
 
nyong said:
It's pretty good so far.

Is there any sort of NG+ feature in GoW1? Do my purchased upgrades carry into higher difficulty settings?
No, unfortunately NG+ is only in the second game. It'd be awfully nice if that weren't the case, but there you have it.
 
Mest30 said:
I'm stuck in GOW2. After the fight with
Medusa's sister,
you proceed into the next room that is filled with switches and water.
After you slow down time and go under the first gate and hit the switch that opens the other two gates I'm guessing that you are suppose to swim very fast through the gate before it closes. But I can't do it. I tried for over an hour. I even made it to the gate before it closed several times and the Kratos just stopped and would not proceed even though the gate was still up. What am I doing wrong???
Please help me. This game is awesome, better than the first, but parts like these are soooo fucking frustrating!

There's nothing fraustratin
make sure the mirror is showing the scene before Zeus kills Kratos (turn the wheel at the lower lever until you get the right picture) then countdown timer will begin. That's when you jump into the mirror
. Hope that helps
 

Mest30

Banned
Sevket-Erhat said:
There's nothing fraustratin
make sure the mirror is showing the scene before Zeus kills Kratos (turn the wheel at the lower lever until you get the right picture) then countdown timer will begin. That's when you jump into the mirror
. Hope that helps

Are you referring to the part right after the fight with
Medusa's sister? I dont recall there being a mirror at all. I walk in the room, slow down time and jump to a platform. Once on the new platform, I pull the lever and a gate opens up under water. I swim through that gate before the slowing down of the time runs out and then there is another lever to the right when you clear the gate. You pull the lever and it keeps that gate open for the duration. Then if you keep swimming, there is another lever and to the right of that lever is 2 gates. When you pull the lever, I attempt to swim thru the first gate (which is easy) and then thru the second gate but most of the time when I get to the second gate it's closed. I have made it before it closes but it wont let me go through.
. I have no idea what to do and dont remember seeing any mirror.
 
I have a problem. I'm up to the
Mt. Olympus
part of GoW1, right after you beat
Ares
, and I need about 1,000 orbs to max out my last magic. Is there anyway to get it, or am I completely out of chances?
 
Finally got this sucker and started on Hard mode straight away. Made it all the way to final Hydra boss without breaking a sweat, but the fucker killed me because I forgot its killing strategy :(
 
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