God Of War II With Training Pants

I just finished God of War II on the Easy setting. The game is plenty hard on easy, but persistence will get you thru it. If you want to have a game experience, play it on Easy. If you want to add personal skill to the mix, play a harder level. At least when Easy is complete, you will have some options available to help make it more even.

The game is amazing from start to finish. It is like a Greek Mythology version of Shadow of the Colossus. The game is colorful and you visit and fight many of the Titans, the giants that roamed the earth in the early days of pre-history. The game never bores you with too much of the same puzzle. Sliding block puzzles, which most consider the bane of all things fun, were minimal at best. No Sokoban-worthy puzzles. Platforming is never at a hair's breadth. Even the button-reaction games are randomized to prevent Dragon's Lair type play.

When you think about it, those button-reaction games are truly games distilled to the minimum. Dragon's Lair, which I love, can be memorized. But when the moves are based on good reflexes (and how well you know where the "square" button is), it's pure action-reaction play. Considering how complicated the moves that Kratos does are, it's probably best they are simplified.

Most games have one of those levels that you play over and over and over and...you get the point. This really only happened twice in this game. Expect more at the higher difficulties. I can think of lots of time where a little less "magic" or "life" would have meant a lot more repeats.

I'm not ashamed to play at "Can I Play Daddy?" difficulty, bonnet and all. Sometimes you get a game for fun, not for torture.  Ironically, I have yet to finish the first game.

[sidebar: the real-time animation is, at times, much better than I would've thought ten years ago]