Vegieza’s Virtual Vices: God of War Collection
16 03 2010For the first time, this week’s review is of more than one game! God of War Collection is Sony’s way of getting everyone hyped for today’s (March 16, 2010) release of God of War III. I’ll have that review completed next week. God of War Collection is a port of the first two games of the series, originally only on the PS2. Now they have been re-mastered in High Definition to base all three games on one system.
PROS:
Hopefully this is a trend. Having the first two games on a current system is something that hopefully Sony and other companies start doing more often. I fully expect Sony to reveal at E3 2010 that a Team ICO Collection of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus will be released shortly before the third game, The Last Guardian. The convenience of not having to dust off your PS2 is awesome, and that’s all most people have, as most PS3s do not have backwards compatibility.
It has some visual upgrades. It wasn’t recoded to be in true HD, but the scaling does improve both games quite a bit, more so in the second one than the first. The frame-rate is now at a perfect 60fps (frames per second), and there is none of the screen tearing that was pretty noticeable in both games on the PS2. The frame-rate actually does make a noticeable difference in the fluidity of the combat.
It’s worth the money. If you love the God of War series, then to have both 1 and 2 re-mastered in HD on a current platform is definitely worth the budget price of $40. Both games are about 10 hours the first times through, and there are hours of documentary videos for both games.
There are two sets of trophies, a set for each game. I’m not a trophy whore (achievements ftw), but most of them on both are easy to collect. This is double the fun for a gamer, especially if the player hasn’t played either game before.
If you are new to these and happen to love them, then you’ll get a lot of re-playability out of these games. I’ve personally played God of War 6 times and God of War II 4 times now, with a count added to each because of Collection. It’s only just now starting to get old to me.
CONS:
No Chains of Olympus. If would’ve taken a lot of work to put the PSP’s God of War: Chains of Olympus onto the PS3, but it would’ve been the cherry on the God of War Collection sundae.
No extra content. There are a lot of documentary videos, but they’re what came with the games originally.
Cutscenes and documentaries are not in HD. In-game cutscenes look pretty muddy, and the documentaries are less than DVD quality or less. The Collection is meant to be played on a large HDTV, and these videos don’t stand the test of time.
And speaking of standing the test of time: even with its slight upgrade to HD, the first game doesn’t look near as good as it did when you first played it on the PS2. Or if you’re playing it for the first time, it’ll look pretty old.
Widescreen stretches the HUD. For those that know me, one of my worst pet peeves is incorrect aspect ratios. It bothers me to no end. The sides of the gameplay’s view are just extended to show more on the screen at once, but the HUD (heads-up display) is instead stretched wider. All circular things are now ovals, and so on. It personally gets to me.
There you have it. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get this and God of War III, play them all through in one continuous sitting, and then die happy while shouting, “Ares!”
Categories : Vegieza's Virtual Vices, Video Games






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