Before I get to much further in, let me answer a question you may have. If you beat the first game a few weeks ago, why did it take you so long to beat God of War II? Is there that much more content added to the game to make it longer than the eight hour game from years ago? Short answer is no there is not that much more. The long answer comes in the overview and graphics section, so read on.

In any instance, God of War II picks up shortly after the events of God of War. Kratos has taken the new mantle as the patron deity of War and warfare. He still has his anger towards the gods for tricking him into killing Ares and taking his spot. An anger that leads him to causing wars just to piss off everyone else and force Zeus to step up and take action. Action in the form of stripping Kratos of most of his power and then killing him.

The twist comes in as you die, a forced fight were you have to lose, and Gaia and the Titans recruit Kratos to kill the Sisters of Fate and go back in time to kill Zeus. Thus saving Kratos and freeing the Titans of the shackles placed upon them by the Gods. All leading to an epic battle between Kratos and Zeus and a very cliffhanger ending that leads into God of War III.

Controls:

The controls for the game are set up exactly as they were in the original version of God of War II. With the same changes for button presses and movements. Which is something that you would think to be a good thing, and it is, as long as you take a break between playing God of War and God of War II.

I actually forgot the major changes they made for the controls between the two games until I tried playing these back to back. Like pressing the R2 button no longer interacted with objects or opened containers. Through me off for a bit of the game. It was just surprising because the first time playing there was a few years between playing GoW and GoWII. This time only a matter of a day. So all the controls I got use to again, had to change between the two.

Audio:

Just as I mentioned in the God of War Review, the audio sounded a bit more crisp and exciting. Between the music and the new phrases Kratos says, it brought back all the memories of playing on a smaller system and how I thought that was epic and awesome. This time it was Legen... wait for it.. Dary. That is really all I can say about it. So hopefully you all have better sound systems at home now that you are a few years older and maybe wiser.

Graphics:

This is what is going to pain me about this review. It also is going to pain me because this almost made the game unplayable for me and this is the one game I can truly call my favorite. But God of War II on this collection would not play with any setting that was higher than 480p. At least anything outside of the first five minutes and the last ten minutes. So there was no graphical upgrade for my new version of the game at all.

Why was that? Well if you haven't read about it yet, this game was riddled with graphics glitches. One of which freezes up the PS3 because it swaps between resolution outputs ineffectively. Freezes that force a hard reset in most cases. Freezes that took an eight hour game and turned it into a two week game as I was forced every time to make my PS3 ignore that it can output at 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. All in the hopes that it wouldn't freeze. Which worked, some of the time, and lead to a lot of game saving. The only exception was the final boss fight with Zeus, where the game would freeze on any setting that wasn't 720p. Leading to me playing the final fight about thirty times before it made it all the way through.

On the plus side, the character models where a bit upgraded like in the prior game and a few new textures added. Not that I got to appreciate them unless I wanted the game to lock up on me.

Gameplay:

Just like the God of War copy in this collection, the major difference in gameplay was the addition of trophies to the title. Everything else played the same way. From mini games to puzzles in the game. Only this time around, one might actually play and upgrade a bit different so they could get the 15 Minute Fight Scene trophy. A trophy only gained by completing the long fight scene to get to the final Sister of Fate in under ten minutes. Meaning you need to find all the red orbs and level up weapons faster than magics and other things. It kind of changes the strategies.

Final Words:

Outside of the horrid game freezing issue, I would like to say I enjoyed playing through the game again. But alas, I can not. At least not from this collection or until there is a patch to fix the freezing issue. I had to force myself to complete the game just to prove that I did via trophies. All the while saving and hoping not to crash because of the graphics issues. This made the entire God of War Collection only good to get the first game in HD and to trophy whore what I could from God of War II.

Although, on the plus side for you gamers that have the new PS3 units, without backwards compatibility, these freezing issues are A MUCH LESS frequent. Most of the reported issues are coming in from the 60 and 20 GB launch PS3 units. Much like mine is. So maybe if you have a new system you won't have the hard ships I had when playing through the God of War Collection.

As stated, I am a huge God of War fan and recieved this title from SCEA. I spent 8.3 hours on my main play through, game clocked time, just to find all the nooks and crannies again. But it really did take me about two weeks due to all of the freezing and restarting.