Review that came too late ... God of War:Ghost of Sparta

Finally got my PSP analog stick fixed after it was spoilt by the frantic gaming session of this game, so what’s in my mind? Continue the madness of course...haha. My analog control went kaput during one of the boss fight in the game but I think it’s worth it with the quality of portable gaming here. Just completed another masterpiece here with the 2nd serving of God of War on the PSP. Let’s the madness begins....

Storyline.

Well, Kratos is a very angry god so what can possibly be the best storyline for the game? Make him madder of course. Below are the storyline thanks to Wikipedia...

An oracle foretold that the demise of Olympus would come not by the revenge of the great Titans, who had been imprisoned after the Great War, but by a marked warrior. The Olympians Zeus and Ares believed this warrior to be Deimos, the brother of Kratos, due to his strange birthmarks. Ares interrupts the childhood training of Kratos and Deimos (with Athena watching) and kidnaps Deimos. Kratos attempts to stop Ares, but is swept aside and scarred (across his right eye) by the Olympian. Ares attempts to kill him, but Athena stops him, knowing Kratos' destiny. Taken to Death's Domain, Deimos is imprisoned and tortured by the god of death, Thanatos.

Kratos, the Ghost of Sparta, has taken Ares' place as the new God of War on Mount Olympus. Still haunted by visions of his mortal past, Kratos decides- against the advice of the goddess, Athena -to explore his past and travels to the Temple of Poseidon, located within the city of Atlantis. The sea monster, Scylla, attacks and destroys Kratos' vessel off the coast of Atlantis, although the Spartan drives the beast off. After a series of skirmishes across the city, Kratos eventually kills Scylla.

Kratos also locates his ailing mother, Callisto, who attempts to reveal the identity of his father. When Callisto is suddenly transformed into a hideous beast, Kratos is forced to battle her, and before dying, Callisto thanks Kratos and beseeches him to seek out his brother Deimos in Sparta. Before departing from Atlantis, Kratos encounters and frees the trapped Titan, Thera, which causes the eruption of an underground volcano, and subsequently destroys the city. During Kratos' escape he has another encounter with the enigmatic Grave Digger, who warns of the consequences of alienating the gods.

After a battle with Erinys, the daughter of Thanatos, Kratos arrives in Sparta and witnesses a group of Spartans tearing down a statue of Ares, intent on replacing it with an image of Kratos. After killing the Piraeus Lion and a dissenter in the Spartan Jails and an encounter with the spirit of his child self in the Temple of Ares, Kratos learns he must return to the now sunken Atlantis and locate the Domain of Death. Before leaving, a loyal Spartan provides Kratos with his former weapons- used during Kratos' days as a Captain of the Spartan army -the Arms of Sparta.

Entering the Domain of Death, Kratos eventually locates his imprisoned brother Deimos and frees him. Enraged that Kratos failed to rescue him sooner and stating he will never forgive Kratos, Deimos attacks Kratos, but the god Thanatos- responsible for Deimos' torture -intervenes. Thanatos takes Deimos against his will to Suicide Bluffs (the site of Kratos' suicide attempt), where Kratos saves Deimos from falling to his death. A grateful Deimos then aids Kratos in battling the god. Thanatos kills Deimos but is destroyed, in turn, by Kratos. Kratos, remarking that his brother is finally free, places Deimos in his grave (leaving the Arms of Sparta as a grave marker), and is warned by the enigmatic Grave Digger who once aided him not to alienate the gods, stating Kratos has become "Death...the Destroyer of Worlds."

Athena begs for forgiveness (offering full godhood and even acknowledging Kratos as her brother) for not revealing the truth, but Kratos ignores her, returning to Olympus promising that "the gods will pay for this."

In a post credits scene, the Grave Digger places Callisto in a grave near Deimos (with an empty third grave nearby) and states "Now... only one remains." The final scene is a brooding Kratos sitting on his throne on Mount Olympus.

A long winded story but nice enough to connect all the missing dots to link each of the events in God of War. Pretty engaging and nice to follow with a lot of referrence to the Greek mythology as well as history such as the fall of Atlantis, demise of King Midas...very colorful indeed.

Gameplay

It’s hard to perfect an item which is already perfect to start with, and this can be very well used here. The core is like any God of War game with a lot of killing and some puzzle element and mini-game to extend the playability. The control is smooth and tight for an action game and you won’t be dying due to sucky control anytime soon. As with every God of War game the only weapon that is recycled is your dual-blade and others will be new original weapon. It’s cool and doesn’t feel like it’s a lazy port from the previous game. Some enemies will trigger a mini-game sequence for finisher which is dramatic and violent. The boss fights were as fantastic as ever with it’s larger than life scale and frantic actions.

Graphic

Simply one of the most beautiful game on the PSP. It takes every power on the device to recreate fantastic Greek landscape both outdoor and indoor to give you the best view and feel on the scale of event that is happening. The game takes you from Atlantis to Sparta and to Death’s Domain which all does not look like Copy and Paste work with distinguish feature and effects as well. A game fitting to be called the pinnacle game for PSP. A few place were kinda dark but fixable with brightness adjustment. The details on the world landscape like lava and water are done to perfection and Kratos just look as convincing as ever. Definitely an eye candy and power demonstrator for the PSP.

Sound

Another 5 star performance for the game as the soundtrack sounds grand and engaging all the time. It tends to keep your heart pumping even with just the BG alone. The sound effect were not shabby too to keep us engaged on the game itself.

Overall

The game itself worth 10 over 10 with all this improvement over the previos God of War as well as show the PSP still have it’s power and capability. A must play for all the God of War fans as well as PSP owner.

Review that came too late ... Ghost Trick - NDS

Ghost Trick

With the NDS you can expect game’s to be extraordinary and I can tell you I am not surprised that this is another title that can just do the job. Ghost Trick were released near the end-life of the NDS and by the very same team that brings us the Phoenix Wright series. They are known to have great storyline and gameplay so I was very anticipated with the game’s release. It’s a adventure point and click based game which will demand our logical thinking on solving the puzzle itself. So let’s not waste more time and proceed with the retro review.

Storyline

The core of a good puzzle game to me is a strong and interesting story to carry it. Ghost Trick didn’t failed on this segment as the game is just like any typical Japan manga...you will never know what hit you. It all started out as you getting killed...yes..you read me right, you startup dead and play as a dead guy for the rest of the game...not the best start one can get. You are a spirit who is fresh from dead. So you end up in the crime scene with lost memories being murdered by a detective except your name were Sissel. So after you were briefed by a fellow spirit that you got the power to manipulate things like a poltergeist for the whole night until sunrise, you are off to an adventure to remember who you are and what happened that night. You will encounter a detective who killed you and you saved her a few times to reveal that another detective were to be executed that night for murdering his wife, which you will save as well as you found out he is innocent. You will save a few characters as well such as the Minister of Justice from his heart attack when he knew his daughter were kidnapped and was demanded that Detective Jowd must be executed. We will save Detective Jowd’s daughter and her dog Missile as well. Seems like there’s a lot of people to save, huh? Then only you found out all this was planned by …. SISSEL. Ya, I was shocked to when I saw the real puppeteer behind the whole deal is a guy which you thought you were....Then it reveal that Sissel was a victim of Detective Jowd’s case and hit by a meteorite on the faithful night. With the meteorite, he is kinda immortal and able to control people. So he planned the whole things to get revenge on Detective Jowd and whoever who framed her on that night including the girl you saved earlier and Inspector Cabanela. Then he will sell his power for moving out from the country to another country before realizing he was double-crossed at the very last hour. This is the pivotal point of the story when Sissel realized all his actions were wrong and we were able to go back to 4 min before the event thanks to your power. All ends well at the end where the whole incident were able to be prevented.

Gameplay

It’s a puzzle game at heart with the use of stylus. Inside the game you played as a spirit which have the ability to control and manipulate non-living objects like poltergeist (hence named Ghost Trick), but you have no ability to move on your own other than jumping from item to item. So you will rely on the items lying around for transportation while fulfilling the stage’s goal which normally involves saving one’s life to checking certain items in the game. It doesn’t get bored at all after a few stages but it does get frustrated though as it takes a lot of trial and error with limited of help from the game itself. Later part in the game you will be able to control different souls which will grant you different abilities as well to make the game a little bit more challenging than before. But it’s also have it’s downfall as it’s a very linear game whereby you have no more than 1 way to solve the puzzle meaning the replay value of the game will drop and may not be as attractive on the second play. Nonetheless, it’s still one heck of a great game not to be missed.

Graphic

Even with the limited power in the NDS, it’s still a great eye-candy with those smooth 2-D animation. The whole game is played from the 2D side view so it’s like the whole building or vehicle is cut into half so you can really see what happen inside. It looks real cool and each of the characters have their own style of movement and animations to give identity to each of them. Colors are used wisely to create a comical but detective-noir feel in it. You’ll never get bored watching this game and animation as well.

Sound

NDS’s game size doesn’t really allow it to keep large sized music file but yet the developers just managed to do their charm in each of the game, the BG music fits every stage like a glove and the sound effect though is cartoonish but it just fits the game well. No voice-over for this game but it’s not like this game will need one anyway.

Overall

The game itself is a keeper with limited gameplay time. 16 Stages will average around 16 gameplay hours depends on your trial-and error skills. The game itself will charm you with it’s interesting story and unique gameplay with it’s one of the kind graphic. A definite charm for every NDS lover.

Friday ....

Today is Friday and it sure means a lot to most regular workers as it means the end of the working week and the starting of the weekend to rest or do whatever they plan to. Sure it’s the favourite day of most people but how about the Fridays during our childhood? I think I like my Fridays as a child starting since primary ….

During my primary years, Friday had always been sweet. There will be early cartoons on TV2 which is a kinda treat to a boy who get restriction time watching cartoon. Then as the malays get the privilege to pray means we non-muslims get later to start our school or earlier release for the morning session. This is like a sweet day for school goers. While in primary, we will ave extended session of “Konda-kondi”, “gasing” or “bola popiah”. As I grow to the later stage of the primary, we will involved either in game of bottle cap or kad “terup” of airplanes/bikes/cars and etc. Since I was a bookworm since my primary I will find myself spending extra hours as well in the new library reading all the past copies of Mingguan Didikku and story books as well as my favorite information books. That was for my primary years so how about the secondary years?

The secondary years is more towards my video gaming era. No thanks to my best buddy, Jimmy Chong to intro me to a haven of video gaming (Game Wizard). Since my school bus will be fetching me at around 11.15 AM so I will have more than 2 hours time to spent for the day in the haven. It will be either some light SNES gaming or some sharing with my buddies for the so call big-machine (Neo Geo) for some Samurai Shodown action. The shop only have 2 Neo Geo with 1 copy of Samurai Shodown 2 so in order to get it first I will sprint there just that we could get hold of a copy of it. Else I will wander around Yik Foong window shopping through video gaming shops for new titles or sneak peeks of game intros. After I was introduced to MRPGA I get to know of MTG and will spent the time in an empty class MTGing until the class started or the bus arrive.

Friday sure brings a lot of fun last time and just as good now in reality working life I guess...so how did your Fridays pass then?