I can't get past just how good God of War II is.

It's like eating my favorite ice cream. I'm sitting there as I play through the game thinking, man this is a lot of fun.

I haven't played through anywhere near the entire game, but that pretty sizable chunk I have played through leaves me wondering when God of War 3 is coming out on the PS3. Yah,. I know, probably never. But that game's that good.

For those of you who liked God of War, you will love God of War II, for those of you who didn't, what's wrong with you.

Hit the jump for some spoilers for more details about what I liked and, yes, some spoilers.

SPOILER ALERT

The biggest problem the developers had in making a sequel to God of War, in my opinion, was how the first ended. Where do you go from there?

The answer comes in the form of a rich plot worthy of the Greek mythology it is plucked from. The game opens up with Athena taking from you a good part of your godhead and then siccing a giant colossus statue on you.

That first boss battle is the one you play in the second demo, the one I reviewed a bit back, and is in fact the opening for the game. It weaves together the button-timing monster attacks of a boss battle with some easy puzzle solving, some light platforming and plenty of over-the-top attacks and cinematics.

At some point during the battle, you end up having to pour your remaining god abilities into a sword to take on the giant statue and, as you can probably guess, that doesn't end well.

This amazing, and lengthy, opening series of battles starts you down a familiar path that is rich in Greek mythology, original storytelling and some inventive gameplay.

As I said earlier, I haven't finished the game yet, but I have spent enough time to play through a couple of levels with that flaming Pegasus.

I was a little worried that these flying levels would stray too far from the heart of the game to be enjoyable, but I was wrong. Despite playing a bit like a shooter in parts, the levels still have that hack and slash, cinematic feel that makes this franchise so much fun to play.

While at its heart God of War II is very similar to God of War, that's a good thing. The team managed to stay true to the polished play of the original while finessing enough new ideas into the sequel to make it a worthy edition to a fantastic franchise.

I've only gone through a small chunk of the game, but if I were to rate it today it would likely fall in the A range. Brian Crecente

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