Behind the Game with the God of War II Team

N'Gai Croal's LevelUp column continues to impress, with a new feature called 'Team Assault'. Instead of the usual interview about a game with one featured speaker, Croal has gone after the people that pieced the game together: the development team. The first targets for this approach are the makers of God of War II. So far he has conversations up with Executive Producer Shannon Studstill, Lead Programmer Tim Moss, and Game Director Cory Barlog. From the first interview with Barlog: "Making these games is freaking hard work, and it can drain every ounce of life you have in you to make the 2-3 year haul, but it is worth it. It sounds weird to me to say this, but right now I am doing exactly what I want to be doing. How many people can say that? Until I started working on the original God of War, I absolutely couldn't say that. I was actually thinking about getting out of games at the time. Not sure what I was going to do, maybe become an archaeologist or something like that. But then I would more than likely be slapped in the face by the cold hard reality that I wouldn't get to carry a gun, or a whip, or fight bad guys that wear eye patches and expensive suits. So I would probably just end up coming back to games or making movies."

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[DrXym]

And of course God of War II plays well on the PS3 so whether you have a PS2 or PS3, it's still an amazing title.

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[Vampyre_Dark]

Good classic art direction, and substance will always beat out fancy new graphical tricks. Squaresoft is another developper who knows how to pull the most out of any system, and their games tend to look like the hardware they are running on shouldn't be able to handle it.

Not that the new graphical tricks are bad. But they will never compensate for mediocre art.

GoW vs. GoW

[tepples]

Please don't use the abbreviation GoW in a comparison between PlayStation family and Xbox family consoles. I can't always tell where you're talking about God or Gears.

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[arsynth]

Hmmmm.......You would think that an article title "Behind the Game with the God of War II Team" that you could tell which GoW was being referenced.

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[winmine]

But GoW is better than GoW. It's no wonder that the system it's on is winning.

recommend game

[netdur]

I just done playing GoW2 and I'm replaying GoW1 in "very hard" mode just because I have no idea what to play next... what would you Slashdotters recommend to me? I love games such as God of War, Prince of Persia, Mortal Kombat, Hitman, Silent Hill... my PC runs Ubuntu exclusive and I have (offline) PS2 console

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[art03]

DMC1, DMC3, Maximo, MGS1,2 and 3 the list goes on and on.

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[Inverted Intellect]

Seeing as how you like GoW and PoP, I'm surprised not to see Devil May Cry on that list. You should try those, nr. 1 and 3 are great, though you might want to skip nr. 2.

They they boast some very intense gameplay, though the combat tends to be somewhat overly stylized.

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[hansamurai]

I really like the Onimusha series. Each game (there are four of them for the PS2) is pretty unique in its own right but deep down they're very fun hack and slash action games. You can probably pick up all four for about 60 bucks now which is pretty good.

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[netdur]

thank you guys, gotta get DMC1 and 3 first :)

Just played both 1 and 2 recently...

[Samurai Cat!]

Went to pick up GoW 2 and the kid at the counter was like "you REALLY ought to get GoW and play it first". I figured, another $20, no prob.

So I had the opportunity to play them fresh, back to back.

Now - is it just me or was the end boss fight in GoW 2 *easier* than in GoW? I struggled for dunno how long on the first one - but the second one, I nailed in a fraction of deaths.

Still - gorgeous games. Now I can't wait for GoW 3. :(

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[nonsequitor]

It is easier, but GoW didn't have an ultra-hard titan mode either. Its not really fair to compare the difficulty unless you're on the hardest setting of both games. GoW - 3 difficulty levels : GoW II - 4 difficulty levels.

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[DarkJC]

Um, yes it had an ultra-hard mode. Did you forget about God Mode?

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[nonsequitor]

Have you even played God of War II? The difficulty modes go Mortal, Spartan, God, then Titan. Which means that unless you compare God Mode from the first to Titan mode from the second the comparison is not valid. If you assume that the easy modes are the same difficulty and Titan is equivalent to God mode than the normal mode for 2 would be easier than 1 given a linear progression in difficulty. 2/4 2/3. It's simple math. Having beaten the second in Spartan mode and not being able to make it past the

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[pragma_x]

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT!

As far as the final fight goes, I'm not entirely convinced that it was easier. It's possible that some aspects of the fight slipped past the testing team on that one - I for one didn't figure out that attacking the sirens stunned Zeus until my fifth time through the fight. After that, I kept mashing the wrong button when I had Zeus on the ropes, which had me going back to the start a dozen times more.

Overall, I think the fight was more multi-dimensional, with some rudimentary puzzle

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[!coward]

*drooling* Argh, this is so unfair.. It hasn't been published yet where I live. And even though this means I get to buy the "Special Edition" at a slightly lower price (pre-ordered it through Amazon) that the normal edition will retail for, it also means I'll have to wait an extra 3-4 days before I can get my hands on it. Early May is the best estimate.

But I'm glad you guys think it's at least as rewarding as GoW1 was.. Now, can someone clear this up for me, please? What's the toughest difficulty level on G

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[pragma_x]

*drooling* Argh, this is so unfair..

My apologies for the spoiler laden post. Perhaps I should've arranged the text in the shape of Medusa's head to drive home the point. ;)

The hardest difficulty mode is called "Titan", which makes a lot more sense after you unlock it (beat the game).

And even though this means I get to buy the "Special Edition" at a slightly lower price

I have this version (well the "Two Disc Set" for North America anyway). The "Making Of" on the DVD covers some of the developer's ups and

A tad underwhelming but still very fun

[ericmedici]

I absolutely love the God of War franchise; however, God of War 2 feels rushed as I have found several bugs. Also the level of complexity with the puzzles in #2 is less than impressive. The graphics are much better; unfortunately, the controls are just as sluggish as they were in #1. My hopes for #3 are: very reactive controls, more complicated puzzles (e.g. Myst) and a bit more time in QA.