Tuesday, May 25, 2010

God of war II Notes

New game on Normal

Kratos sits on his throne as God of War, surrounded by women. He is shunning the other Gods and basically aiding the Spartans to conquer the world. Athena comes to him and tells him that she can't protect him from the other Gods if he carries on with this course. Kratos tells her that he won't and he owes her nothing. Still bitter about the Gods earlier treatment of him in the first game. He goes down to Rhodes to deliver the final blow to the city as it falls to the Spartans. Athena follows and makes Kratos shrink down to mortal size and makes a huge statue at the cities harbour come alive.
Square for light attack
Triangle for heavy attack
Circle to grab.
L2 for magic.
Right stick for evasion.
Left stick for movement of Kratos.
R1 is use or open.
We start in a sealed chamber and have a load of soldiers to fight.
We then open the door by spamming circle and come out into a corridor.
Through a hole in the wall and out onto a rooftop.
The statue attacks here as do soldiers.
A ballista must be fired at the statue after wearing down it's health as it swipes it's hand at you. You hit the hand after is slams down.
Once worn down the statue slumps and is still for a few seconds. Time to fire the ballista then fire yourself at the statue.
Quicktime sequence as you clamber onto it and jab it in the eye. It grabs Kratos and hurls him across the city. We land in a swimming pool.
There is a sex mini-game here.
Down through the bottom of the pool is a tunnel leading to another room. Here we have a save point and a switch, the switch brings out a grapple point which allows us to grab onto with R1 and swing around.
In the next room the statue tries to stomp Kratos, we have to hammer circle to prevent this.
We get to use climbing up a wall.
Now a boss battle with the statue. It stands at chest level in a large horseshow shape, there is a grapple point in the middle to get across to either side of the semi circle.
The statue pounds at you and you have to dodge and wear down it's health. When you do it slumps and places it's arm near a wheel at either tip of the horseshoe. You go over to it and press circle. Then some quicktime and rinse and repeat.
The statue throws you away again once you have completed this section.
We land in a courtyard then into some corridors for fighting with soldiers.
There is a block we can slide about by holding R1 and we can kick it by holding x and charging out kick.
Pressure plates must be used to progress here.
There is a lift which takes us to a small room with a window, the statue looks in and we get to jab it in the eye. The room must be hit as the whole thing collapses and we end up in rubble at another courtyard.
Zeus talks to Kratos and offers the blade of Olympus to help him in his fight. Kratos is suspicious of Zeus' motives.
We come along a bridge and then through a bulding and out onto an area with lots of balance beams. There are soldiers underneath which once taken care of make the balancing a lot easier.
We go down through a chain rope then get surprised by the statue which knocks a bridge out from under you.
Now we are onto a second stage of the boss battle with the statue, again at chest height it slams at you. The blade of Olympus which Zeus has left for you stands stuck in the centre of the dias. You have to wear down the statues health then it will slump for a bit, allowing you to drain your powers into the blade. This is supposed to charge it and make it effective in killing the statue. Sounds like a trick to me, but Kratos is falling for it so we have no other option but to comply. The statue does a ground pound which makes a pattern appear on the ground that must be avoided. It also slams and swipes at you.
You get to hurl a piece of it's own hand it it. Then use magic. Then just hit it as it swipes.
Eventually all your magic and health bars are drained down to minimal.
You get the sword to wield and this really does hurt the statue, it uses the stump of it's hand like a blow torch here. At the culmination of this scene you break through into the guts of the statue.
Inside are lots of soldiers and wooden platforms. There is glowing blue beams as well and sticking the sword into these drains the energy that Athena put into the statue.
We climb to the top draining nodes as we go. Lots of all the varieties of clambering here.
At the top is a puzzle beams of energy come from a node and link to the statues eye, we are inside it's head. We have to lower a pendulum with a switch, make it swing by hitting it. Then raise the pendulum back up. A rope can then be safely traversed by timing your crossing with the pendulum.
This drains the power from the statue entirely and we jump out of it's mouth. In cut scene Kratos jumps from the mouth as the statue blows up. He stands on the dias shouting at the Gods and isn't watching as the statue's hand falls on him. Kratos is mortal now and is badly hurt, all his armour falls from him. He staggers towards the blade of Olympus.
Zeus arrives and tells Kratos that he was tricked and is now going to pay for plotting to kill Zeus. Which is news to me. Kratos and Zeus fight and it is inevitable that Zeus wins here and plunges the sword of Olympus into Kratos. Zeus then rubs salt in the wound and destroys every last man of the Spartan army.
Kratos dies and is taken by the arms of Haded into hell.
Gaia intervenes the titan, she tells Kratos that the titans will aid him and he must seek out the sisters of fate in order to find a way to kill Zeus.
We now are clambering around in hell and have to swipe away lots of arms and get back out of the hole in the dias where we fought the statue and Zeus.
A spartan remains alive, Kratos tells him to go back to Sparta and raise another army.
A winged horse arrives for Kratos.
Now we have a flight sequence where we fight with gryphons and other type of bird flying into the screen in a space harrier style.
The enemies can be cut with our blades or rammed with the horse.
Occasionally you wear down enemies health and get a circle and a quicktime sequence of stunning violence.
Kratos flies into a cave and we see a Stone titan in here. The horse is trapped by the hand of the titan. We have to find a way to free it.
We now have some clambering and fighting with soldiers on the walls. We can hang from ceilings now, which is new to this game.
We come out of the icy tunnels and onto the cliff side. Snow is falling heavily.
There are some mintotaurs here to deal with and archers on scaffolds we can destroy.
On a huge hand like statue we find a Prometheus who gave fire to mortals, Zeus has sentenced him to be chained here forever and a bird eats his guts every day and kills him, then he is healed and the torture never ends. He begs Kratos for release.
I give him a few swipes with the blades to see what happens, he falls off the hand and dangles by the chain over a fire. We can't seem to do anything else at present so I carry on down the path.
We meet our first gorgons and harpies in a fight trap.
Shiny areas can be interacted with, we knock over some icicles and make a new pathway.
Then we are at the Titan's head, he is called Typhon, we have to run along narrow ledges fighting Harpies and avoiding his freezing breath as he tries to blow us off the ledges to our death. We then push over a rock to make a bridge up close to his eye. Using his eye as a grapple point Kratos launches over and stabs the titan in the eye then steals Typhon's Bane, a bow from his eye.
This is a ranged weapon, Holding L2 makes a target appear over a nearby enemy and then pressing square lets loose a bolt of energy. We get to shoot Typhon in the other eye then take out some soldiers and archers. We have to shoot away a cage blocking a grapple point and grapple back out away from the now blind Typhon.
We make our way back out to the cliffside again. We can shoot out some grapple points and bring down a rope to make a shortcut. Back at Prometheus we shoot the chain and knock him into the fire. He burns up and Gaia tells us that he is now free.
We get the rage of the titans in return for helping him.
This is a meter that fills and when full we can use it for a limited time of increased power in all attacks.
The only alternative is to go back the path I came. At the titan's hand I realise you can now use the rage of the titans to make the fingers move, each one must be hit in turn and Pegasus is freed.
We now have another flying sequence. We are going to the Island of Creation where we will find the sisters of Fate. They can take us back in time and we can change what happened.
Yet more fighting with birds and bird riders until we get to the island.
On the Island  we clamber up the side onto the temple. Here we fight soldiers. We climb up into a large courtyard. There are dogs and skeletons hanging from chains above the courtyard. The dogs are killed and I find that a fresh body falls from the chains rather than just disintegrating like the skeletons do. This body is used in a nearby puzzle. We take the body down in a lift then place it on a pressure pad. We can then use a crank to open both sets of double doors. By using the body I have time to run and dodge through the doors before they close.
In this next room we come out onto a balcony and see the Island of creation in the distance, we still need to cross from this temple to it. Kratos speaks to Gaia and asks why she is helping him. Gaia goes into the history of Zeus. His mother had to give up all her children to Cronos the titan to eat. She kept Zeus away from Cronos and tricked him. Gaia raised Zeus.
We now climb along a crumbling ledge into a square area. Here we fight a three headed dog and some small dogs.
Then a block puzzle has to be solved to move on. In the next area we have a lot of clambering around underneath structures.
Then a fight on top of that structure with dogs, soldiers and archers.
Then we go inside and down in a lift to a large cylindrical room. Here we have to fight sirens, each time one dies their scream cracks the door a little until we can leave the room.
Now we can see the steeds of time in the distance. A gift from Cronos to the sisters of fate to curry favour.
We cross from the temple to the steeds by the chains that hold them to the temple. There is a locked door on the back of each steed. We have a lever to pull which lets down a rope to slide to the next steed. Here we meet Theseus who is the keeper of the keys. We have to fight him.
He starts of attacking us with his staff and once we have him worn down he jumps onto the top of the door and fires down at us. Two minotaurs spawn and we have to take care of them while avoiding his groundspike attack and fire from above. We can fire at him using our bow and after two sets of minotaurs I have him worn down. Inside is a book telling us about Cronos.
there is a door leading to the top of the steeds. I cross back to the first steed and enter it's door. Here Chronos talks to us and gives us his rage power.
This is a magic attack that makes blue balls of lightning envelop up to three enemies.
We are now free to wander around on top of the steeds. There is a control on the yoke that tethers the steeds together it has four colours on it and there is a corresponding colour on the brow of the steeds.
Turning the crank at each colour makes a lock open up on the brow of the horse. There is a time limit before it shuts again. I get the easiest red one and insert the horse key. The blinkers are taken off the steed. Looks like we have to get them all unbllinkered.
Specific Harpies can be uses as grapple points here. I manage to get two more horses unblinkered fairly easily.
The last one is easy as well. That was far too easy.
We turn a switch and the platform rises. We now have to do some quicktime to whip the steeds with Kratos' blades. This  results in a cut scene where the steeds come to life and pull on the chains, they pull the island closer to the temple so that we can now get across the gap we saw earlier. Looks like some backtracking.
back to the temple it is.
We clamber around the temple walls and find a way into a new area with a large statue.
There are some new large fly type enemies here that explode when you kill them.
This temple is a puzzle. The hands of the statues come down when you stand on a pressure pad, however there is no way to weight the pad from here.
Down below there is a gate with a switch that only lowers it halfway.
A pool in the middle has a fountain that can be shifted aside to reach a tunnel underwater down to the other side of the gate.
In this chamber a statue provides us with the amulet of the fates.
The amulet of the fates allows us to slow time for a limited period of time.
We use this instead of a weight on the pressure plate, we have to use it twice to get up the statue's face. Simply stand on the pressure plate and then slow time to have enough time to make the jump.
The fate statue tells Kratos that he won't get what he wants, so he smashes it.
The head falls into the courtyard outside which is where the gap was earlier that we could not cross.
We fight some wraiths and flies here.
Then down into a two tierd square. We are blocked in by a blue barrier being generated from the eyes of a statue. We have to move statues that have shields into place to block the beams. One of the statues is trapped by a lip and needs to be taken up on a lift and kicked over the lip.
There is a cyclops or three to fight as well.
We go through the gates into a new area we are in a bog and heading to a spire we can see in the distance where the sisters of fate live.
A horseman attacks and drags Kratos behind him for a bit in quicktime. This is the barbarian king that was about to defeat Kratos when he appealed to Ares in the first game. He has clawed his way back from hades to fight Kratos.
This is a fun boss fight. He starts on the horse and is surrounded by souls. He rides around and attacks. Using the bow is the best way of attacking him.
The first circle event sees you kill his horse. He then attacks with his hammer and conjours souls to fight against you. He then grows bigger and keeps  on going with the hammer. He strikes the dias and makes it smaller at times as well.
Eventually you get another circle event and quicktime him to death with his own hammer.
We get the barbarian hammer as a prize.
We continue through the forest to the temple of Eurayle.
Lots of bones outside and snake haired women on the door, looks like gorgon city.
To one side of the main door I find a locked gate that needs Euryale's key and on the other side I find a dead man with the key. A soldier in the distance asks for our help as he is carried away by minotaurs.
At the medusa door skeletons appear. the doorstep is a trap and anything standing on the step gets turned to stone by gorgon green beams.
On the other side we can use the key to open a gate. This takes us into an area where me meet cyclops for the first time. When they die we pull out their eye. Little soldiers can ride the Cyclops and be protected by them.
Once the cyclops are done with we can enter a ruin. There is a part of the ruin that moves around dangerously as we go from side to side. Although it does not look like it is actually going to fall apart just yet. There is a movable block here though it does not look like the time for this puzzle is at hand yet. There is a door to go through.
Inside are some corridors then a door out into another cave like area.
Here we fight some flies and wraiths before knocking down some rocks to make a grapple point available Some extended grappling here.
An area with a vine rope to scale for extra items. Then some new fireball hurling soldiers.
We have to knock down pillars here to get to them then rock a pillar back and forth which brings down some masonary and opens the path.
The next dias room has a gate which is operated by two pressure pads. There is a lever as well. The lever opens a gate where we can find a body to put on one of the pressure pads.
There are false walls with little flowing water chambers behind the gates. There are two flame soldiers as well.
I find I can use the bow to shoot away some vegetation from a grapple point and get up to some secret items. There are bits of body floating in the water but I can't pick them up.
The secret is to put the body in the water so it circles around the stream to the other side and you can place it on the leftmost switch, this is prevented normally by a set of spikes which you can't jump when carrying things.
The switch there can now be depressed with the body and you can make the gap between the gate and the middle pressure plate. It wasn't obvious and I needed a walkthrough here.
We come out onto a river side and see more spartans in trouble at the hands of the monsters.
We have to negotate three diases on rivers which are moved by cranks, soldiers run interference.
In the next area a rock monster attacks. We have to pull over a tree to make a new path.
Now we have a vine to negotiate. In the next area is a large spinning wheel. Behind a door is a statue that we can use to slow time.
Over the wheel we go and into a corridor with a conveyor belts and lots of beams that turn you to stone. Soldiers provide the fun here and make it hard to get along the corridor without getting turned to stone and smashed.
I push a block out of the wall here to make a door and we end up back at the rocking piece of temple. Pushing  the second block over to the far right makes two blocks and the temple leans a bit further over. We can now get Kratos to push the whole thing over.
This makes a path for us, some clambering and knocking out bushes to progress.
In the next area are some stone creatures and a dying man. He tells us that Jason is here with the golden fleece and they are trying to kill Medusa. Didn't we kill her in the last game?
There is a large grinding wheel in the way here of us getting into Jason and the beast that is holding him captive. I find that we have to pick up the body of the wounded soldier and toss him into the grinder which breaks it and we can smash it with our blades.
The creature that has Jason is a three headed dog and we have to fight it. Jason looks a little worse for wear as the creature has it's arm in it's mouth.
Eventually I wear it down and we get the golden fleece which can bee used to deflect enemy projectiles and beams. We have to tap L1 at the moment before impact.
We now have to get back to the medusa temple door. We can use the fleece to open it now as we can reflect back the gorgon beam and blow the door open.
Inside the temple we have some soldiers then down a ladder into a square for large gollums with flaming poles. Also soldiers in numbers here.
We come to a room with two crank elevators. A soldiers steals the crank from the far away one. Both move at once with the one crank and you have to make them stay half way up the shafts so that you can jump onto the lift when it's higher than ground level. You can then climb up the shaft. A soldiers then a save point.
Now we have whirling razor blades to negotiate whilst hanging from the roof. A puzzle with a spike trap. You have to pull a lever and lift a door before the spike trap gets you.
In the next area is the boss battle with Euyrale, she is a bigger fatter gorgon.
She attacks with her huge tail and stone beam. She retreats to two pillars after taking damage. Eventually when she is worn down you get a circle event and pull her off the pillar. This is done twice, she then attacks relentlessly before the final circle event and quicktime sees you lop off her head.
We get the head to use as a weapon. Holding down L2 to activate then Square to fire it.
Now we have a series of puzzles. We have to raise grapple points, each one is separated by walls and there are gates in between. The first needs the time statue to pull a lever then get through the gate before it shuts. The second needs the underwater dash to make it through two underwater gates. The third door just needs bashed down.
In the final area is a fight with some soldiers and flame soldiers. The grapples are now all set up for a spin around the square to the exit. We just have to use the time amulet to slow things down twice and get it done before one of the grapples sinks too far to make the leaps possible. Frustrating but not as hard as it could have been.
Then we have to fight some dogs in a crusher before making our exit and leaving the dogs to be crushed.
We then have a rock monster and some hydras to kill.
And now after a climb back up some stairs we are back at destiny's atrium. Now we can get past the fire spitting rock face we could do nothing with earlier.
We come to a large set of grapple points out under the cliff face facing the steeds of time.
Then up into another courtyard. We can hear someone shouting for help and telling us they are trapped.
There is a lot of wraiths to fight in the courtyard.
We enter a room and find some health then have a fight with minotaurs and new enemies that spawn minotaurs endlessly until you kill them. Some kind of magician.
There is a puzzle where you have to put a block on a lift then jam another block under it so you can get up to a high point.
We find a bridge that is out. Backtacking down to the bottom the the stairs we fight some satyrs.
We push a block out of this room and end up back in the courtyard with the trapped man.
I push the block until I find a half ladder I can use to get up to the upper level.
Here there is a statue producing two beams blocking our way again with a force field. We need to find the statues that will stop the beams. One of them is nearby although it is missing it's shield. I jump between the beams to the other side and find a door to a new room. Here we fight some soldiers.
We go out and across some grapple points.
Then into an area with a large tree in the middle. If we stand on a special pressure pad made of wood branches grow out to the main tree in the middle from four points. We have to freeze time using the statues to be able to make it across. I find my way inside the temple again.
The man who was trapped is Perseus. He thinks the fates want him to kill Kratos.
He uses his invisibilty helmet, sword and shield. Each one must be worn down in turn. He is invisible for the first part of the battle. Handily we are in water so can see his footsteps.
After a bit of beating he loses his invisibilty helmet. Then he fights with his sword which we break. Finally his sheild which he uses to blind us. Eventually we wear him  down and quicktime him into a horrible death on a hook.
We now have a shield to use on the statue. I get the statue down and put in on the bridge that the crank raises. This only does one eye beam though.
We have to use the golden fleece to reflect the other.
We go out into a stepped region. There is a corridor, however a pressure pad brings a gate down and we cannot pass yet. There is another route though.
This is a little maze of corridors. I find a switch and pull it, it opens a gate. I find a giant bird with an arrow sticking in it.
I pull the arrow out and this is the spear of destiny.
It is a new weapon.
The puzzle here is how to get across a gapped bridge, there is a pivot which won't let you get across. However if there was a time freeze you could. The trouble is the statue is facing the wrong way. You find a crank which turns a disc. You place the movable statue on the disc, spin it around and put it back and now you can get across the bridge.
There is a set of grapple points that collapse, they suck the fun out of it due to poor control.
Now we go through some tunnels with fight rooms. Sirens, bulls, satyrs and larger soldiers.
We now come to an area called the great chasm.
Here we meet Icarus in cut scene, he is madder than a mad thing and insists that he is the one to fly across the Chasm. We fight him in pseudo quicktime and it's a pain in the bum.
Eventually I get past him and pull his wings off. We both fall into a chasm and into a cave containing a bound titan who is holding up the ceiling. Kratos uses the wings to land on the titan while Icarus falls to his doom.
This titan is Atlas. Gaia tells us that we need to get back to the surface.
We climb up Atlas' face and then have to use the wings to glide onto platfroms suspended from chains. We enter an organic looking orifice. The wings work by pressing X to jump then X again to double jump as normal, you then hold X and glide with the wings.
There is a puzzle with a piece of vertebrae that is moveable and used to reach a platform.
In the next room is a rock troll, this one is a bit harder than most. It is on a platforms which halfway through the fight it makes sink. We have to grab the wall and clmaber around avoiding it's rocks until the platform comes back then have another go at it.
It leaves behind a rock that lets us out of this room when it dies.
In the next area we have to free a rock that floats on the lava so we can make a jump to a grapple point.
There is then a long clambering section which sees us cutting something organic and dropping it into a delicate looking organ. This seems to be doing something near the hand that is holding up the ceiling.
The vent is open now and we can use it to glide further using the wings.
We now have to fight hydras and soldiers on a dias. Then raise the dias and make the jumps and glides on a series of moving platforms.
Now we have a puzzle where we have to stack blocks to get up to a high ledge.
Now some clambering with falling rocks from above causing havoc.
At the top we smash a chain and this brings us to Atlas's attention. Atlas tries to squash us until Kratos tells him he is trying to kill Zeus. This triggers a cut scene showing the end of the titan war where the Gods of Olympus used the blade of Olympus to end the war.
Atlas is willing to help and gives Kratos earthquake magic.
He then lifts Kratos across the chasm and back up towards the tower of the fates.
We glide to the temple of fate and stand on the threshold. We have a puzzle even to get inside. A fight with cyclops, cyclops riders and fireball soldiers is tough here.
Then we have to move the whole cylindrical hallway around to align the door of the temple with the outer door. Inside is a switch and what looks like a few hallways off the main cylinder. There also looks to be a lot of spike holes all over the place. I have a feeling that pulling the lever in the middle with perforate Kratos if I am not fast.
The spikes on the floor of the dias move randomly, however there is warning to get of a panel of flooring before it spikes you. Flies attack while you try and work out what to do. Basically the cylinder rotates and the door moves past alcoves where you can collect chests and items. You can't dawdle though as the spikes will get you if you spend too long in an alcove. There is a pull block which is the key to it all. All you have to do is pull it out far enough and it jams the mechanism. This allows you to get all the orbs and a crank with ease. A corridor opens up as well.
In the next room is a vast area with two huge statues facing out onto a view of the tower of fate. A horn stands in front of a face of the God of Wind. Looks like we need to make him blow it. There are two key locked doors and a ladder up to a crankless handle. We place the crank we got from the cylinder here.
The crank seems to turn off a flame blower that is blocking the way to the side of the platform. There is also a pressure pad that opens a plate on the floor and reveals a vent. We need something to place on the pad to keep the vent open.
The corridor with the flame blower leads to a circular corridor with doors barred by bars.
A switch makes one of the grates lower but you can't get back to it in time. There is a vent here. It looks like you could pull the switch and run to the vent and fly up and over the grate before it closes but the timing seems just too tight. I am missing something. Probably a time slowing statue but I can't find one. No you just have to be really quick.
This corridor leads to a fight with some soldiers and dogs. then another large room.
This is the auditorium of Lahkesis. There is a book, a scaffold and hanging block.
I break the scaffold as it seems to be in the way. The block can now be pushed about.
The book is written in a language Kratos can't read. The block seems to need to be put in the picture behind the scaffold but we can't lift it.
I go along the other route here and come to a man praying in a small chapel. He can be picked up, however, a pressure plate he is sitting on locks the door when you try and carry him out of the room. The block from the scaffold is handy for pushing to the pressure plate and gets him out of the room. We are then told to protect the translator. Lots of satyrs, magess and soldiers later we get him to read the book. This consists of bashing his head against it until he reads it. The book is an incantation to the sisters and requires blood sacrifice to gain an audience. The translator is duly smashed up and his blood runs into channels making a bird shape on the floor. The tower of fate spreads huge wings and a ghostly sister of fate appears in the room. She tells Kratos that he is on the way to gaining an audience but he has much to do.
The key of the ram appears. We have a shotcut back to the main hall. Now the ram door leads to a spike trap which requires you to kill and awful lot of soldiers before it stops and retracts.
In the next room Athena speaks to Kratos in the form of a statue, there are other God statues as well. Athena warns that Zeus fears Kratos and that his current path is more dangerous than Kratos realises for everything, not just Zeus. She warns that the Titans are not to be trusted.
We have to shimmy along a ledge then drop into a square room with two switches.
Here the switches make fire shoot from nozzles in the opposite wall. Sirens appear and we need to make a fire sacrifice to the sisters of fate to open a door. Simply you have to stun the siren in the right area and go pull the appropriate switch. Do this three times and you get to move on.
The next room leads to an underwater tunnel. I come up into a room with a frozen statue of a bird encased in ice. There is also a door that looks ice covered.
There are three cranks which turn rings surrounding the bird statue, these rings have symbols and a mirror. The bird has a  crank to turn it and a switch at it's bum. Pulling the swithc makes it breath fire and melt the ice in one of the alcoves. This releases a statue. The statue is movable and has a mirror on top. I notice climbing alcoves on the walls and get up onto the ceiling. Here we smash ice with our blades to make shafts of light point down. The statue can be moved into these light beams and the light if trained on Ice will melt it. The trick is to get it to shine where you want, some of the alcoves are in the wrong direction.
I realise that the mirror with the cranks must be placed correctly and the statue in the right place to make the beams bounce around and free the central bird statue from ice. If this is done you can crank it around and free all the alcoves with it's fire breath. Now you can leave the room with health and items.
In the next area we have to wipe out some fly nests to be able to be left alone to crank as grapple point down from above, we then ride the grapple point up to the higher storey of the room.
In the next dias room we fight three headed dogs and giants with maces.
There is a little puzzle to get past some gates. Then we find a statue for time slowing that seems to have no use, yet. Another book and a translator, only this one sees us coming and jumps to his death rather than let us progress.
Pulling the switch lets us enter the room, there is a locked door, and a shimmering portal. The portal lets us go back in time, but it does not seem far enough, we get to see the man jump again but can't get the lever open in time to stop him.
I go back and bring the statue and jam it in the door frame. This means that when you go through the portal you can trigger the time slowing and catch the translator before he goes over the edge. Kratos gets him to read and the tower of fates reveals itself to be a phoenix.
The Fat appears and tells us to free the ashes of the phoenix if we want to progress.
We get the warrior skull key.
Through this door is a little puzzle with a steam vent which must be made blow harder with a lever and it's grate opened with a crank to get up to the ceiling.
Now we are back to the main hall.
We fight four cyclops before getting to open the locked door with the skull.
The next room sees us fighting skeletons on a dias, the dias can be pushed down a shaft by making Kratos pull a large chain. The incentive is that spikes are coming down from the ceiling. We have to pull the dias down to the ground and open a gate before getting crushed. The skeletons run interference.
Now we have a room with a rope across it. Halfway across archers cut the rope, we must climb up to them and kill them, along with some gorgons to progress. Now we can clamber on the ceiling and get through to the other side.
I Come to a rotating pillar, it has vine like spikes protruding, it looks like we need to fly past it with good timing or end up in the lava.
Now we can see an urn with the ashes of the phoenix, of course getting it won't be that easy.
A book tells us to place the ashes in the fire to resurrect the phoenix.
This is a large square chamber there is a corridor to the right. There is a save point and a hidden chest behind one alcove here.
Down the corridor is a spike trap. We have to break an obvious fake wall to reveal some monsters and a statue. The statue can be used to slow time. The lever in the middle of the room lowers all the spikes but only for about ten seconds.
We need to reach a crank and find the hail of boreas. The crank opens a gate to the right, we have to use the crank then freeze time and make it through the gate before getting spiked.
We now have a room where fire walls come at you regularly. You have to push a statue which you can hide behind to avoid being burned to a crips. Soldiers and hydras run interference. You have to put the statue on a pressure pad and stand on another one yourself. This lowers a grapple and opens a gate, you have to be very quick as the grapple and roll under the gate must be done very quickly. A tip here is to go to the back of the room to fight the enemies as fighting in the fire just is too hard. If you go to the back of the room the monsters follow as long as you stay in the actual room and don't go into the corridor.
Under the gate is the urn which we push off a pressure pad which makes the room descend, we can now push the urn only into a hole in the floor. Going to a lever starts a fight with minotaurs and skeletons. Once done pulling the lever puts the urn in the lava with the use of a crane type mechanism.
The Phoenix is born and rises up the shaft to the main hall.
We can now use vents to get up to a platform that was inaccessible before.
Up the stairs to the main hall again. The lift has moved the horn away from Boreas' mouth. We can now use the key to open this door.
Behind here we get some items a save point and the chance to blow the horn.
The horn frees the phoenix from the shaft of flame in the centre of the hall.
It knocks over the giant pillars and flies to the dias in the distance.
We can use these new platforms to get to a new area. In this room we have a lift puzzle.
Hitting some chains by clambering on the ceiling makes a door open giving us a movable block.
The lever in the room makes the lift go up and down but you can't be on the lift and use it.
I jamb the pedastal in the lift door and it goes halfway up. This means we can get into the lift as it tries to go up. Pulling the pedastal into the lift allows you to ride in the lift. Here you have to use the pedastal in the lift to reach a chain which opens the door at the top.
Here we turn a crank and this makes the platforms that were just formed rise.
Another crank makes a door open. Going through triggers a fight in a darkened room against a human soldier. He is fairly easily defeated. It turns out to be the soldier we saw when Zeus killed Kratos. The one Kratos told to go back to Sparta and defend it. He tells Kratos that Zeus stormed into Sparta and laid it to waste. Kratos is angry and shouts at Zeus. He almost doesn't notice the huge sea monster that appears behind him.
When we get control back Kratos is despondent about his beloved Sparta. He won't respond to our controls and the Kraken grabs him. In cut scene he is about to be crushed. In his mind he is standing on a hill Above Sparta as it burns. His wife walks up the hill to him. Kratos asks for her forgiveness. She speaks but it is Gaia's voice. Gaia urges Kratos to continue and vows that he will lead the Titans into action against Zeus. She gives him the fire which consumed Sparta to fuel  his rage for Zeus.
We get an upgrade to the rage of the Titans.
The kraken is a fairly easy boss fight. You must put the body of the spartan on the pressure plate which opens the vent. The vent allows you to hit it's head.
The Kraken keeps the pressure pad covered and you must hit it's tentacle to move it.
Once you hit the head enough the Kraken attacks with a powerful rear tentacle, it has two of these. The tentacles get stuck and you have to climb on them to reach a hard part which can be broken. Break it and you get a circle event which cuts off the tentacle.
Rinse and repeat and the two tentacles are off. Now you have to bash both small tentacles off the pillars. This makes the kraken nearly fall back into the water. Pull the switch that extends the bridge and you kill the Kraken.
We can now reach the Phoenix. A bit of quicktime and we tame it and ride it to the top of the tower of fate.
The room is large, water fills the bottom. Time is frozen here.
There is a large fate statue at one end, there is a beam of light going to a crystal hanging on a dias. We can grapple up to the crystal and smashing it sets time in motion.
There is a large gold bar on a chain which when time restarts moves and rings a bell.
There are two bells, one has Zeus's image the other Cronos.
Under the area where the crystal was is a mechanism, looks like we have to turn the ram so it rings both bells.
The trick is to ring both bells at the same time with the aid of time slowing.
You have to leave the ram at one bell then on foot go to the other bell and ring it by hand. YOu then freeze time and quickly grapple to the ram and use it on the other bell. This rings both at once and the statue in the middle of the fate cracks. You then turn the ram to it and smash it.
This lets you into the corridors behind the face.
We come to a large dias which we are informed is the throne of Lahkesis.
A fate appears and tells Kratos that he cannot change his destiny. The fate tells him that there is nothing more powerful than the fates, not even Zeus. They have decided that Kratos won't be killing Zeus and will not be defied. Kratos of course rejects this and we are into a fight with the sister of fate.
This is a hard fight. She uses a green magic attack which can be reflected back for a good amount of damage. She flies around using various attacks and her staff. There are grapple points which can keep us up high when she makes the ground dangerous to stand on.
She is tough but I manage it, a tip is to grapple up high and glide towards her and attack with your blades.
Eventually she gets bored and another fate appears. This one takes us through a portal to the  fight between Ares and Kratos in the first game. She tells us that she will destory the sword we used in the fight thus making us die long before we ever got to the temple of fates.
We now have another fight on the sword against this fate. She tries to shoot the sword rather than you. Soldiers run interference. I use the bow to shoot at the fate when I can and clear away the soldiers. She shoots green orbs at you which you can reflect back. When she is defeated Kratos goes back through the portal and she is locked on the other side.
The other fate is waiting that we fought at first. She is angry now.
We now fight both fates, the one behind the portals can't get in but can stick her top half through and fight.
We have to wear the first fate down until it slumps. This allows us to freeze time and then attack the fate halfway through the mirror.
When you do this you smash the mirror.
Twice for this then a final fight with both fates at the remaining mirror. A quicktime sequence sees both fates killed and the mirror smashed. Kratos goes through the corridor opened up behind the mirror and we get a save point.
There are three doors here, one with a man on top of a pile of bodies. One with the Titans fighting the Gods. One that looks like the three wise men following the star.
The final sister of Fate is a huge goliath comapred two the other two.
We now have to make our way down a spiral slope outside the last fates room.
There are an awful lot of mixed enemies in the way.
We now enter the loomb chamber. This is where the threads of time are made.
The fate is entombed in rock here. There is a area where we have to climb up and clamber along the roof of a rock wall. There are small arms that need to be stunned so we can do this. We now get to climb up a chain to the next floor. Here we have to pin the arms using traps and spikes that are attatched to switches. The hardest part here is working out how to get to the lift out of this story. You climb the chains that are holding the arms down.
We are now face to face with the last fate.
We have to hit it's arms to paralyse them. Then knock some bodies that are in the way down.
We then have to bring up a blade from below. We then turn the blade and postition it in front of the fate. Finally some quicktime to drive the blade through it's head.
We come to a large mirror, we need to set it to the correct time then step through.
We have to go back to the place where the fate is after pulling a lever by the mirror. There are now lots of threads in the room, we have to choose the right one, this is simple trial and error, I tried three before getting the right one. If you get the wrong one you simple are knocked away from the thread. When the right one is found you have to hammer circle until you get to the right time period. Then you have thirty seconds to run back to the mirror and dive through.
A cut scene shows Zeus with his blade plunged into Kratos.
The portal appears changing history and Kratos comes through and attacks Zeus.
Zeus and Kratos stuggle and Zeus flies them both up high into the air. Deposited on a mountain top we have the final battle with Zeus. Zeus is huge.
The first part of the battle sees Zeus throw lightning and pound at you. He also spawns Sirens. The sirens are handy though as they seem to hurt Zeus as well when they scream in dying.
Eventually we get a circle event with Zeus' hand and Kratos sticks  the blade of Olympus into his hand.
This makes Zeus come down to normal size.
Here he attacks with punches and lightning. I tried for about an hour to do this and despite at least two places where there should be checkpoints there are none.
I nearly snapped the disc.
I went away for a day or so, work got in the way and I am glad it did. When I came back to this I found the fight easier. Using Atlas Quake and Rage I managed the early part of the battle quickly. You have to events where you bring down masonry on Zeus. Eventually he gets bored of fighting you and goes back to large size.
He makes you defend against relentless lightning bolts.
Seeing that this won't work Kratos tries a ruse.
He tells Zeus that he is laying down his arms and slumps defeated. Zeus returns to normal size and come to deliver the death blow with the blade of Olympus. Kratos dodges and a quicktime sequence ensues. At the end of the quicktime scrap Kratos is plunging his blade into Zeus. Athena comes and gets in the way, she tells Kratos that he cannot kill Zeus without destroying all Olympus.
She ends up geting in the way of Kratos as he tried to finally see off Zeus.
Killing Athena Kratos is distraught. Zeus runs and Athena tells Kratos that Zeus is his father. Kratos even more enraged watches Athena die. Gaia reminds him of his time travel abilities.
We have to go back to the loomb and rewind time even further. Kratos returns to the far past where the Titans were fighting the Gods. Kratos asks Gaia to come through the time portal with him and take on all the Gods in the future. The Titans are brought into the present.
Zeus, Poseidon, Helios, Hermes and Hades stand atop Olympus planning what to do about Kratos. They hear noises and go out to the window to see the Titans climbing Olympus with Kratos riding atop Gaia.

60% of tropies on first playthrough.
19:40 on the game clock.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

God of War Notes

New game on Normal

Kratos stands on a tall peak, he tells us the the Gods of Olympus have abandoned him. He jumps in to the abyss.
A voice over tells us that after 10 years of suffering he seeks peace, death his escape from madness.
A Kratos hits bottom the screen goes black and we are now in flashback.
Three weeks earlier.
The Agean sea
Kratos is a champion of the Gods here on a mission to kill the hydra.
Game proper starts on a ship, soldiers attacking. usual light and heavy attacks with square and triangle.
Grab with circle, X to jump.
L1 to block. R2 for actions.
We go under deck now.
first boss battle with a hydra head in the corridor of the ship.
Bash it until a circle appears above it's head, then do quicktime viciousness to it.
We meet a man in a cage who would rather die than be saved by Kratos.
another hydra head attacks on a deck filled with Harpies.
Basically another beat it until it's health goes down encounters.
We balance along some poles to another ship.
Here we encounter a puzzle of sorts. A box needs to be pushed along a deck to the other side so that we can jump up.
Only there are archers in the way that can destroy the box.
You have to time it neatly so that the arrows do not hit the box.
We then have to retrieve the captains key to open a door, a woman can be heard calling from within.
We climb the mast hitting soldiers as we go. Then slide on a rope to the next ship.
Here we meet Poseidon in glowing god head form. He wants us to kill the hydra.
He gives us a blue magic lightning blast called Poseidon's rage.
Now we are into the main boss battle with the Hydra. It has three heads. The two on either side need to be worn down of their health then pinned by cutting a rope above them which brings objects down on their head.
Once this is done with both of them then you can climb up to the main head. This is worn down by attrition and occasional quicktime.
The hydra ate the captain and once it is dead we have to climb into it's mouth and gullet to get his key.
We slide back down a rope to the other ship.
We backtrack a little to the door that was locked, Inside the women have been murdered.

Kratos sets sail in service of the Gods. He is haunted by visions, he asks Athena when she will relieve him of these nightmares.
Ares is attacking Athens, Athena wants Kratos to go and kill Ares the God of war.
Athena wants him to do this and she will stop these visions.
The boat arrives in Athens. We get to do a sex minigame.
Then fighting on the docks
We encounter some minotaurs.
Then some gollums with big maces.
We come to a room that is very tomb raider. Jumping and puzzling, clambering on the walls.
In the next room Aphrodite appears to Kratos and tells him that he will need more power to defeat Ares. The head of Medusa the Gorgon would be useful, however he will have to lop it off her first.
Medusa can turn us to stone if we stay in her green gaze long enough.
This is a fairly simple fight but a hard one.
After we get the gorgon head we have to prove we can use it. Pressing L2 holds up the gorgon head, we can train it on the foes using the left stick. Pressing square fires the green stone beam.
In the next area is a large emplaced crossbow. We can use it to break a door and open a secret area.
We then have some passageways and some secret rooms for items.
We have to go out onto a balcony and knock over a statue which lets up up to the next area.
Here we fight gorgons and minotaurs.
Then we fire an arrow with a rope onto the next area and shimmy along the rope fighting enemies.
We are back inside the area where we shot the captapult. Now there is another door to shoot down. Behind it are four Minotaurs.
We are now behind the gates we could not get through. The oracle of Athen's appears and tells Kratos to go to a temple to the east where she will show him how to murder a God.
As we reach the end of thhe bridge we can see a huge figure in the distance, it is Ares stomping around on the battlefield making a mess of the opposing side.
We progress and come to a puzzle. Minotaurs attack with large hammers. There is a plate in the middle which is a pressure plate to open a door. We have to use the Medusa head to freeze a minotaur on the pedastal then run before he unfreezes.
We come out onto a street and have archers, minotaurs and gorgons to deal with.
We climb up some large stairs to Athen's town square. Civilians are running wild as Gollums attack. Three of them to deal with.
We are now chasing a woman up some stairs.
She jump off the balcony rather than be rape or whatever she thinks Kratos was going to do to her.
Her body has some signifigance though as we have to go and investigate it.
She has a key. we had to go all the way back down and now back up to get the key.
The way back is littered with enemies again though. Some gorgons and new soldiers with shields that can only be broken with the third stage of our heavy attack.
At the top the key opens the door and we progress.
We come to a room with new enemies these are wraith like beings who can hide under the floor and pop up to get you.
They float around and are fairly fast at surrounding you.
We go upstairs in this area and have to fight larger gollums with maces and these wraith in groups of three.
We then have to go across three pillars in a tomb raider style, some archers can be taken out by going the long way to make it easier.
We then have a puzzle room where we have to take a large emplaced crossbow down a corridor, into a room where a cog that turns with a switch can be used to turn it around to face the door which needs to be broken down. We have to move the crossbow on and off after each turn of the wheel.
In the next room we meet Zeus who gives us his power to help us. We get Zeus' fury.
Down on the Dpad for this one, holding L2 and aiming locks onto enemies and then pressing square sends lightning bolts their way.
I go up a ladder onto the roofs and there is much extra loot to search out. I come to a man who is keeping a bridge on his side by holding onto a lever. He is an easy zap for the lightning and the bridge extends.
We come to a cut scene and find the Oracle of Athen under attack and kidnapped by harpies.
She asks Kratos to find her.

The temples of the Oracle
We see the harpies take the oracle into the vast grand temple.
Loads of Harpies and gorgons arrive for a fight.
After it's done a man appears in cut scene and seems to know Kratos.
He tells him that Athen's may just survive. He is digging a grave and tells Kratos it is for him.
Inside the temples we have a puzzle. There are walkways above the temple floor which we need to cross, however the harpies can easily knock us off. There is an endless supply of harpies coming from two cracks in the walls. There are two statues up on the altar that can be pulled down and placed in front of the cracks to prevent the harpies coming in. Mopping up the remaining ones you can negotiate the precarious climb.
In the next large area we find the Oracle and the harpies hang her from a rope high up where it is hard to get to her.
This puzzle here shows the ingenuity of the game designers. The fact that we probably couldn't do what you need to do to solve this puzzle in other games shines. However the kind of outside the box thinking needed here is normally discouraged as you but up against other games shortcomings. You have two pedastals that you can move and a lift which takes you up and down from the higher level. The jump to get to some vines which will allow you to climb up is too much. Placing one pedastal allows you to bridge the gap but it is still too low. What you have to do is place one pedastal on top of the other, using the lift. With this done you can reach the clamber fest that takes you to the oracle.
The oracle looks into Kratos' soul and finds that he is a monster consumed by his lust for battle and the glory of war.
She tells us that the only way to defeat Ares is to obtain Pandora's box. We have to go out into a desert to obtain it.
There is monument with the Omega symbol on it. Obviously something we will be coming back to later.
We also find the ledge that we saw Kratos jump from in the future.
We run across a large statue holding a blade and enter it's chest going down some spiral stairs.
We are now in the sewers of Athens. Soldiers, minotaurs, gollums and archers to fight in large groupings. Nothing but a corridor sllugfest here.
We go up another spiral staircase and come out onto a bridge, which is the road to Athens, weren't we here earlier? Oh yes we were, it was where the oracle first spoke to us.
We are back seeing Ares stomping around the battlefield, he has moved and is closer to the city.
The place i explored before when I was here the first time is now open. The door with the Oracle seal wide open.

Desert of Lost souls
Through the door is the desert. An Athena statue starts a cut scene. She tells us that the desert is only crossable using the Sirens. Kratos must seek them out.
The box is hidden in a temple which is situated on the back of Cronos, the last titan. Sentenced by zeus to wander the desert forever.
I find my way in the desert which isn't entirely empty there are ruins. I hear the siren song and find one, but it vanishes. Athena's statue is by a door and she tells Kratos that the three sirens must be killed to open it.
I find one and while they are annoying to hit, they are not hard.
Killing one releases it's soul which flies to the door.
After finding and killing the other two the door opens.
Inside here is a puzzle with a huge rotating wheel of death. You have blocks you can shove in it but they are just ground up. I finally get the idea that I have to go the other direction and place the block against the far wall so I can jump out of here. The wheels got smashed somehow anyway which made it easier, soldiers run interference.
We come to a huge horn which we blow, this makes a path through a sandstorm.
We come to Cronos, however the horn we blow to bring him close vanishes and Sirens appear ready to avenge the three we killed earlier.
Loads of Siren's later the horn reappears.
Blowing the horn brings Cronos, In cut scene we see Kratos jump aboard and climb to the temple on his back.

Temples of Pandora
At the temple we find a man buring bodies at the gates. He tells us that these are the people who have died trying to get the weapon of the gods. He warns us to turn back or end up on the pyre, reluctantly he opens the gate for us.
Now we get some new spiny horned gollums with large toothed blades. Two at once.
After three of them we go up the stairs and into the temples, for some wraiths and archers.
There is a book and a carving of Athena.
The book tells us that only one man can get the ultimate power, all else will perish. Of course that will be us.
We enter the next door which takes us to the rings of Pandora.
There is a door with a skull keyhole. This seems to be a series of concentric rings.
I find a corridor and we have slamming spike walls to avoid.
Inside a lever makes a switch drop down back in the rings.
Pulling a lever which pops out here brings a crystal into focus and makes a light ray shine down the corridor onto the door.
The lever back in the rings now turns the entire rings so that the doorway can lead onto different corridors.
I find a carving of muses, there are two missing.
In the next corridor we find Atremis, a God, she offers us the blade she used to slay a titan. The blade of Artemis is ours.
We ge to fight loads of soldiers and gorgons.
This room is large with three stories. There is a switch at the top. It lowers a weight into a pit.
In the next room are gorgons and archers. A carving here shows two warriors figting over Pandora's box.
Their shields are missing.
There is a pedastal in the middle of the room which flips you into the next room if you are standing in the right place. We need a weight.
There is a weight in the next corridor, you have to aim it and kick it and then when the pedastal is weighted you will be flipped into the next room.
Here we fight some soldiers and climb up a ladder which takes us back into the previous room above it. Here we get a shield with a picture of Zeus on it.
I go back to the room where the weight dropped as it seems the only option for progress, I climb back to the top and find you can shimmy down the rope. Down here there is a rope to climb along and soldiers to fight whilst on the rope. The next shield is down here.
When you grab the shield a spiked wall starts moving along the narrow ledge, you have to kill an large amount of soldiers before it impales you.
In the next area I find a large amount of whirling blades crisscrossing the floor. Two levers open the gate but it is timed. I go through a side door and find a long clambering section. In the room at the top of here there is a room with an opening trap door floor, you have to kill a bunch of shield soldiers and Sirens against a time limit. If you do this you get the handle of Atlas.
Back to the room of the blades and it seems that speed is off the essence. Pull both levers and run for it.
You shimmy along the ledge here. In the next room two minotaurs make life  hard.
We put the handle of atlas on a crank and make a statue of atlas raise the world on it's shoulders.
I them climb some stairs to the top of the statue, soldiers in the way.
A lever makes Atlas hurl the world at a door we could not pass.
The door leads to a dias out over the wilds. There is a tomb here. We open it and find the son of the architect of this temple Pathos Verdes.
His skull seems to be the one we need for the door back in the rings.
The tomb moves aside and a ladder is found underneath.
We are now in the back corridors of the temple. Kratos sees some dead soldiers and this sparks a cut scene. We see Kratos at the head of a spartan army. He is fighting barbarian hordes with huge odds against him. The Spartans are overwhelmed and Kratos is about to be killed. He calls to Ares the God of war for help in his moment of need. The scene stops here and we have yet to find out what happens, we know Kratos still lives, so what did Ares do and what did he ask in return. Kratos has been in service to the Gods for ten years now, was that all that was needed?
The tunnel comes out in the area where we needed the key. The key lets us into the next ring.
There is a huge roller going around and around in this ring.
The inner ring can be accessed though, it is filled with water. Looks like we need to drain it.
The ladder up to a lever is highlighted by a camera it's just getting to it that is hard.
I think I have to climb onto the top of the moving roller and balance on it long enough to get around to the ladder.
Yes that is what you do, it's finicky but with a bit of practice and a few deaths I manage it. The ladder falls down halfway and trips a switch which takes the roller down a trap door and out of the way.

The challenge of Poseidon
I go through a few featureless corridors until I come out onto a pillared Dias. A dog appears, it looks small, however it transforms into a huge three headed hell hound.
The problem here is that lots of the little ones appear and quickly transform as well. If you aren't careful you end up with four of the huge cerebus dogs to fight. The secret is to ignore the big dog and take out the little ones quickly The poseidon area attack is good for taking out a few at a time. There is a limited amount of little dog spawns. Once they are gone you can take care of the lone big dog.
We now have a trek along a cliff on the side of the temple, fighting gollums, dogs and archers.
I come to a room where there is a cylinder that turns around, it pauses only long enough for the door to face some treasure chests in alcoves, you can grab the orbs, but only if you don't waste a second. If you do you get trapped and spiked.
The door opens onto an area where you can see two huge chains which are moving slightly. Some soldiers here to fight.
We can slimb up the rock face here, we can see that these chains are part of the harness that keeps the temple on Cronos' back.
Some minotaurs to fight then we come to a long corridor with cages filled with soldiers high above. The lever here would suggest that pulling it would be a bad idea as it might release the soldiers. Well we are here for a fight so I may as well.
Oh, the crank is missing it's handle.
I progress along the corridor until we enter a smaller room at the end. There is a dead soldier, he has left a note saying that he could not do what was asked of him here. There is a flame burner type affair and a sign from Poseidon asking for a sacrifice.
The pressue pad in front of the door when stood on after the burners are turned on with a switch moves the burners into the centre of the room slamming and burning the person standing on the switch. Looks like we need an enemy to take the fall here.
Back at the crankless crank we place the one we found in the room there and turn the lever, one of the soldiers in a cage is dropped down. We now have to push him up the corridor, however this is made darn hard by a slope and lots of soldiers.
Eventually I get him into the room and toasted by the burners. The door opens.
In the next area I find poseidons trident, this allows Kratos to dive underwater now. He can also breathe underwater with impunity as well.
We have to go through a pipe underwater, there is a dash move which can break fragile walls in the water, by pressing R1. We then have to surface in a cave and fight a load of dogs.
There is a lever here which opens a secret door back in the posiedon room.
Through this corridor is an underwater maze. I find a room with a dias and lots and lots of soldiers. This is a tough fight to complete. Pulling the lever when it's done opens a carving of Poseidon in the maze. There are Nyads in the maze, they don't do much yet.
I find a semi secret room and some soldiers to fight. In this room hidden behind vases and a wall is a muse key.
I go back to the area where the carving was opened with the switch and move forward until I find a save point.
we now go down into a place where the view switches to a side on 2d style and there is a sweeping obstacle moving along on chains, this grabs Kratos and crushes him if he gets in it's way, we have to move along the corridor avoiding it.
We go through some more underwater corridors and come out into another large room. There is lever and a large statue.
This is the temple of Amphitrite, Posiedon's wife. She know  how to get out of this room by a secret way. There is a timed step obstacle to get up to her statue.
The secret way out is to go down below the steps as they rise and there is a secret elevator in one of them. Through a tunnel and we are back at the rings of Pandora.
We can now gain access to the underwater bits of the middle ring. There is a tunnel in the floor which leads to another room.
We come out into a large rather ominous hall. Lava flows along the sides in channels.
There is wooden door with a lock shaped like a minotaur. At the other end of the room a laver fires flaming wooden logs at the door, they don't even dent it.
A secret wall lets us into a side corridor.
Down this corridor we come to another  large room.

The challenge of Hades
This room has a picture of Hades on the wall as well as various statues of him. we tirgger the picture of him and have to accept his challenge to sacrifice blood on his Altars. There are two glowing circles on the floor now and centaurs fill the room. Killing around five of them in each circle opens the door behind the picture.
Now we have some moving floor panels that need strict timing to pass.
I find a carving of the architect of the temple.
This is a medium sized maze with lots of monsters lurking. Gorgons, centaurs, soldiers and archers. There are a few small puzzles here involving sliding blocks. The last puzzle is a corridor with a huge rock rectangle slamming back and forth inside it. There is a door at the end that says it won't open until all in the maze is dead. Only I think I have killed evrything. I notice a door here and it's very hard to get into because of the moving object. I persist and manage it to find two hidden soldiers. Killing them opens the door. We are now back in the altar of Hades room. The statue rises from the water when we stand on a pressure plate. We can now turn the statues head. This goes back to starting position quickly though. We have to go down under the water to the statures base and pull a lever, this turns on a light that shines from Hades' mouth. Turning the statue head now makes a door open.
In this corridor there are a never ending parade of flaming balls. They roll down the corridor three wide and you have to run around like a loon avoiding them. The room at the far end has a cruel joke for you. There are eight doors in the corridor and only one of them is the way out.
We now appear in an area with two doors. The higher area takes you to a rope bridge, this is impossible to pass as archers can knock you down with one hit. After much swearing I tried the other door and found it led to the archers, which I took great glee in smashing.
Now the rope is easy. You are then put into a dias with a lock in and loads of minotaurs, soldiers, archers and centaurs.
We are now high above the statue in the Hades temple. We have to balance on beams and avoid moving blades. This is a really bad game design, and checkpoints would have helped immensely.
The top of this room is littered with balance beams and it's a real maze. Eventually after much swearing i manage to get past and come to a wheel which opens the lock we saw earlier, the minotaur one.
We follow some steps and are back at that room.
There is something big behind the door and it wants out to get us.
It's a huge armoured skelton minotaur. It attacks us in a classic boss battle here. We can stand on the stage at the end of the room and hit it once we have worn it's armour down a little it runs back and we have to circle it and then do some quicktime. This is done twice before all it's armour is gone. We then wear it's health down and spear it with the log to finish.
I climb some stairs and enter a shrine with a coffin, here is the second skull key, the head of the second son of the architect.
Back down the stairs to the minotaur room and there is a chat with Hades. He gives us a new weapon, the army of Hades.
This is used by pressing up on the Dpad. It releases a bunch of souls that attack your enemies for you. They last only for a short time.
We go back now to the inner ring of Pandora. The skull key makes the water drain out. Now we have to make all the rings match and shine the beam of light onto the other crystal at the other end. It seems days ago since we first found that crystal.
The maze is finally aligned and on using the light beam the statue of Zeus rises up from it's place. We use it like an elevator and are taken up to the higher level of the temple.

Temple higher level.
Here we meet satyrs, who look more egyptian than Greek.
We progress along the bridge here and a Harpy is in the way. A cut scene starts. It shows Kratos about to be killed by the Barbarians. He calls to Ares and Ares comes to Kratos, he offers him a job as his sidekick. There will be a price though. Kratos agrees. The blades of chaos are given to him and their chains burnt into his body. Ares slaughters the Barbarian hordes for the Spartans.

The cliffs of Madness
We start on cliff edges then across a rope and into a cave. Lots of soldiers, archers and satyrs.
There is a room with spiked floors, you have to move a block quickly to get up to a ledge. the time is just too tight, whatever is in there will have to stay there.
I go up through more cliffs and more enemies.
I find a statue with two missing necklaces.
There is a ladder leading down to more cliff areas and caves.
Inside a cave we have to fight monsters then do a jigsaw puzzle with giant rocks.
It's not a hard puzzle we just have to turn the blocks the right way by using a pulley and a dias. Then we just have to make a solid wall of bricks and the door opens to the necklace of Hera.
A ladder drops down outside so we can progress.
Now we are clambering around on the cliff walls. I pull a lever and it shows me that something has happened in another nearby cave, I think.
I have to go back to the box and spike puzzle. I eventually do it and I get the second necklace. Backtracking through the level at least the monsters don't respawn. I put the necklaces on the statue and the bridges start to move.
At the top another flashback. Kratos is servant to Ares now and leads an army that is unstoppable, cruel and heartles Kratos kills for the glory of War, it makes him inhuman and cold. He attacks a village that has pledged to Athena for Ares. He is warned by an oracle not to go into a temple, He does and slaughters everyone within including his own wife and child.
Horror stricken at what he has done and become Kratos vows to kill Ares.
We climb up some cliffside and fight some monsters, then swing across a gap and up in a lift.

The architects tomb.
This is a large area, there is a gap filled with moving platforms and razorblades. A pressure plate opens one half of the bars on a door in the distance. I manage to get across the gap but not nearly quick enough. I do some exploring of the other side. There is a weak piece of ground, a statue which can be dragged to the other pressure point. I do this. I then open a door on the other side of the building. This takes us up through a corridor to the roof. We have to fight a lot of gollums, dogs and soldiers here. We can then climb up and use a crane to swing a block out over the weak piece of ground, dropping the block from the crane opens up a new area. There is a pressure switch here as well.
I need three blocks it seems. There are two on this side, One is attached to the crane. I move the statue down the hole to the third pressure switch. I then move the crane block to the second switch.
I now only have one switch to push, the timed one. Is this the only way, to make it against the clock?
Yes it is, and it's easier than i thought.
Inside we find the architect dead. He killed his wife who thought he was being a fool for the Gods.
The head of the architect's wife is the key to a skull door.
Through this door we come to a temple shaped like Zeus' head. Inside it seems is the final goal, Pandora's box.
This is a hard fight to get to it though. A long hall with rollers at the sides. The floor is always moving in different directions and you need to keep away from the rollers.
The enemies here are harpies and archers. They are in large numbers and there is no respite as they seemingly endlessly respawn. They don't though an eventually you get let out of the hall.
The room with the box has three statues of Zeus, Hades and Poseidon. Athena appears and urges us to return to the city with Pandora's box and kill Ares.
The floor of the room is a lift and we are back at the door of the temple.
Ares learns of Kratos' success and hurls a spike all the way from Athen's to the templee doors and spears Kratos stone dead.
As he dies we get a flashback. His wife and child dead at his hand, Ares taunts Kratos and tells him that he is now a better warrior without a family to anchor him. Ares tells him that he is now death itself. The oracle of the village curses Kratos to eternally wear the ashes of his family on his skin, which turns him white, the Ghost of Sparta.
Kratos falls into the river Styx but manage to grab onto some bones and stay out of the river.
We now have an extended platforming sequence on the bones of some huge animals.
Spining blades and pillars with roatating blades that are really really annoying.
We have a fight with lots of satyrs to raise platforms.
Then onto a platform where a rope is lowered from above, climbing up the rope takes us up to the bottom of the grave that the old man was digging for us at the temple of the Oracle.
Inside the temple we fight gollums and minotaurs.
Through the temples until we come to the oracle in the garden. She has been hurt badly and dies telling Kratos he is too late.
We go through the tunnel and come out onto the cliffside.
Here a cut scene starts. Ares is standing holding Pandora's box ans shouting at Zeus taunting him.
Kratos knocks the box from his hand and goes down and opens it. He grows to Ares' size.
Now we have a boss battle with Ares in a dias made of a lake with little villages all around us.
Ares grows spider like legs from his back and strikes with them, he also uses an axe and a hammer. He fires fireballs as well. Using magic and normal strikes I wear his health down and then get to some quicktime. It does not kill him however as he sucks Kratos into a void. Kratos stands in front of the door to the temple where he killed his wife and child.
Inside we fight versions of Kratos in massive numbers. We have to stop them getting to the wife and child and killing them.
This is fairly hard work as there are a relentless amount of Clones.
After defeating them all you are back with Ares. However Kratos has no blades or Magic. He grabs the huge sword that was part of the statues and attacks Ares.
This is another hard boss battle in the sea dias.
L1 to block at all times here and hold L1 and press square seems to be the only attack that is quick enough to get any hits in. Ares blocks most other attacks and a lot of his attacks cause damage even if you are blocking. He uses his claws and a rock attack, also some sword swipes.
After defeating him Kratos sticks his sword through his chest and Ares Dies.
Kratos asks for his memories of his atrocities to be wiped and Athena refuses. He then decides to jump from the clifftop as we saw at the start. Plunging into the sea Kratos does not die. He is lifted back to the top of the cliff and a gateway to Olympus opens.
Kratos goes through a enters a golden temple. Here is the throne of the God of War, Kratos sits and becomes the new god of war. The credits roll.
10 and a half hours playtime.
78% of the trophies on one playthrough on normal mode.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Dead to Rights Retribution Notes

I choose normal or officer difficulty.

Prologue
A boat comes into a dock at night. The hero gets off gracelessly, he seems injured.
Some thugs come to kill him, they laugh and jest about him not having his dog to protect him. Then the dog appears and rips out one of the thugs throats in a spray of gore.
We are in control of the dog now, Jack the hero walks on injured and tells us to stay close. I follow him up the dock steps onto the streets.
The dog has the usual camera and movement controls using the analogue sticks.
Sprints with right trigger and sneaks with left.
We get to a point and some more triads appear, we are told to defend Jack.
We can attack a triad with A or just sprint at them to knock them down.
Some attack with melee weapons and some have guns. We get to kill about ten of them on the street and the walkways above it.
After that the prologue is done.

Mission 1
A woman comes into a bar and finds jack drinking. She seems concerned about him, she asks him to reach out to the department. Jack is cynical. He tells her that he will tell her the truth.
The view switches to a news report and the female talks of the temple tower terror. jack nearly knocks over the news girl.
There is a hostage situation in the tower, Jack arrives and finds the police chief dithering. To prove his point a hostage is hurled from the top of the tower. Jack goes to go in alone and the chief threatens to have his badge. Jack is very rude and give him the badge.
We are told to rescue the hostages.
I get control of Jack, third person view.
I go into the building and after a bit of wandering find the bad guys.
Y is fast attack.
B+Y guard break.
B is strong attack.
We get three thugs to beat up.
x is block
X + LS is dash.
A is sprint.
three more thugs to fight.
Then we come to a larger area and get a bigger thug. We have to beat him up using chained attacks to gain a takedown. Pressing A when prompted starts a takedown which breaks bones and kills the thug in gratuitous fashion.
We get a cut scene where Jack asks a security guard he finds cowering what is going on.
The triads are on the highest floor at a penthouse of the owner, a Mr. Temple. To illustrate that they are not nice men we see a bad guy blow up an elevator with civilians inside that drops down to the floor where Jack is.
We get to ride up in the lift, where we get a gun at last.
Cover is explained. A goes into cover.
There is also clinch which grabs enemies A + X.
We can also disarm them.
From a clinch we can press X to take them hostage, Press A and LS to throw them. or do an attack with Y or B.
it's reasonable fun to grab hold of them, press X to hostage which allows us to move with them, then take them to the balcony and hurl them off by pressing A and the LS towards the edge.
We can press LB to put us into focus mode.
I come through the office blocks taking out loads of enemies.
I then come  to a larger enemy with a rocket launcher.
Once done we are told to escort a civilian to the studio elevator so that she can let us up to the penthouse.
I fight my way through some more office.
We come to the hostages and are tasked to save Temple and the remaining civilians.
I try to save them but the triads execute them all before I can take them down.
I kill the triads and then go into the next area where in cut scene we see the bad guy leader named Riggs escape out of the window into a helicopter.
We are told to pursue Riggs.
We do this on the outside of the building up stairs and landings.
At the top a helicopter appears and picks up Riggs taking him to Safety.

Mission 3
Jack is getting a dressing down from his chief, a SWAT team captain named Red comes in and saves him.
Outside Jacks boss comes and takes him down to a boxing ring??
We have a sparring tutorial for some advanced combo moves.
The bad guys named the union are being used as pieces in a bigger game. Jack is sent to investigate.
We walk through some of the police station it seems for no reason at all.
Then we arrive at the docks.
The dog and the boss are with us following along.
We get to a locked gate and are asked to use Shadow the dog to retrieve them.
Shadow can sneak, this allows him to sense heartbeats and to do silent kills.
We hold left trigger in to sneak.
When sneaking Shadow hugs the ground and the enemies glow with a blue glow. It turns amber or red if they see you.
I sneak around ripping apart the guards trying not to alerts them.
Eventually I find the keys and have to return to Frank, this must be the boss's name.
We now have to search union territory to find evidence leading to Riggs.
We are back to fighting enemies, only this time there are shadow and Frank to help.
I find some evidence.
Then some more evidence in the next room.
We have electricity traps in the next room which we can hurl the foes into.
In the next room we find an item of equipment that Jack recognizes as something that Riggs was wearing. This gives Shadow his scent.
We come upon two enemies in cut scene and Frank tries to get them to talk about what is going on. Suddenly Red and his SWAT team arrive. This stirs up the hornets nest and we have to defend ourselves against the Union soliders.
After about five minutes of frantic and fairly fun gunplay we get to see a cut scene. Frank and Red argue about policing methods. We then are back to looking for clues.
right bumper is reload. Left trigger is zoom.
Right trigger is fire.
We come to a meeting of bad guys and we hear them planning something with a new group of triads. We are spotted and the bad guys bolt. We are tasked with chasing the Triad Leader as he runs. This is a fun little chase until we meet groups of enemies and have a shoot out.
Eventually we come to a cut scene and Jack finds Frank shot. This is where we learn that Frank is actually Jack's father as well as boss. Jack goes to pieces and is hysterical, with no clue how to save his father as he dies in his arms. An ambulance turns up and we meet the woman from the start of the game, her name is Faith and she is a paramedic. She seems to know both Jack and Frank.
She works on him with her partner, despite the hopelessness of his case. A cliche of every medical emergency scene ever done, but at least they don't get anything too wrong with the CPR.
Jack starts beating on the triad, Faith stops him killing him.
Jack goes off to find answers.

Mission 4
We are to find a triad named Tseng, who Jack thinks knows something.
We descend from a subway station and enter some alleys.
There are new commands for Shadow here, we can send him to attack or collect with up on the d-pad. Or bring him back to us with down on the dpad.
Now we are into the game proper it seems.
We are fighting through heavily occupied streets, there are cops assisting, however, in the time honoured tradition of a.i. helpers they don't do much good.
There are rocket launcher guys appearing now.
We come through a train yard and eventually find Tseng. He is a very bad man, we know this because he takes drugs, shoots people in cold blood and has his own followers executed for being bad at being henchmen.
We go into the room and mop up the henchmen then the door opens for us.
We see in cut scene Jack getting onto a train after Tseng.
We are told that there are bombs on the train and we must defuse them to buy more time.
We must run through the train killing enemies and defusing the bombs. When I reach the end of the train jack finds an awful lot of bombs and realises that all he can do is jump for his life. The train blows.

Mission 5
We are now controlling Shadow who was following the train, Jack is injured and we must get Shadow to him to save him.
This is another sneak mission, quite a short one, though the penalty for being seen is a fairly quick death.
We now have to stop Tseng from blowing up Grant central station.
We progress along the railway tracks with heavy resistance. Lots of snipers with the usual red laser sight beams.
Then we get into the station itself. You have to watch out for civilians as shooting one sends you back to the last checkpoint.
Progressing through the station we come to a central square area. There are three bombs which need to be defused in a three minute time limit. Each is guarded by thugs.
Then we come to Tseng and have to fight him. We have to wear down his health. No guns allowed.
Then throw him onto the track and electrocute him, he then gets run over by a train for good measure.
We see jack and Faith talking in the bar again. He tells her that Riggs seems to have been paying the triads and the union to cause havoc in the city, but for what purpose?

Mission 6
We are back at the dock following Rigg's trail.
Another Shadow mission to get the keys to go into a building.
Again stealthy hunting of the guards. Barking allows you to lure guards in a direction by pressing Y.
Now we get to go in with Jack as well. Jack finds some of Rigg's gear and it links the conspiracy in with Temple and Red, the head of the SWAT team.
We go through the docks further and end up finding a stash of military grade hardware and lots of it. It seems to belong to something called GAC. Which Jack tells us is Grant City Anti Crime unit.
We now have to fight our way through the GAC. They have much better weapons.
There is also a helicopter that makes life hard.
At one point we have to wait for a lift to descend and fend of waves of enemies.
now we end up in some sewers. There are GAC snipers here, we also get the GAC Sniper rifle which is a really good one shot kill device.
We fight through the sewers and are now going after Riggs at a stadium.

Mission 7
The GAC are using the failed Grant city Stadium project as a base. We have to infiltrate it and find out what they are up to.
This a fairly standard shooter level where we run through corridors and fight boxes with lots of enemies. Not bad, but nothing we haven't seen in other third person shooters.
A new electricity gun appears.
Then we meet a boss like GAC tank soldier.
After that there is more shooting and eventually a cut scene.
We see Temple on TV announcing that the gangs are out of control and they need the newly formed GAC to take back the city. This is basically Temple grabbing for more power and someone thought the plot of the Star Wars prequels immensely clever.
We now have to use Shadow to sneak into the inner sanctum and turn off the electric fence which is preventing Jack from progressing.
This is a short sneak mission to turn off two generators. Then Jack gets inside for some more shooting, now inside the actual GAC base.
Jack now wants to disable their transport. We have to blow up three gunships.
I find the bombs, then have to get to the gunships.
There are three gunships, each has to have a bridge extended to reach it.
The areas are copied and pasted, only the enemies vary.
Tanks, snipers and soldiers make life hard.
The last of the three gunships is a fairly hard ambush scenario.
Then we get a boss battle with Riggs. He is on gantries above a square area. We get to run about in the square while he gets two emplaced guns to use on us.
Occasionally soldiers spawn in with us on the ground and Riggs Deploys mines.
The tactics I used were to stay in the middle and Riggs will try and flank you, Basically you get to the otherside of the central cover crates and line him up for a headshot from cover, pop out and let him have it then rinse and repeat. It takes too long but it is fairly easy. When the soldiers spawn in rush into the little nooks to hide and use Shadow to pick them off.
After Riggs is downed we have another gunship to blow up. Getting old here.
Oh this is only a set up we get to the gunship without much incident. In cut scene as Jack is placing the C4 Red appears behind him and breaks his arm. In the gunship Red is defending his apparent sell out. Jack lets him hear the evidence that Temple intended to have him killed after they had completed the plan. Red kills Riggs and Jack jumps from the gunship.
The C4 goes off and rocks the gunship but does not bring it down.

Mission 8
We are back to the start of the game, the flashbacks have caught up.
We have to stop the triads from finishing Jack off.
Basically we kill approaching Triads as Jack hobbles to the bar.
In cut scene in the bar Faith and Jack talk. Faith wants to use a hospital chopper to get Jack up to The top of Temples tower the quick way. She calls in a fake emergency, which quickly becomes a real emergency as a sniper shoots her in the abdomen.
We have to get Faith to the Medevac before she bleeds out.
This is essentially the same as normal except we have to carry Faith with us. We can pick her up and put her down. We can also heal her when hear health is low. Enemies will shoot at and kick her if they get near her. It's best to leave her back a bit and take out the enemies then go back for her. When we get to the roof The GAC won't let the chopper land. We now have to take out spotlights so they can't see it??
There are three heavily guarded spotlights. Teams of enemies and emplaced guns guard them.
Once they are all put out you have to go back through the empty level to Faith where you see the chopper land and everyone get in.

Mission 9
We land the chopper on the roof of Temple's tower and storm in to get to him. Lots of shooting and eventually we find Temple behind a secret door in his penthouse.
Temple is scared Witless of Jack and tells him that Red was the one who ordered his father killed. Jack now has to take Temple out of the tower.
This is similar to the faith scenario. However We can use Temple as an ammo station, which makes him much more useful. We make our way through a new part of the tower then back through familiar parts of it.
Eventually the VTOL gunship comes inside the building for a boss battle.
Shoot out it's light, then six sensors, then the pilot. And it's down.
Down in the Foyer one of the heavy cannon guys comes from the wrecked gunship and after he is down that is the end of the mission.

Mission 10
We now have to take back the precinct from GAC.
We start at the subway station. We still have temple to drag around with us.
Then across a bridge and into the police building. We have to take Temple with us.
Eventually we get to a cell and find Innes.
Now we have to defend the precinct against GAC attack.
Three wings are attacked  and we have to go and clear them all out.
Then we have to make our way to the roof.
Where Innes makes a distress call informing all the police out on the streets that GAC are the bad guys.
We have to Defend Innes while he does this.
Handy sniper rifle boxes make this easy.
Now GAC are coming back to the building, we can now snipe them from the roof.

Mission 11
GAC are falling back to an Island owned by Temple.
Jack goes in alone.
He steals a GAC uniform and gets onto one of their VTOLS.
When we land we have to stay with the GAC and not break cover.
We do this for a while inside the building, through a speech by Red and then on into the command center. Which handily has a huge pile of explosives for us to shoot. We then go out onto a landing and snipe all the men that run out of the gates to meet the police as they attack.
After this back inside.
To take the control center. Red makes a run for it.
We fight a little GAC then come to an empty heavy suit. We get to use it for a while, it's fun having endless chaingun fire and rockets.
Then we come to a drop the suit can't make. After some fighting with GAC a door is locked. We have to use Shadow to get the key.
In the next area is a lighthouse. The lighthouse is obviously the location for the dramatic conclusion. We chase Red up to the lighthouse where he hurts Shadow. Alone we pursue him up the stairs.
The final boss fight with Red is a knife fight, he has a vicious blade.
The lighthouse can be used to blind the pair of you.
Shadow limps up to Jack after Red is downed.

The final cut scene shows Franks funeral.
Faith comes to Jack and gives him solace.
The priest tries to but is given the brush off.
Jack and shadow head back to the city and the credits roll.

12 hours of Gameplay. 575 Achievement points.

God of War III Notes

 

The credits show over a recap in silhouette of the first two games.
I choose Normal mode.
We see the titans, I presume, climbing up mount Olympus.
The Gods led by Zeus watch their approach and then descend to start attacking.
Kratos is on the shoulder of Gaia as she climbs.
Poseidon attacks using tentacles of water filled with sea creatures to make the shape of horses. They grab Gaia and prevent her from moving upwards.
We start by having to kill some skeleton warriors.
Left stick moves Kratos. Right stick makes him dodge roll in a direction.
Square makes a short attack, Triangle a heavy attack.
X is jump. We can double jump and use wings to glide with a third press of X.
R2 is use magic which unleashes an environmental attack.
L1 is block.
We have to attack the beast that is grabbing Gaia to get it off.
We get up close and beat the crap out of it until it lets go. Kratos is left flying in the air and lands on Olympus itself. We are clambering around on vines  on the walls.
i find a chest and get some red orbs by pressing and holding R1.
I start climbing around Olympus until I see Gaia getting attacked again by the sea serpent.
We have to make our way to her. We come to a building. Inside under the floor frozen is Ares the fallen God of War.
A simple puzzle here sees us pull a lever and get to a moving platform that appears before it retracts to progress.
A large centaur attacks here and needs to be beaten until a circle appears above it's head. Once it does this starts a gory quicktime sequence where we disembowel it.
We come back out onto the back of Gaia again after being attacked by the serpent.
Another boss encounter where we have to attack it until a circle appears. Then cut off one of it's claws.
We then have to attack it and wear down it's health again and tear open it's heart.
We then hurl the claw we cut off of it into the heart.
We now have to go inside Gaia.
Inside after some clambering we find the heart of Gaia.
We have to use a movable column to progress here.
We learn that Gaia's heart is surrounded by impenetrable rock.
We can move and rotate the column.
We encounter some enemies and find that we can grab with circle and then use the enemy as a battering ram by using Square.
We come out onto Gaia again and face the Poseidon boss for the first time.
This is much the same as the horse tentacle thing, but has Poseidon on top.
We have to beat him up and then once he is circled do a quicktime sequence.
This does not kill him and we have to go back and wear him down again. The second time though Kratos drives right through the beast and arrives on the other side with a mortal form of Poseidon which we beat to a pulp and gouge out the eyes of in quicktime brutal o vision.
One God down already?
The body of Poseidon falls into the water and we see the sea rise up and swallow most of the land masses.
We get a save point here.
Gaia and Kratos continue to the top of Olympus where Zeus is waiting.
Zeus zaps Gaia with Lighting and knocks Kratos and Gaia down mount Olympus. Gaia badly hurt manages to grab on. Kratos can't keep his grip though, for some plot convenient excuse.
Gaia betrays him and lets him fall. He plunges down into Hades.
In the river Styx Kratos is stripped of his powers.
Athena comes to him and tells him that she is now a higher being than a god.
Athena tells Kratos that he needs the flame of Olympus to kill Zeus.
Athena does something to Kratos's blades.
We now have some platforming and some power ups to collect by going off the beaten path.
We fight some soldiers on a dias then use a long chain to grapple to the next area.
There are soldiers on the chain which we need to fight also.
The next ares is a cylinder trap and we fight soldiers and two gorgons consecutively.
I come to a path that is covered in bramble, there is no way through right now I am told.
In the next large open area Peirithous is trapped in a prison of tinder. He asks for freedom, he will give us a bow in return.
This is a puzzle.
We have to use a pendulum type affair to jump to a platform and move a mobile fire brazier.
The fire brazier is set alight by a dog in a cage at the far end.
The brazier then allows us to glide up high using our wings and it as a thermal.
We can then reach a lever which lets the dog out.
We get to ride it and burn up loads of enemies.
We then get to burn the guy we are meant to save.
We get the bow anyway.
We can now burn down the brambles to progress.
A new flying enemy like a bat with humanoid body attacks. We are show that by holding L1 and pressing circle we can grapple towards an enemy.
We come to a new area. The judges of the underworld.
Large statues with their hands on a large chain.
A message tells us that those to be judged must first complete the trials of Erebus.
The trials are familiar hack n slash waves of monsters to be defeated.
First humans who are grabbed by hands coming from the ground. They are turned into lost souls if the hands get them.
Second wave is lost souls who are turned into harder creatures like soldiers and minotaurs if they reach the gate and touch it.
The next wave has gorgons, bats and minotaurs.
Once done we go to the platform and are judged. A portal is opened for us to go through.
We have some minotaurs and some platforming.
Then we see a statue holding a blue tiny flame girl.
Hades talks to us and Kratos asks for a fight as usual.
Hades tells him to wait his turn.
We cross a chain.
Then we come to a room where we have to light another fire to create an updraft.
This takes us up to a platform with a lift and a timed switch. Above the lift is an exploding barrel production line. We can move the barrel around but there does not seem to be anything to do with it. I eventually work out that you have to take it back down in the lift and push it into the original fire to make it burn brighter to take you higher.
In this new area stone giants with hammers come alive and attack.
Hephaestus appears trapped in the underworld as a giant in a small cave.
I manage to get enough orbs to upgrade the blades of exile, which makes them stronger and unlocks some new moves. Pressing L1 and square does a spinning attack.
Opening a switch unlocks a door behind us which takes us to a circular room with a wheel in the middle. This lets us move the room around until the door faces a new direction.
In the new area the blue ghost child is present. The blade of Olympus is stuck into a bronze statue. The child ask Kratos to help free it, but he is reluctant.
Not the choice I would have made, Kratos is really a bit of an asshole.
We get to take the blade of Olympus and by pressing L and R 3 when a meter is full unleash it's power.
We are back at the door we could not pass earlier. This time with the bow we can burn down the wood preventing us passing.
Two dogs from statues above the door come alive and attack.
Each dog must have two of it's three heads ripped off then finally killed before being able to pass through the door.
In a small lobby we face a few waves of soldiers and dogs.
Inside this is a large area with a tree in a base of water.
There is a wheel which when turned opens a gate. The time to get up to the gate is not long enough so after bit of exploration there is a weight which can be pushed against the wheel to keep the gate open.
At the top of a long ascending hall we find a statue of Hades. When turning a wheel a casket is brought up from underneath. It contains a woman. It is Persephone the wife of Hades.
Swinging the casket at the statue brings down two ladders at either side.
Now we have a puzzle where we have to open the statues arms using two pulleys.
The thing is that the handcuffs which hold his arms apart both open at the same time. So while you can get one hand cuffed to get the next one in cuffs you need to open the cuffs again which lets the first hand out. The solution is to go down on a lift and get the stones from the first wheel you wedged them in and bring them back up on the lift to one of the pulleys upstairs. This allows you to keep one arm in check with the pulley while you get the other one into the cuff.
now you can swing the casket at the chest of the statue.
You then jump through the hole this makes in the chest of the statue to face Hades for a boss battle.
The boss battle with hades is a complex one. You have to attack him and avoid his blade attack which is similar to kratos own blades. When you wear down his health you have to QuickTime a lump of his flesh off. This piece of flesh tries to get back to Hades. Do this twice and after more QuickTime the battle changes. Hades gets bigger and you 
have to avoid him by swinging on grapple points. Wear him down and you get some more QuickTime to finally finish him off. You get his blades and his soul, which will allow you to swim in the river Styx without harm.
I swim in the river and find that you can dive down. I find Hades helmet. Passing through hades body second out into a new area. I get soul summon which allows you to summon a soul to attack your enemies. I can now use the dpad to switch between claws and blades. The river comes out back at Haephaestus. He tells kratos about his 
daughter and asks kratos to rescue her. There is a bit of backtracking to the revolving cylinder. This time we have to fight gollums and dogs.
Kratos then ends up back at the start of the Hades area and a new portal is activated.
Going through the portal takes us to the city of olympia.
Kratos encounters Gaia and chops off her hand making her fall. No forgiveness is given.
We come to a door, which will only open after some soldiers and dogs have been killed.
We come to harpies, which can be ridden on over gaps. Kratos does this by stabbing them so you can only go a short distance before you die. Handy other harpies can be jumped to in the air.
We come to the open city and find the Lava titan being harrased by Helios.
We fight some soldiers in a square area then a centaur and more soldiers.
Some chests change colour so that you can choose which orbs you want to get from them. Blue for magic, green for health. Red powers up your weapons.
We then fight a monster with a snake for a tail, a lions head and horns like a goat.
It take a bit of killing.
Then we fire a catapult at helios and the titan grabs him and cushes him and hurls him away into the city.
We then have to cross a large gap on the harpies.
Then fight some soldiers and run around the city a little.
We come to the badly hurt Helios, although he has a lot of soldiers as bodyguards.
We can't break the turtle formation that the soldiers make with their shields around Helios. A handy cyclops turns up and we get to ride it a control it when it's energy is worn down. This makes short work of the shield formation and we can then take down the soldiers.
Helios is left unguarded. He tells Kratos that the flame of Olympus must consume him before he can wield it. Is he lying? Kratos kills him anyway. He tries to use light to kill Kratos and we have to use Kratos' hand to block the view to get close before pummeling Helios and ripping off his head.
The head is useful it can be used to reveal secrets.
The head can be shone around by pressing and holding L2 and moving the right stick.
It reveals a door in the rock that was concealed. We go through and we are on the path of Eos.
It is dark and we need to use the head to navigate and help us fight harpies and soldiers.
The little blue girl turns up again still asking for help. Kratos is rude as usual.
We have to ride the harpies again across a gap.
There are some new enemies here called wraiths that can hide under the ground, we can grapple them to pull them out of the ground.
We have some more wraiths and archers in the distance to deal with.
I come to the base of a long shaft with a huge chain leading up it called the chain of balance. Kratos jumped into the updraft and we have to fly up the shaft at high speed avoiding beams and rock walls.
At the top we strike the lava titan in quicktime.
Then we are inside the top of the shaft clmabering around as it collapses around us.
This is quite an annoying section, quick jumps and falling rocks emphasise how hit and miss the platforming here can be.
Eventually another shaft with harder obstacles and we come out into a large area with crates suspended from a cave ceiling. It is called the caverns there is a glowing cage in the middle.
Shooting bramble from a wheel releases a mechanism and all the crates shift around.
We can now grapple to another crate.
The journey on this crate is not so nice, as we are attacked by waves of soldiers, archers, minotaurs and a three headed dog. We get to ride the three headed dog and make a mess of a bunch of minotaurs.
The minotaurs attack the chain holding the crate and if I don't keep them off it the crate falls and we die.
We come to Hermes who is fairly flippant, he obviously hasn't seen what happened to Hades, Helios and Poseidon yet. Hermes can run very fast, which is good as he just pisses Kratos off some more. We grapple up and climb the chain which after much climbing leads us to a room called the flame of Olympus.
Inside the flame Kratos sees Pandora's box
Athena appears and tells Kratos that when Zeus triumphed over the titans many years ago, the weapons he used used were too dangerous to stay in play. He locked them in the Pandora's box. When Kratos opened the box to kill Ares he did not release the worst. The box must be retrieved from the flame and opened again to gain the power to kill Zeus. Only Pandora herself can do this.
There are portraits hidden on the walls of the chamber that are reveled using Helios' head.
We go outside onto balconies and find Hermes waiting. He taunts us and gets Kratos to chase him. We have some clambering and fireballs set light to the platforms making it an against time rush.
checkpointing is poor in these sections and you end up repeating them and repeating them.
We chase Hermes through city streets filled with enemies and civilians. Hermes sits atop a statue and taunts us. Kratos uses a catapult to knock down the statue.
We find Hermes in the rubble, badly injured. We still have a hard time hitting him but he stays in one place at least. Eventually I wear him down. Kratos them lops of both his legs in quicktime and he dies. Hermes turns into a plague of locusts and flies away.
We get his boots.
The boots can be used like the head and the bow. Holding L2 and pressing X does a dashing attack.
They can also be used to run up walls and wall run.
We come to an open area and can see the civilians being plauged by the locusts.
Larger soldiers and huge gollums with maces attack.
We go through a door and are now above the flame of Olympus.
In a corridor off the main dias we encounter sirens.
Above this we come to a spiral staircase and thena large room.
There is a dias with the button symbols on it and a picture of a sword which must be made  right by turning levers above the picture. When the sword is formed facing to the right then the statues grab levers.
We then have to play guitar hero. I kid you not, you have a fairly complex quicktime sequence in the form of a tune which makes the statues move the apparatus around.
We go back to the flame and turn the crank which opens a door.
Hera appears and taunts Kratos. Hera is the wife of Zeus and while she appears to have no love for him she does not want him dead. She sends Hercules who is Kratos' brother to kill him. Hercules is jealous of Kratos and is all to happy to kill him and take over the mantle of God of War.
The fight against Hercules is long and hard. At first there are loads of soldiers to take care of. Eventually they stop coming and we get hercules to ourselves. He has huge lion gauntlet. In the arena he can slam us against pillars of thorns. We can also do this to him at specific times.
After a long fight he starts to lose it and we get his gauntlets off him. Using them is still a hard fight. Eventually we get a quicktime sequence where he lifts the whole floor of the arena and tries to tip us into the abyss. We end up pummeling his head into mush. Hercules is down.
We get the neman Cestus as the gauntlets are called.
The cestus can cause a shockwave when slammed into the ground that is deadly.
It can also be used to break open oynx sealed objects.
We come to a series of small corridors and rooms, there is a woman who seems to be a prisoner and the blue flame girl is here again.
In a room we go through a portal and find a platform that sinks with out weight.
We pull a switch and platforms rearrange. We can now kick hell hounds into the portal and get them to weigh the platfrom down for us.
Now we are in the cells and Kratos frees the chained up woman.
She runs out and straight into the dogs, from which we have to save her.
We then have to fight two hammer gollums which are hard to kill.
Then some more soldiers with shields and another gollum. We chain the girl to the wheel which we need to keep the gates open and can now get through to the statue of Pandora.
Kratos calls Pandora and she appears in the flames in the statues hand. She tells him to come to the labyrnth to save her. Zeus' voice can be heard telling Kratos to stay away.
The double jumping in this game needs some work.
We come to a bunch of high platfroms which need turned in the right direction by using levers.
We come to Aphrodites chamber, she offers Kratos some sex, I decline. She tells us that to get to the labyrynth where Pandora is being held we must ask the help of her husband Haephestus. She opens a portal to him. Through the portal we are back in Hell.
Haephestus tells us that he forged Pandora's box and Pandora is the living key to the box.
He lied to Zeus in earlier games when he told him that storing the box on the Titan Kronos would keep it safe, so that he could protect Pandora who he loved.
Heaphestus tells us that he will forge us a weapon with which to kill Zeus. I presume in order to stop Kratos from getting Pandora and opening the box. Will opening the box kill Pandora?
We are to fetch an object for Haephestus with which to make the weapon. He opens a new door for us to a place named Tartarus.
This isn't a friendly place as we meet hordes of soldiers and a centaur.
Then up to the gates of tisiphone for a bsttle with two snake/lion/goat mashups.
The gate is a sliding block puzzle that needs many switches and jumps with the hydra and normal to scale to the top and open the gate.
We are now in the pit of Tartarus and a handy book tells us that this is where the Titans and Gods fought. Also where the Titans got banished to once they lost.
We fight some soldiers, then find gaia's hand. Chronos rises from the rubble and tells Kratos that he is going to kill him for what was done before.
We blind Cronos then start running around on his body fighting soldiers.
We end up on almost all parts of Cronos, fighting soldiers and gollums, hanging from his belly, his arms, his legs. While he tries to swat us Kratos stabs and pokes at vulnerable areas. There is a lot of swinging from grapple points also.
Eventually after fighting some skinned cyclops and soldiers on the titan's shoulder we are swallowed by it. Inside we must slide down it's gullet avoiding a mass from above that descends and kills you.
We then cut our way out of Cronos using the large sword.
We get the Omphalos stone in the process.
We then break the anchor that holds the stone around Cronos' back. This makes it whip up and spear him through the chin. Kratos then smashes it for good measure and sticks the sword between Cronos' eyes. One titan down.
Back to Haephestus with the stone and he makes the weapon. As he does he looks decidedly shifty. Kratos also wonders if he didn't send him to Chronos in the hope that the titan would kill him.
Haephestus gives Kratos the weapon but turns on him and tries to fry him with green lightning.
Kratos survives and through quicktime we spear Haephestus on his own machines and he dies.
We get the weapon though, it's called the nemesis whip.
Back through the portal to Aphrodite for a quicktime shagging session.
Then we can now charge up the broken pillar with the nemesis whip and make progress.
We come into a room with portals.
It is the study of Deadalus, who has been tasked by Zeus to build something to keep Pandora inside safe from any who would see the key to the box. There are some puzzles here for bonus items.
There are items found in chests like gorgon's eyes, minotaur horns, etc. which raise your health and magic bars.
We find Hera in the garden, she tells us that what we are doing is destorying the world, no sun, the seas in turmoil covering the lands. Plague amongst the mortals.
The murdering of the Gods is removing their beneficial functions from the world as well.
Hera throws he goblet away and Kratos picks it up.
In a narrow corridor we encounter new goat like humanoids with long staffs. They are fairly hard.
I spot a hazy area in the garden, using the head of helios I find a chest. I have noticed a few of those, but just thought it was heat haze or something.
A dias on the floor suggest we need to use a stone which can show us the future path of the Gods.
This is an escher like trick of perspective, a set of steps lying on the ground when looked at by the statue form a step to the next level. While the statue's eye glows we can climb up the steps.
Next we have to move a plinth with steps until it makes a cup fill with water to hold open a gate.
Hera is here again and Kratos gives her a wide berth until she calls Pandora a whore, why should he care, he obviously does as he snaps her neck. More plague is released into the world.
There are two more cups to be weighted with water, but how.
After much puzzling I find a way to get water into the other cup and Hera's body into the last.
This makes a path all the way to the other side.
Kratos crushes the stone so that none can follow.
We go across a large gap with the aid of the hydras.
Inside this new door is dark tunnels and a lift.
We are back down in the cave with the huge boxes on chains. Is this the Labyrinth, a maze inside the boxes and the boxes shuffleable.
There is a large fight on top of one of the boxes. Large gollums with maces en masse. We also get a cyclop we can ride on but he does not last long against a gang of gollums.
After this a save point and we progress through some more dark tunnels.
On top of the next box we get a boss battle against a giant scorpion.
This is a break the armour on the legs kind of affair. Then we have much quicktime to kill it off finally.
Our prize for killing the scorpion is it's sting, this can be inserted in pieces of the labyrynth and makes it shift it's configuration.
We move around many grapples and plaftorming, back to the room where we first found the keyholes for the ice stone.
Then we meet Deadalus who is chained up in one of the blocks.
The labyrynth is finally assembled and we enter.
There are a few boxes we have to traverse, one have lots of gollums with hammers and dogs.
The next is a puzzle where we have to move the gravity of the box and place a weight on a door stud.
The next is a fun room with spikes to negotiate.
Then a room with spiky floors to survive waves of wraiths, minotaurs and soldiers.
We then come to Pandora and we rescue her. We can carry her and lift her up to higher ledges. She opens doors for us as well.
Once she gets trapped in a room with descending blades, we have to get across some clambering stages to free her before she is minced.
We cross a bridge and Pandora tries to tell Kratos that hope is more important than vengence.
We have some more puzzles and then a long and hard fight box with what must be fifty enemies of varying types coming in waves.
We are then on top of the Labyrynth. Pandora tells Kratos that he must break the chain and lift the labyrynth up towards Olympus.
We have to dive down the chain tunnel, which is starting to be an annoying mini game.
At the bottom we fight a three headed dog and a few pole goats.
Then we have to knock the crystal from the back of the heads of the three judges.
They are guarded by some varied groups of enemies.
When this is done the chain can be broken at the crystal base and we go back up the chain to the labyrynth. Athena is talking to Pandora when we get there. We are told to raise the labyrynth. Kratos has to climb the chain again.
At the top of the chain we turn the crank and the chain rises bringing the labyrynth with it. The devastation is awful and there is little left of the labyrynth and the rest of the innards of Olympus when the chain reaches the top. Kratos meets Pandora and she is ready to go into the flame. Kratos hesitates and tells Pandora he will find another way. She is ready to die for Kratos and runs to the flame only to bash into Zeus.
Zeus grabs Pandora and hurls her away. Then Kratos and Zeus start to fight.
The battle with Zeus takes place on a beam so it lends itself a 2D feel. It feels like you are playing Street Fighter or Tekken.
Zeus punches or zaps with lighting at first. He also grabs and slides you.
Once his energy is down you have a quicktime sequence then he starts using the lightning more heavily.
Again wear him down for some qucktime.
This time Pandora makes a break for the chain. Kratos stops her until Zeus enrages him so much with his taunts that he drops Pandora and goes for Zeus again. Pandora is sucked into the flame and everything goes black. Kratos wakes to find Pandora gone. The box is his for the taking. Kratos goes and opens the box only to find it empty.
Zeus taunts him once more and vanishes.
Looks like we have a break in the battle. There is a save point.
I follow Zeus out onto a balcony and found he has went into a pillard dias. We fight him again.
Gaia appears, not dead obviously and grabs the whole dias off the top of it's peak.
She tells the pair that they are wrecking the  world and they must both die.
Zeus asks Gaia if her pawn has failed her. He suggests she should have chosen the other one.
Gaia crushes the building and both Zeus and Kratos jump free and enter the insides of Gaia.
Inside Gaia we break the material surrounding her heart and start wailing on her exposed heart.
Zeus comes for another fight.
This is the final one and it's hard. Until I realised that the nemesis whip grab attack is really good for keeping Zeus down and stops him making clones and using most of his attacks.
Gaia's heart is a source of health for both of you and you must use it and keep Zeus away from it.
Once done there is a quicktime sequence where you stick the sword through Zeus and into gaia's heart killing them both. In the ruins of Olympus after Gaia has turned into a dust and rubble storm on top of it Kratos finds  Zeus's body and pulls the sword from it.
Zeus then appears in huge god like glowing white form and snaps Kratos' neck.
We find ourselves in a dark rock like area glowing grey and red.
Some kind of limbo or afterlife.
There is not much to see other than a pedastal.
Voices can be heard.
A red line of blood appears and we can follow it. Kratos is haunted by visions of his families death.
Pandora calls to us and a light appears in the distance. We are back at the pedastal and Pandora lies there. Kratos picks her up and she tells him that the fires of hope will set them free.
She turns into fire and lights the brazier. A lamp can be lit from it.
We find our family again and there is a voice talking of forgiveness. Kratos hugs his family and it seems that they forgive him.
Pandora urges Kratos onwards. We see Kratos stabbing Athena.
Athena urges him to confront his demons and lay them to rest.
Kratos comes to a cliff edge and jumps in, he lands in water.
We start swimming around as voices rage and yell from the past.
Eventually after a long swim we come to Pandora's box and open it.
Pandora tells him that hope is the most important thing in the world, it is what you fight with when you have nothing else left.
Kratos comes back to life and we start to fight Zeus again in a first person perspective. Hacking with the blades then fists until Zeus is a bloody pulp.
Athena arrives and asks for her weapon back, the one that Kratos used to kill Zeus.
She explains that she placed the most powerful weapon in the world in the box along with all the evils when Zeus sealed it the first time. She wants it back.
When Pandora's box ws opened the first time evils were released in the world, it seem that the weapon was given to Kratos that first time as well, hope is the weapon.
Kratos appears to be about to kill Athena again, instead he stabs himself. This releases Hope into the world. Athena seems disappointed. The camera pans away from Kratos' corpse and the credits Roll.

You don't get to save after the Zeus and Gaia meet near the end. The time on the save game there was 12:52. I would estimate a further two hours after that, so 15 hours play time for my first play through on Normal (God) mode. 47% of the trophies.

I have now unlocked

Challenges.
Chaos mode
Costumes
Videos

I tried the challenge mode and this sees you basically in an arena fighting enemies with special buffs or debuffs. For example the first challenge sees you fight soliders and you must keep their numbers below fifty. Survive for a set time and you win. Simple fun and I am sure these will keep avid God of war fans going past the campaign.