Alan Wake Notes

I choose hard mode, I may regret this.

Episode 1 Nightmare
A monologue over a view of rolling countryside.
A lighthouse. Alan is talking about a dream. He is driving down a road at night, too fast, on his way to find his wife. He hits a hitchhiker and gets out to investigate. The lights of the car go out and the body vanishes.
We get control. Alan stand in front of the car, we are told to look at a lampost light high up to get our control preference.
Left stick moves Alan, Right is camera.
B is examine. The car is broken.
LB is sprint.
X is jump.
A brick wall has appeared behind us in the tunnel we drove through. Alan comments that it wasn't there a second ago.
Our objective is to go to the lighthouse, the light from it can be seen in the distance.
There seems to be two routes to go here, however the illusion is shattered quickly as the bridge we can see in the distance is out. We have to go back and go down to a jetty we can see.
I find a thermos, which seems to be a collectible.
I try out the game by walking off the edge of the bridge, no invisible walls here as Alan plunges to his death.
I go back and head along the wooden structure leading to the jetty. As I do the camera pans backwards to the car and we see the hitchhiker has returned, only this time he is darkened and flickery at the edges. He is seen in the distance then suddenly right in front of Alan. We have to avoid his axe swings as he comes at Alan. He is taunting Alan as he attacks. Suggesting that Alan is a poor writer. It appears reading between the line that this is a creature of Alan's own creation and it is sick of being manipulated by Alan.
The wooden structure collapses and Alan is left standing below the figure. We are prompted to press the left stick down to focus which pans the camera on the monster as it talks.
We are left alone again and our objective is still to get to the lighthouse.
A sign has a missing persons poster with Alan's face on it.
We come face to face with the hitchhiker again. Alan tells us that he is a character from a story he was working on.
We have to learn how to dodge here, which is done by Pressing LB and moving the left stick in the desired direction. We have to dodge the hitchhiker twice to move on. He vanishes again.
Further down the path the hitchhiker appears again. He asks us how it feels to die at the hands of ones own creation. The hitchhiker then turns into a swirling vortex of dark energy and comes for Alan. We are told to sprint. I follow the path across a bridge. where a man is waiting. The man is named but I didn't catch it. He tells us to get into the house. The man is trapped outside by the hitchhiker and axed to death. We are now inside the house trapped.
I flail around the house looking for what to do next. There seems to be little to do. Only one door. There are tv's showing an eye which follows Alan around the room.
There are rumblings and shudders. Alan is hurt by the shaking and buffeting. A light suddenly appears through a new hole in the wall of the cabin. A voice tells us to go towards the light. Which given the previous history of going towards the light seems like a bad idea. Of course this is a linear game and we have no choice but to follow the set path. Outside the voice tells us to go into a pool of light where we will be safe. In the light our health rises back to the top as shown by a circular bar around the hud.
The light starts babbling about lakes and waves, obviously foreshadowing stuff that might get explained later. It asks Alan if he understands, and he says no. It then tells him to follow it's light and mends a broken down set of stairs. It looks like we are a pawn in the struggle between light and dark, good  and evil.
I move forward and reach another tutorial, this one on combat.
The light tells us to pick up the flashlight. We are told that the darkness protects the monster. The hitchhiker must have the darkness burned away before we can hurt him. This is done by training the light on him. We have to press Left trigger to boost the light. Whilst Right trigger is pressed the light burns bright. The left stick controls the beam and the camera. Aiming at the monster and pressing Left Trigger makes the darkness dissolve. We are told we can now shoot him with a gun by pressing the right trigger. The light handily provides a revolver. We shoot the hitchhiker about four times and he dies.
The light tells us that we can have our dream back.
Alan tells us that the lighthouse is the only safe place left in the world.
X is reload. Tapping X while reloading makes it happen quicker.
We get a few enemies to practice on and it is hard when there are more than one.
I get to a light post and my health goes back up. I find a flare gun which is like a shotgun blast, I take out three enemies at once with it.
I noticed here that there is a building with a thermos in it. I went down a step and could not get back up. This means that it's possible to go to far and miss collectibles that you will never be able to get back to unless you do another playthrough.
We now have to run from the dark hurricaine again and it throws cars and other items of scenery at Alan as he runs to the lighthouse. Inside the lighthouse Alan is safe until the light goes out. Then it seems as if something descends from above to get him. He hears a voice and then wakes from the dream. He is on a ferry arriving at Bright  falls with his wife.
It's daytime and the camera pans over the town before we get control back on the ferry.
On the ferry the wife asks you to pose near an old man on the front of the ferry. He is called Pat and runs a local radio show. He asks Alan for an interview, Alan declines, saying that he is in Bright falls to get away from it all. Alan's agent Barry calls and nags.
The ferry arrives at the jetty and we disembark in Cut scene. Alice who is Alan's wife tells us to go to a diner and speak to Carl who has the keys for their cabin.
In the diner we meet Rose who is a superfan of Alan, she keeps a life size cardboard cut out in the diner. The police chief drinks too mucch coffee and there are aged hells angels who seem to be resident in the diner. An old woman is afraid of the dark and won't go down a corridor. Seems we have to go down the dark corridor.
At the end of the dark corridor we knock on the gents toilet door. An elederly woman dressed in black wearing a hat with a dark veil appears out of nowhere. She gives Alan the key to the cabin and tells him that she will check in on him later. And ominously says she will meet his wife.
She tells us that cauldron lake is a very inspiring place.
Back in the diner we find that the old men are waiting to be picked up by their doctor. The woman with the fear of the dark tells us we were lucky this time.
Alice appears outside the diner in the car and we can go out to her triggering a cut scene.
This shows Alice and Alan driving to the cabin. As they leave the diner street Carl appears running out of the diner to give them the keys and directions to the cabin. Looks like they have been sent somewhere other than they intended.
Alan talks about his writers block which has seen him unable to write a word for two years.
The arrive at their rather spectacular cabin which is in the middle of a lake on a little Island of it's own.
The little island is called Divers isle. There have already been pictures of a man in an old style diving suit, old tom might be his name. Foreshadowing?
There are always ravens fluttering away from most places in the game.
Alice is afraid of the dark.
I explore the cabin area and find a generator in a shack. I turn it on and realise that I have probably done something in the wrong order.
I come to a point where I am meant to focus and see Cauldron lake Lodge in the distance. Apparently it was a hotel once but is now closed to the public. Looks like we will be going there soon then.
Alice goes into the house and tells us to look around.
A cut scene shows her smiling at us from inside the house and Alan talks about how he hopes he can sleep here and get over his work problems.
I find a radio outside on the porch which plays a little clip of the radio show, seems that the Pat and Rose are determined that everyone in Bright Falls knows Alan is there.
Inside Alice says to come upstairs that she has a surprise for Alan.
Upstairs we find a typewriter. Alan goes off the deep end and is angry with Alice. She tells him that there is doctor in Bright falls who specialises in helping artists. As they argue the lights flicker and a figure can be seen for an instant between them. Alan goes outside in the dark to calm down and be alone knowing that Alice won't follow him out into the dark.
Alan hears Alice screaming inside the cabin and the lights go out inside. We get control back.
I run back to the cabin and am attacked by the ravens. The flashlight kills them.
Inside the door of a cabin a cut scene starts. There is a hole in the wall of the cabin and Alan looks out and sees that Alice is under the water. Alan dives in to save Alice.
He blacks out and wakes on the ground. a voice says "keep going Alan, wake up".
Alan is beside the wreck of his crashed car and his phone is dead.
A gas station can be seen in the distance.
I progress through the forest, I can see the light that spoke to us appear in the distance.
As I approach the light a cut scene starts. Alan finds some pages and picks them up. It seems they are from a book called Departure written by Alan himself. He has no memory of ever writing them. The page tells of someone being attacked in the woods by a shadowy axeman.
I come to a logging yard.
Here we find carl Stucky, but he is posessed by the darkness. He has an axe and someone lies dead.
We are attacked by Stucky and have to flee into the building. Here we get our flashlight and batteries, also a gun.
A phone can be used, however as we call the police the telegraph pole we can see in the distance out of the window is cut down and the phone goes dead.
A large digger type vehicle starts up and moves towards the cabin.
We get out of the cabin and watch as the bulldozer takes the whole cabin over the edge of the cliff.
I am attacked by two enemies here. There is a portable light that can be switched on.
There is a generator type object I am prompted to kick, but I can't see what that did.
There are yellow markings that are only revealed by the torch light. I follow a trail which leads me to a flare gun.
Ah the kicking was to turn off the power so I could get past an electrified area cause by the bringing down of the power lines.
I find a manuscript page of the beaten path. Pays to explore it seems.
A flash comes to Alan, of his wife in the water and the face of the dark woman from the diner.
Another page hidden on a dead end on a set of logs tells of Alan's agent Barry worrying about him.
I come to another logging camp and face more enemies.
I find a set of yellow directions and more batteries and supplies. A message tells us that the taken are filled with darkness. It is graffiti on the wall, shown only by the flashlight.
Who wrote it?
I find that there is an item limit.
A staircase is blocked and we need to find another way.
I see a generator in the distance, A few monsters get in the way and we have to start it using a mini-game where you have to time button presses with a revolving marker.
I then go to a button that is now powered up. This allows us to move a log lift. The log lift is to be moved so that it forms a bridge between two log piles. There is a ladder we can climb to get up on top of the logs. You have to press B to get onto the ladder when near it.
Jumping across the makeshift bridge gets us up on top of the area we wanted to get to.
I come to the first large scale fight. The game is asking me to get better at it here. Lots of enemies attacking in groups of three. There is a generator which when started acts as a health point.
I come to another cabin, inside is a tv and there is an episode of a tv series called night Springs playing.
A man explains quantum immortality theory. He shoots himself and explains that in one reality he was shot and in another reality he didn't die. The trick is to always be in the correct reality. This is a short story by Alastair Reynolds, I can't remember the name of.
A switch opens a gate here.
I find the shotgun in the cabin.
In this next area we have a boss battle of sorts. Around five normal enemies and stucky attack. The shotgun is really helpful here.
Stucky moves faster than the rest of the enemies and takes more light shining to wear down his shield. Once done he take an awful lot of bullets as well.
We reach the gas station and Alan draws our attention to a pardae float for deer fest which is parked outside.
Alan notices a sign which says Deer fest is only 7 days away. It had been two weeks away when he first got the Bright Falls, which means he has lost a week.
Inside the garage Alan sees himself on the tv. He is in the room at the cabin writing at the typewriter. He says the only way to save Alice is to keep on writing.
Inside the garage we have to find a phone. The phone on the counter can be used.
This starts a cut scene where Alan calls the police. A female sherrif comes out to meet him. He asks her to help him, tells her he has been in a car crash and has lost his wife. Alan tells her he is staying in the cabin on Cauldron lake. She tells him that there is no cabin on Cauldron lake, it was destroyed in an erruption in the seventies. She tells Alan she will take him to the lake to show him and then to the station. At the lake we see that there is no Island. Credits roll and we are told that it's the end of episode 1.

Episode 2 : Taken
We see a previously on Alan Wake resume of what happened.
Alan comes into a house carrying shopping. Alice is inside, this seems to be a flashback.
We are in Alan's house. Alice asks him to put coffee on. She is working in a room which appears to be her darkroom, is she a photoprapher?
We have to go and switch on the coffee machine. Then we have to go back to Alice. She asks us to look at cover designs she has left for us in our office. We go to Alan's writing room and find the covers. Then we have to go back to Alice. The lights go out when we do. It is a power cut. Alan check the fuse boxes and gets a flashlight out of it. We have to go back to Alice which starts a cut scene. Alan comforts Alice over her fear of the dark. He tells her that his mother gave him a light switch when he was young, which would turn on a magic light and scare away the monsters. Alan gives the switch to Alice.
We are back to the present and Alan is being looked over by a doctor, he continues to pretend everything is all right so that he doesn't get locked up as a loony. It may be possible that Alan is nuts and hallucinating all of the darkness and just murdering poor unfortunates like Stucky.
We are told by the doctor that we should go back and see Sarah the sherrif.
First sessions play 3 hours.
I leave the room where the doctor tended me and find myself in the police station.
The old woman who is paranoid about the lights is there.
The policewoman at the desk talks about her. Says she was the editor of the local newspaper, then she went a bit nuts and worried about the lights and never stepped on shadows.
We have to go and speak to Sarah in her office.
There is a radio, a thermos and a manuscript page in the room in the other direction.
I go down the corridor and speak to Sarah. She has charged out phone for us.
She asks what happened. Alan tells her about arguing with Alice and leaving the cottage, then going back in to find her gone. He then tells her he woke up and can't remember anything for the last seven days.
He does not tell her about the shadows and Stucky.
Sarahs asks if he means the non-existant cabin on Cauldron lake. Alan's phone rings and he answers it. Alice speaks to him and then someone comes on the phone. He tells Alan to lose the law and meet him in Elderwood national park. He tells him to go to the back lot and look at something first.
I go down the cell corridor after being told by the policewoman at the desk where to go. There is a drunk in the cells ranting about the lights.
I go out the back and find a hole in the fence. We have to use B to kick some boards away. Alice's driving license is on the seat of a wrecked old car.
Barry, Alan's agent calls and telss Alan he is in Bright Falls. Alan asks him to pick him up. I go through the cell area again and the tv there shows Alan in his writer room agonising about continuing to write the story.
In the police station reception Dr Hartman has arrived to pick up the two men we met in the diner. Wasn't that a week ago?
Dr Hartman tells Alan that he can come and stay at his clinic at Cauldron lodge. Alan gets angry and asks if this is a set up between him and Alice?
Alan punches Hartman. Barry arrives and threatens lawyers. Hartman does not want to press charges. Barry and Alan leave. Sarah tells him not to leave town.
Barry and Alan drive to a lodge at Elderwood. Rose meets them in the car park. Barry is sweet on her. Alan wants to wait until the arranged meeting time with the  kidnapper.
There is a statue of a mammoth in the lodge reception.
We have to speak to Rusty to book a room.
He is tending to a dog that was caught in a trap. He asks us to go and get a form from the reception desk and bring it back to him.
He gives us keys and tells us how to get to lovers peaks, which is where we have to meet the kidnapper. Barry thinks Alan has gone insane, but comes with him anyway.
The scene shifts to the cabin and Barry is to stay there and wait While Alan goes to lovers peak and meets the kidnapper.
We start of out in the cabins area heading for the peak.
Inside the cabins are supplies and an episode of Night Springs. This is about mirror images of people. The story show a man being interrogated by a cops. It appears that this is the mirror clone of a man that climbed out of the mirror and killed his real self. Again possibly a quantum link.
We come to the visitor centre and the dark cloud can be seen above it. Shots are heard and Rusty's voice screaming in terror.
We are back at the lodge reception now and it has been wrecked by a massive force. The front door caved in.
Inside we find rusty badly injured by the dark force. He tells us that it happened just like the page of a book he found. He tells Alan that the page is in his office and gives him the key.
I enter the office and find some supplies. The circuit box has an axe buried in it.
All hell lets loose a tree falls in the yard and patches of oily darkness appear on the ground. Two enemies emerge when I get back outside.
The pools of oil can be blown up by using the basic flashlight on them, no need to make it supercharged for them.
Where Rusty was lying it seems that something has torn a mammoth sized hole in the wall. Mammoth sized? a Clue? the mammoth seems a little too much work to go to for aesthetic value alone.
I head out through the hole and find Rusty posessed. He attacks us. He is one of the fast moving boss types. He doesn't attack much and is harder to catch than avoid and danger from.
Are you only allowed to carry 42 revolver bullets because that is the meaning of life?
I find moonshine cave and a hidden crate of supplies. We have to follow the nature trail to get to lovers peak.
We move along the trail and regularly are attacked by enemies, there are larger enemies that need more shots and light to wear down.
There is an ambush here that is quite hard to survive.
I find a page which describes an Agent Nightingale who is out to catch Alan Wake?
We come to a cable car across a chasm. As we use it the shaking starts and the car starts to run too fast towards the other side. Alan is knocked down and when he comes round the enemies are approaching and his flashlight is too far away. Suddenly a flare goes off and someone helps him up. The man it seems is the kidnapper. He takes us up the hill. We have to shine the light on the enemies and he will shoot them for us. Alan has lost his guns in the cable car crash. We now have flares though, These can be used to make the enemies retreat. We hold RB to hold a flare up in the air it lasts for about ten seconds.
We reach lovers peak and have to defend it against waves of enemies. Shining the light for the kidnapper to shoot at the enemies and using the flares to keep them at bay at others.
The kidnapper congratulates Alan wake on creating something wonderful and terrible. Then asks for the manuscript. Alan just wants Alice back and attacks the kidnapper, they end up falling over the edge. The kidnapper runs when Alan gets his gun.
I get stuck in a bear trap here. Looks like we will have to watch where we are walking from now on.
End of second play session now totalling 5 hours.
Back in the woods and I have a hard fight getting to some old run down shacks with a generator. I find that letting a flare light then letting go of the button drops it. This allows you time to start the generator and keeps the enemies at bay.
I find a hunting rifle here.
I find the wreck of an old plane here. Alan mumbles something about it being very old but looking like the crash only happened yesterday.
I move through more woods fighting until I come to a mill.
Inside the mill we have some platforming to do, which is newish. The plane body tipped when we walked through it and some dodgy old boards here do the same, showing off the physics engine.
The black oil is back.
A graffiti tells us that the darkness wears her face.
I am now heading back to the cabins by another route and am attacked by a chainsaw weilding bigger enemy.
We get a call from Barry telling us that birds are attacking the cabin. Alan tells him that he is coming and to stay inside with the lights on.
We get to a caravan park. We can investigate a locked door behind which we can see a jeep. Alan tells us that we shuld get the keys and use the vehicle to get back to Barry fast.
In the toilets we find the key. A television also shows us Wake talking in his writing room. He is telling us that a story is created by the author but as it grows it takes on it's own identity and demands. Characters have to remain true and one change has repercussions throughout the entire thing.
We get attacked by a monster coming from the toilet stall, which was predicatble really as it was the only door that wouldn't open. I was waiting for it and blew it away quickly.
The car is reached without problem.
Right trigger is accelerate, left trigger is break and left stick to steer.
I drive along roads littered with obstacles and enemies, which are fun to run over.
Eventually I come to a road block I can't pass.
The vehicle handles poorly, though this isn't really the game for advanced driving simulation.
There is a large attack of enemies here. The kidnapper calls and asks for the manuscript again. Alan tells him that it isn't finished and asks for a week. The kidnapper gives him two days and tells him to meet him at a coal mine in two days time. The manuscript to be swapped for his wife.
We progress up the hill to the cabin and Barry. A huge swarm of birds circle high above the rooftops. We have to defend against the birds in the garden of the cabin, they circle and swarm down to attack. The flare gun can be used to take out whole groups with well placed shots.
Barry removes the barricades from the door and lets Alan in. Barry apologises for thinking that Alan is nuts.
The next day Alan sends Barry down to the town to look for the identity of the kidnapper. Alan tries to finish the manuscript, but can't write a word.
Rose phones barry and tells Barry she has the rest of the manuscript. She sounds robotic though. The camera switches from Barry to Rose and we see that she has been taken by the dark and the funeral woman is standing beside her. With a nice flourish the camera pans out of her window and high above Bright Falls. The credits roll.

Episode 3: Ransom.
Barry and Alan arrive at the trailer park where Rose lives. Sarah calls to tell Alan that an FBI agent has arrived at the station and is anxious to speak with Alan.
We have to talk to the trailer park manager.
We do and he will take us to Rose's trailer. As we walk Barry tells us what he found out about things in the town. He tells us that there is a lot of strange goings on in Bright Falls. Most of it centred on Cauldron Lake. Seems there was a writer who lived there many years ago called Thomas Zane, who was heavily into diving. Seems that the volcano errupted in 1970 and Zane was killed in the erruption which made Divers Isle disappear.
There is a yacht in the middle of the trailer park on it's side. Randolph the manager tells us that it fell there one day as if picked up by a hurricaine. Only there was no storm.
Barry continues to tell us that Zane was involved with a woman called Jagger who drowned in the lake a week before the erruption.
Seems that Weaver, the old light obsessive in the town wrote about and knew both of these people.
We get to the trailer and knock. Rose opens the door and it's obvious there is something wrong with her yet Alan and Barry go inside.
The duo drink her coffee and Rose suggests that Alan needs a muse to inspire him.
Alan thinks she is just being a groupie and gets angry. That is when Barry collapses and Alan realises the coffee was drugged. He too collapses and has a vision.
He is in the dark and the light is speaking again. The light wants to help but it needs Allan to turn on the light it says. The funeral woman appears and tells Alan that he must finish what he started. Alan wakes on Rose's bed. He watches a tv clip of himself talking in the writing room. He tells us that he has an editor now, a woman named Jagger. It seems that this is funeral girl.
Alan tells us that his words are being aggressively edited and that Jagger has worked with another writer called Zane on a similar story.
In the living room we find Rose catatonic and Barry sleeping.
It is night now and Alan has no gun or flashlight. We are told to go to the car.
I make it through the trailer park without incident to find that Randolph has called the police after seeing what has happened to Rose. Agent Nightingale is at their head. Alan can't afford to miss his meeting with the kidnapper. He runs for it. Nightingale shoots to kill but misses.
We are now running for it through the forest.
We have to avoid torch beams and flare as we are chased and shot at by police. A police car is picked up by the dark and thrown, looks like it wants us to avoid the police as well.
A helicopter comes at us and the birds take it down.
The police seem to have been lost and we are now heading for the radio station to get help from Pat. I don't quite know how that one was figured out?
I come to a new puzzle. There is a gate which is taken by the darkness. Looks like it wants us to turn back. Up on the hill above the gate is a searchlight which is powered by a duff generator. We have to turn on the generator, then get to the light and use it quickly. Time left is shown by a line of flashes on the cable from generator to light going out. Running for it and training the light quickly on the gate opens it.
I come to another gate, but handily a flashlight can be picked up from nearby.
At a wrecked police car we find some flashbangs. Which sound like they will be useful.
They are, they act like grenades and take out whole groups of taken.
I progress and find another store of good. Who has left this stuff for us? Zane? Did he fight the darkness and stop it the first time at cauldron lake in the seventies. It took his wife's form though and still keeps it. Will it do that to Alan?
I reach the radio station with only one flashbang to spare.
Inside Pat wants to interview us. The police arrive and Nightingale is totally over the top in he aggression against Alan. He shoots at him narrowly missing Pat. Sarah knocks the gun from Nightingales hand and reprimands him. Alan takes the opportunity to jump out of the window and make another run for it.
I see, alan hoped that Pat would lend him his car to get to the coal mine.
Now Alan has to make it on his own steam.
We are heading for a rail depot now.
There is a set piece ambush where we go inside a shack and suddenly taken appear all around. Why does the darkness not want the police to get Alan, yet it wants him dead at it's own hands?
Alan gets a call from Alice, though she sounds wierd. Talking about being in the dark and looking out from behind Alan's eyes. The call keeps breaking up as well.
We come to a railway bridge and inanimate objects start to move and shake, parts of the bridge collapse. The darkness is growing stronger Alan observes.
We are attacked by floating objects that rise up shake then hurl themselves at Alan, they can be destroyed with the flashlight and flares.
I find a heavy duty flashlight here.
I am ambushed in the train yard.
I find a tv which shows a Night Springs episode. A journalist is looking into paranormal stories and two people approach him with a story. They take him to a house and the woman kisses him letting something enter his body which moves around under his skin.
We come out into the railyard proper for a boss fight of sorts. A bulldozer comes to life and attacks, it's fairly deadly as it just tries to ram you. Taken attack as well and it seems the only objective is to get a door open at the other end of the yard. The taken are eager to stop you and you must take a lot of them out before you can get time to hit the switch in peace. Once done the gate opens slowly and you have to keep alive. Through the gate you come  to a car and a cut scene. Sunrise arrives and unmolested by the darkness Alan has an easy drive to the coal mine.
I stop of a a few buildings I can see and find radio snippets and thermoses.
At the mine which is now a museum when we enter the main building a cut scene starts.
It shows Alan wait all day for the kidnapper to show. He does not and now it is night again. Alan is very angry. The kidnapper phones and tells Alan there has been a change of plan and he want to meet him at mirror peak.
We have to jump over a chain and slide down a slide. Then flick a switch to open a trap door.
There are exploding barrels which if shot a few times explode and take out a few taken at once.
We progress through the railyard and into the mine buildings again.
More possessed objects like small railcarts and large metal cogs.
Inside the building we quickly go back into the outside yard again and see a large darkness hurricaine in the distance.
In the area we have to get back into another building, however there is an electric line down on the fence which is making it impassable. We need to cut  the power to progress.
At the other end of this section of railyard is a generator to cut the power to. There are lots of taken in the yard and a handy jeep makes for some fun running them over.
We are then attacked by taken and flying bits of train. This is also fun and fairly easy to survive. Maybe I am getting the hang of the game by now.
Inside the building we fight through ambushes of taken.
Up some ladders to a higher level.
We come out of the mining area and int the woods again. More open wooded areas with lots of what seem to be respawning enemies.
We are heading up the the Peak and Alan observes that the darkness seems to be moving ahead of him to the peak.
We come to what  seems to be a makeshift graveyard and the keeper attacks us as one of the more boss like taken.
We come to an abandoned town. More flying objects to contend with.
A train flies at you here in a kind of boss battle.
There is a message in grafitti about a safe haven. The door is locked but the key is in the shack next door.
A television in the shack shows Alan in his room, talking about Thomas Zane and his poetry. He tells us that Zane thought there was something in the lake and writing about it summoned it into the world. He thought Jagger had been posessed by the lake demon.
We have a little bit of platforming here on collapsing rickety bridges on the side of the cliffs.
Then birds attack.
We enter mining tunnels, here Alice can be heard shouting for Alan and we get headaches and visions of Alice drowning.
I am ambushed by taken and their entry to the room I was stuck in makes a door for exit.
Now we come to a puzzle with a moving mine platform we can raise up and down. We have to work our way to the top using the platfrom which we can move around. A bit of jumping and working out the correct route here isn't that hard.
We then come out onto the mountainside again and have an accident in a cable car which is brought down by the darkness as we ride it.
More fights in the forest then a rope beidge where we are ambushed by taken.
We come to a large ruined building, the entrance available to us is the basement. Inside there are lots of the yellow Grafitti. are we about to find out who has been helping us out with all the supplies?
There are references to Thomas Zane, some saying that the person loves him some cursing him.
There are references to Tom talking to the person on TV and initials CN or CW.
We have to make our way up the three stories of the building. At the top we fiind ourself crashing down through the ceiling of one storey into an ambush of many taken. We then climb back out and progress along the mountain path.
Alan tells us that he can see Cauldron lake and a light out on a boat on the lake.
We come closer to the lookout point. The kidnapper is screaming at something. He is kneeling slumped. As we  get closer a flash of Jagger appears in between Alan and the kidnapper. The darkness arrives and in a hurricaine blows the kidnapper over the edge of the lookout point. Alan is next and he sets off a flare in vain to protect himself. This only serves  to illuminate his fall into Cauldron lake. He slips into unconsciousness under the water to see visions. Jagger grabbing Alice and dragging her away. Tom Zane in his diving suit and as an arm reaches into the water from a boat to grab Alan the credits roll for this episode.

Episode 4
Alan wakes to find Alice tending him, she melts into Hartman who tells Alan that he is a patient in his clinc and has been for some time, after the death of his wife unhinged him.
Hartman asks him to take a walk with him and he will explain.
Hartman takes us wandering through the lodge and out into the grounds. There is a huge sundial and it bears an inscription "in tenebras cadere" Also a dedication to Tom Zane.
We then go inside and meet some inmates.
The two old men from the diner are there and they call Alan Tom. They give him a manuscript page.
We have to go back to our room and again see Alan on TV in the room, he is angry now about being used by Jagger.
I go back to the room and there is a noise in the corridor. The guard goes to investigate and tells Alan to get on with his writing. We are given the objective to go and see what is going on. The two old men have hit a nurse over the head with a hammer. We can get her keys. Alan wants to go to Hartman's office and get his manuscript pages.
A picture in this new corridor shows Hartman and the kidnapper.
A tape in Hartmans office has Alice talking about Alan. The next take is Hartman talking about his other patients and Agent Nightingale being blocked from getting into the clinic.
In the next room we find Barry locked in a room.
Hartman office is next door and Alan gets his pages back.
Hartman comes in and tries to continue to suggest Alan is sick. Then when Alan continues to disbelieve him he seems to come clean and urges Alan to help him in what is happening, either to free the darkness or stop it, it isn't clear which. At that point the darkness arrives and goes for Hartman. We have to run for it as tendrils of darkness start advancing through the lodge like smokey oil slicks. The furniture comes to life and flies around attacking.
We have to turn on a generator to make the way clear using light, and also have to use a flare to destroy darkness objects. Out in the grounds Barry has a car but the gate is locked and we need to find another way out. Barry tells us that we can get out through the hedge maze.
He gives us a flashlight.
We use it to break down some gates to open the way.
Then we are into the maze and gardens which are in a state of decay. Much fighting in the maze and then a boss type taken at a bandstand type thing. Then some trellises where we fight lots of taken. At the end of the section we come to Barry and gate. He has lost the key and we have to survive against waves of taken until he gets it open.
Barry and Alan drive away from the lodge. Alan tells Barry that something special about the lake makes works of art come to life here. The dark presence perverts them to it's own ends however. Alan believes that Alice is alive at the bottom of the lake and he wants to set her free. The Andersons, who are the crazy old men, apparently knew something and Alan wants to go to their farm. The darkness causes a rockslide to stop them and the car is run off the road. Barry and Alan are separated and Alan has lost his guns and flashlight.
We have to run through an area of flying debris then turn a light on and move it so that it shines on a dark gate.
We get the flashlight back. Then have to avoid some taken as we can't shoot them.
I get a heavy duty flashlight, a car can be seen leaving the farm.
The light appears again and talks to Alan, it talks about trying to leave the pages in Alan's path in the right order. Alan tells us that it appears to him like a diver, is it Thomas Zane.
It seems from the manuscript page left at this point that the darkness is chained somehow to the dark place, probably the lake bed. It is also bound by the story and will be freed at the end of the story, presumably from both bindings.
Some more woods to fight through.
I get to a farm where a car is parked, there is no sign of the driver.
Inside is a man who babbles nonsense and looks hurt.
Then we get attacked and can now leave the farm by the way the taken get in.
A car can now be used to drive to the Anderson farm.
In large field we get to fight taken, then a digger comes to life. thankfully it is a fixed one.
We come to a large field with a festival stage and some seating. It is old and derelict.
Barry is on the stage being attacked by taken, he stumbles and switches on the lights and manages to save his own ass. We find ourself on the stage with Barry behind a bar using the lights to help us. We have to survive the biggest mass attack yet as waves and waves of enemies attack. Eventually Barry sets of a huge firework spectacular and kills all the taken.
We go to the Anderson farm, we have to climb up to a switch to get inside. Inside is a large longboat suspended from the ceiling.
A manuscript pages tells of Tor and Odin, the two old men who used to be in a heavy metal band  making moonshine from the lake water.
An episode of Bright falls shows people standing in line watching a man, they all but one believe that they are part of the dream that the man they are watching is having. They want him to keep dreaming so that they can continue to exist.
We have to make the longboat swing and smash open a door to progress. A boss taken here and some more to fight.
We enter the actual farmhouse now.
The still interest Barry, which really means his a.i. can't follow us up stairs.
We move up through the building then down in a lift into a barn. Here the combine harvester tries to harvest us along with a group of taken.
We then have some climbing to do to get a key and open the silo door to let Barry out.
Now have to push gates together to get them open.
Inside the actual house at last we have to fix the fusebox, then get a record player to play. The message the Andersons have for us is in their song lyrics and concerns the Lady of the Light.
Seems this lady of the light might be cynthia Weaver, the light obesssed woman from the town, who it seems tangled with the darkness in the Tom Zane days.
They decide to wait until daybreak and go into town. Barry brings out the moonshine and they get drunk, which seems an absurdly bad idea. They both pass out drunk and Alan begins to dream. he is back on divers Isle.
We watch as a first person disembodied spirit as a ghostly Alan acts out the events of that night. Alice screams, the lights go out and Alan runs back to the cabin. Inside he finds the wall broken and ripple in the water far below. He jumps in and we watch as he climbs back out a few minutes later unable to find Alice. Jagger appears and tells him to look up at the window. Alan goes back inside the house, Jagger suggests that Alice might still be inside.
Upstairs Jagger tells Alan the Alice did drown, however, Cauldron lake is special. If Alan writes a story with Jaggers guidance he can bring her back to life. Alan realises that he is being used. He writes his escape into the story and with the help of Tom Zane he escapes the cabin, only after the manuscript is finished.
He is weak and groggy and crashes the car. This explains the missing 7 days.
Alan wakes to find Nightingale pointing his gun at him.

Episode 5 The clicker
Alan wakes in jail with a hangover, Barry is with him. A vision shows Weaver, she talks of something Zane wrote that was his insurance.
Nightingale and Sarah Arrive. Nightingale is boasting and happy about catching Alan. Sarah thinks he is as much of  a nutjob as Alan. The darkness arrives and Alan has visions and falls clutching his head. Nightingale is grabbed and pulled out of the station by the  darkness. Sarah is convinced enough to let Alan out and follow his lead.
We go to the fuses and fix the lights. Then to Sarah's office where we get our equipment back.
Sarah will take us in a helicopter to Weaver's place, she lives in a power station apparently.
Barry is told to wait in the police station and to call a list of names and tell them what is happening.
We go out the back door of the police station.
We have to climb over the rooftops avoiding oil and birds to get a gate open.
Then we are out onto the streets.
Sarah actually helps us  fight. The a.i. isn't as dumb as I thought.
Oh yes it is actually. Sarah gets stuck behind a gate and won't follow Alan through and you can now not open the gate when you get back.
This pauses whatever set pieces are meant to happen next and you can't do anything to get back to Sarah.
Even restarting the checkpoint is useless as the checkpoint is after going through the gate.
I have to restart the entire chapter to get past this glitch.
It takes about fifteen minutes to get back to where I was and now we can progress.
Sarah goes to a fence and we have to defend against an ambush.
We get to the helicopter building and have to find some keys and get the fusebox fixed.
A short trip through some rooms and we get ambushed and find the key.
We come out onto the street and see Barry running down the street in cut scene. He is being chased by the darkness and fying debris including a school bus.
He dives into a house as the bus clatters into the doorframe.
We are now going to find Barry, the way is blocked so Sarah leads us through an ambush and into a bookstore. Then back out onto the street.
We are ambushed again at the church doors.
Inside the church we go down into the basement, or crypt.
We get to the door and are ambushed, Barry Saves us, he appartently found a load of flare guns in the store he got stuck in and is now Rambo, with a set of xmas lights around his chest to ward off the taken.
We come to a fairly fun set piece where Sarah and Barry get the chopper flying Alan takes on the taken and a storm hurling girders at the area.
There is plenty of ammo and this is more fun than hard.
In cut scene the helicopter flies to the dam and is attacked by birds. Alan is sent flying out of the chopper, luckily they were low enough for him to not be hurt by the fall.
Alan lands in a transformer yard and we have to fight our way through. A chain must be shot off a door to progress. The amount of enemies attacking at once is getting higher.
We cross the transformer yard which is filled with sparking electrical conduits. Shooting the taken when they are still dark makes them recoil, and this can be used to knock them into the electricity for easy kills.
We use a lift to escape the transformer yard and then come to a roating road bridge.
The bridge is taken and continues to whirl around. We have to survive bird attack and get across.
An episode  of Night Springs in the cabin on the other side of the  bridge shows a woman urging her neighbour to come and look at something in the basement. There is a swirling black hole down there. God appears and tells them its a bit of the universe he forgot to make and apologises. An absence of creativity. He tells them to go have coffee and he will sort it out.

The chopper is back and is now hovering over us as we go to the power plant.
We can use it's light to aid us and remove the taken's shield. Lots of attacks here and then the birds go for the chopper It leaves. We progress to the power plant.
The symbol for the power plant is the same as the one on the hidden caches. Seems that Cynthia Weaver is the one who has been filling Bright Falls with ammo, guns, flares and batteries. She has been waiting for Alan to come and fight the darkness.
She wants us to go to a specific room she has prepared. She has a path which is lit. She wants us to turn off power in the transformer yard first though.
We have to go out to the yard and flick the switch, this will make the pipe that Weaver's safe route is through passable. There are taken in the way and a little floodgate makes a puzzle then a platforming menace once the power is cut. Lots of enemies ambush on the way back to Weaver.
Weaver takes us into the pipe which leads to her well lit room. She talks about Tom and how she was jealous of Jagger. She implies that she and Alan are creations of Tom, written into the story which he started in the seventies.
Alan calls Barry and tells him to meet him at the dam. The chopper Crashes and Alan goes to help, against Weavers wishes.
We go out of the pipe and into the woods. The helicopter can be seen in the distance. Birds attack but that is all until I reach the copter and find no sign of Barry or Sarah.
We see flares going off all over the place up and ahead and find Barry and Sarah under heavy attack. They both follow once you take out the taken.
Two boss taken attack. Then we reach an elevator that will take us to the dam.
Again defend until the elevator reaches you.
At the top a door button must be held open, Barry and Sarah go inside. An object drops down from above and Alan is trapped outside.
We are attacked by debris and a new path is opened.
A page tells us that Zane had to write himself out of existence to stop the dark presence. Seems he left insurance should the darkness ever get free again. He left a shoebox with something inside, the only thing of his not to be written out.
There is a huge spotlight here which acts as an emplaced gun against a horde of taken.
As we reach the top of the dam we have a chase sequence where the dark hurricaine attacks and we have to run and jump to avoid being killed.
We reach a lift and all the gang including Cynthia are there. She takes us down into the well lit room and we get the shoebox of Zane's it has a page and the clicker. The manuscript is a page from Zane's story and talks about Alan aged 7 being given the  clicker by his mother in an echo of Alan giving the Clicker to Alice.
Seems Zane wrote Alan into existence at Cauldron lake all those years ago.

Episode 6 departure
Alan wakes in his New York apartment. He has a hangover and we have to get him some painkillers from the bathroom and his sunglasses to shield his eyes from the light.
A message in the hall on the answering machine is from Barry. Seems Alan has been on a chat show and at the after party with Barry.
We get to see the tv show which shows Alan on a chat show trying to be funny. He tells us about killing off his long time hero in this last book.
There is a cameo from the writer of the game here, Sam Lake, also the model for Max Payne.
Alice comes in and berate Alan about his wild partying on his book tour with Barry. He apologises and suggests they go away together for a holiday, somewhere quiet.
We are back in the present and Alan tells the gang he must go to the lake Alone. The rest of the gang are told to stay in the well lit room until he returns. Alan must finish the story which is still in his typewriter at the cabin on the lake.
A manuscript page tells us that the darkness now only wants to stop Alan since he has Zane's weapon.
We have to drive to the lake, stopped by roadblocks at time we have to fight taken.
We come to a junkyard and have to enter a building to open it's gate. Then inside there is a two switch gate to open. A bulldozer and taken run interference.
We can go no further in our vehicle and have to go through an old farm building. We have to push machinery aside here for the first time.
We now get all sorts of fun as we make our way through farms, spotlights, hurricaines, lots of taken.
Then we come through a tunnel and are at the hurricaine.
WE have to get close by jumping cliffs and shoot flares into it's heart.
Alan then jumps into the lake.
He wakes with Alice in New York in his bed.
It is a vison, and Alan knows it. Alice is the dark presence. We are told to find the clicker. It is in the living room.
Tom Zane appears floating and the room vanishes, we are underwater. He tells us we must get to the cabin. We see a person that looks almost identical to Alan.
We appear in a void, with ground. There are glowing words. For example barrel, if we shine the light on it we hear clicking of a typewriter and the barrel is brought into existence.
I shine the torch on bridge and path and cabin and get into the cabin.
A cut scene shows alan walking into the cabin.
He meets Jagger and hugs her, she vanishes.
Alan goes to the writing room upstairs and writes the ending, he knows what to do.
We seen a new cut scene. He tells us that Zane never realised that there must be balance and he would need to sacrifice. Alan arrives at the cabin and sees Alice in the water.
Then we see her swimming to the surface.
The camera pans out over Bright falls and zooms in on the town.
We see the people watching Deerfest parade. Rose still looks posessed and so does Nightingale.

Around 18 hours at a guess, my timing might have been off a bit.
640 achievement points

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.