God of war (PS2)

The name of this much-anticipated PlayStation 2 title doesn't leave much to the imagination. It is ancient Greece and the gods of Olympus are angry with the wayward god of war Ares.

A fierce battle is looming, one that for the sake of story-telling has to play out from the point of view of one hapless soul, but will decide the fate of the world.

This is ancient Greece, but we've never seen it quite this dark. It's a gothic, fantasy world populated by Minotaur and gorgons, the demons of Greek mythology.

While the name of the game implies that it's about Ares, it centres on the journey of Kratos the Spartan warrior who is hunting Ares at the command of the gods of Olympus.

Ares is hell-bent on destroying Athens, something which Kratos has been dispatched to stop. To do so Kratos has to find the most powerful weapon in the world - Pandora's box.

There are an infuriatingly large number of boxes to be opened in the game and only one holds the mother lode.

It is no Jason and the Argonauts. There are no sun-drenched characters walking around in white togas sipping from cups of wine.

You are more likely to come across a galley of rowing dead being whipped on by a drooling Cyclops.

Despite living on the Mediterranean, Kratos is as pale as an Irishman and has red tattoos that make him look as though he is covered in blood, something I'm sure becomes highly effective in the midst of battle.

When we meet him he is about to jump off the highest cliff in Greece.

As he plummets to his death we jump back three weeks and into his story.

The cut scenes and narration tell that story well and merge effectively into the action. There is no waiting around for the next sequence to load. The way the game has been put together is very clever.

The first fights with the many-headed hydra beast are intense and jar you into the action very quickly.

You will slay your way through legions of zombie-like soldiers, but the best boss fights are the only truly difficult encounters.

In the middle of a battle with a major adversary you enter a mini-game by pressing a button on the controller.

This takes you into a combat routine where you can inflict serious damage on the enemy by pressing buttons at the right time. It's a fairly arbitrary system but looks good.

The gods come to the aid of Kratos throughout the game giving his temporary special powers.

The gift of Hades allows Kratos to raise the souls of the underworld. Then it becomes Night of the Living Dead.

Well into the game you reach Pandora's Temple and have to complete an elaborate set of puzzles to proceed.

Puzzles, in fact, are central to the game, but not to the extent that the action grinds to a halt. God of War is fairly linear in design, so you're pushed onto the next challenge quickly enough. The graphics are impressive, Athens in particular has been nicely recreated.

But for all that, finally having a decent play of God of War was a bit of an anti-climax. I guess I was expecting an ancient world version of Half Life 2. Instead we get Shadow of Rome with a bigger budget and an unearthly twist.

* R16, $100