Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
God of War: Collection is the re-release of the PlayStation 2 classics God of War and God of War II. The games tell of the story of a tortured anti-hero named Kratos who seems to always get tricked by the Olympian gods, gets really pissed and ends up destroying a lot of stuff and people. The reason they are re-releasing on the PS3 is that Sony's Santa Monica studios updated the visuals to a crisp 720p while retaining everything else you remember about these games.

What's Hot
A visual upgrade is a great way to reintroduce the wrath-filled tale of Kratos. The games looked great on the PS2 to begin with, but the PS3 has since blown anything the PS2 could do out of the water and them some (nomination for understatement of the year!). The new coat of paint on the textures remain faithful to the original material but gives it an HD shine that looks stunning on TVs. This is the real reason to pick this collection of classic games all over again. Screen shots don't do this texture rehaul justice, you need to see it in action.

The gameplay in both GoW I and II have held up after a generational leap and many years of other games trying to perfect the same formula. The boss battles are still some of the most memorable, epic encounters ever to light up the screen. There will be moments where you'll not even notice these games were created during the last generation cycle like when you take down the Colossus at Rhodes. It is easy to compare to games of this generation because each GoW Collection comes packed with a code to download a demo from E3 2009 of the upcoming God of War III, the conclusion to the series. It is truly uncanny how well this collection stacks up to any contemporary action game of this nature.



What's Not
What I want to know is why the cut scenes don't look as sharp as the actual gameplay. It is really odd to watch the fuzzy cut scenes be acted out, then get thrust into the gameplay where everything becomes crisp and clear. Aside from that, GoW veterans might not have much reason to retread their favorite games because no new content was added except for Trophy support. While that might be reason enough to go back, there had to be some boss encounters left of the cutting room floor that could have been reincorporated.

Final Word
This game package goes to show how far ahead of its time the God of War concept was in terms of execution and production values. These games haven't lost much punch as they collected dust on the PS2's shelves. If, for some reason, you haven't played God of War games, this is the perfect opportunity to catch up with the rest of the gaming world. With the updated textures, you'd be hard pressed to find a better value for all the spectacular moments you get reliving these classic titles as the anticipation grows for the final chapter in the saga of the Ghost of Sparta.