I say don’t bother. I was too embarrassed to play the game first time around because I thought it looked like Todd McFarlane’s Greek Mythology. Also, there was an actual Rage Meter and crate puzzles and the main character looked like a Mortal Kombat pro wrestler dude. Later, I saw some clips for God of War 2 and I thought it looked awesome, so I picked up the first one on the cheap. It was pretty much what my first impressions were. The gameplay part was pretty fun, if nothing remotely special, but everything else was terrible. It also takes itself very, very, very seriously - which is pretty painful in a game about beating the shit out of monsters. Didn’t bother with GoW2 in the end. Play God Hand instead.
I’m happy I’m not the only one to feel this way. I just finished GoW (the first one) for the first time last week, and though I thought the gameplay was pretty nice and the combat had some fun to it, the level design basically killed the experience for me. (Well, that and the unblockable-attacking super-cheese Ares in the mediocre fighting game at the end.)
I love GOW and bought a PS2 to play 1 and 2 and will buy a PS3 to play 3. I also bought a PSP to play CoO. I am impressed at the technical feat of translating the feel of the gameplay so well. However I wasn’t impressed by the game. Not sure what it is but I find the combat overly difficult and the puzzles silly. I keep getting stuck and having to look up Gamefaq. In fact I stopped playing as I am in the room with the first horse statue and I can’t see what the hell next I need to do. I didn’t have this problem with GOW 1 and 2.
Certainly don’t hate the game, storey line seems interesting and it looks and feels like a GOW game generally.