God of War II

For sheer "sweet merciful Christ" jaw-dropping action there are few that can compete with last year's God of War, a game so epic in scale and sheer in size that only a horrific design decision monumental in nature could undo it.

Funny enough, that's exactly what you encounter 2/3 of the way through. Not to spoil anything but the second you see Kratos, the main character, fall through a portal into Hades just turn the game off. Accept that at some point Kratos finished his task and stormed Mount Olympus and you won't regret all the time you've previously invested in it. I'm convinced that reviewers stopped playing sometime during Pandora's Labyrinth because up to that point it was the Game of the Year. Ten minutes later... not so much.

I bring up my old feelings because 1Up posted this trailer earlier today for the sequel and it absolutely kicked my teeth in. Whatever else happened late in the first game, up to that point it was wonderous in the variety of ways you could inflict pain on your foes. Kratos was a tremendous bad-ass the second the game started, and he only grew stronger (and angrier) as the game progressed. There were so many awesome kill moves that left me speechless that I believe I drooled on myself more than once.

I'm man enough to say it - a game left me so slackjawed I actually drooled because I could not comprehend that someone could make a game so blindingly cool. I seemed to take their fumble late in the third quarter personally because it was literally perfect up to that point. No complaints whatsoever.

On the plus side, the sequel's design team has heard the fevered cries of the damned and supposedly won't put anything as awful as Hades back in the follow-up. I'll believe that when I see it, and I bloody well am going to play the game start to finish before I render judgement deadlines be damned.

But this trailer gets me hungry for more. Heck, that last shot alone is one of the coolest things I've ever seen and that's saying something considering how many wicked things come before it.