God of War: Saga - Dual Pack

I bought the New and not the used version of this game. If you buy the used version of this game, you will probably not be able to download the other two games that are downloaded from the PSN store. I was able to download the games with the code provide. The two game discs look to be new and the package itself was looked like to be in the original plastic sleeve. Overall happy with my purchase.

first off disclaimer: if i compare any games or say i prefer a game over another i am NOT being biased. i never force my opinions on anyone reading these reviews only stating my own preferences. i dont try to influence opinions and simply out the facts up front as i see them. that said lets get down to it. ok lets start chronologicly chains of olympus: i like this one. its kratos early years of servitude to the gods. set about 5 years before god of war in terms of story morpheus and persephone are trying to destroy the world and put the gods to sleep. this was a psp game upscaled for ps3. and it shows. while it is graphicly bad next to the other games it makes up for it with fun. god of war: this is one of my favorite games of all time. i once owned it on ps2 before it was damaged and needed to be replaced leading to the purchase of this set. from what i recall of the ps2 version this one looks slightly better it is a quite beautiful game. one thing annoys me for some reason (at least i dont remember it) r1 now has some sort of weird dodge charge thing, as a result the grab button is on r2 (why couldnt it be reversed) the one part with the statue in athens was near impossible just because of the button choice. i dont know if its all ps3 controllers but my r2 is very springy and that makes rapid taps hard as such i couldnt push the statue over with my finger alone i had to flip the controller over backwards and use my left thumb. that small bit aside nd having to get used to l2 to grab things i think gow was as great as i remembered it, ghost of sparta: this opened with a resounding meh. graphicly its as bad or worse than chains. one problem both games have is kratos looks squished or stretched (i assume its from the psp conversion)and while i didnt care for it at first, the story kept me invested as kratos learned his brother is alive and held captive by thanatos and his daughter erinys. as the game progressed though i enjoyed it more and the ending redeemed the game.and i ended up really liking sparta. god of war 2: oh this game. here is where ( at least for me you dont have to agree if you like gow2) the story took a nose dive. so now the gods are unhappy with kratos and zeus takes matters into his own hands leading to lots of horror. gameplay wise is great. some of the traps are too ludicrously hard (low lands crossing anyone? or phoenix fire statue puzzle and spike room to name other examples) the opening battle against the colossus of rhodes is oft mentioned for good reason. normal difficulty is as hard as the hard modes on most other non gow games. graphicly i will say this is the best gow2 has ever looked it is more beautiful than even gow 1. and finally gow 3: this game. oh this game was weird. picking up right where 2 left off kratos begins his assault on mt olympus and an all out war on the gods. i died 36 times last i looked and im pretty sure not once in combat. this game has some horrific platform puzzle sections that will kill you plenty even on easy. kratos pretty much becomes an unlikeable murderer. hes always been brutal but in earlier games he was nice to women an children at least. in one part he literally rescues a woman then shoves her into a wheel to jam it to keep the door open ! the poor girl did nothing to him. she wasnt even one of the gods he was hunting just one of poseidan's lovers. anyway brutality aside the game play would go from fun to cheap death traps on a dime drop. all leading to an anti climax after the zeus fight. that said my favorite fight was against hercules (voice by kevin sorbo :D ) also the violence is much more graphic in gow 3. t he remains of hercs face were quite disturbing to look at. final verdict this set is worth your money. games are like people they have flaws but that dosent mean you dont want to hang out with them.(usually) so my rating for each game individually are as follows. god of war : 5 chains of olympus: 4 and a half god of war 2 : 4 ghost of sparta: 4 god of war 3 : 4

First off, I'm going to explain a few common concern: when does the redeem code expire? It doesn't expire until 31 March of 2016. This is plenty of time if you're buying it as a gift for someone. Another concern: how much data is the God of War Origins Collection? God of War Ghost of Sparta is 9306 MB, equivalent to 9.3 GB. God of War Chains of Olympus is 7,533 MB, or 7.5 GB. Plus, you get two videos with it: one is 1,657 MB (1.6 GB), and the other is 1,386 MB (1.3 GB). I highly advise purchasing if you do not have a PS3 with a large storage capacity, as the combined total for the four is approximately 17 GB (or 16.8 GB if you only want the two games). Plus, each God of War game has a mandatory install and save space, 39 MB for the GOW Collection (1 and 2), 5.3 MB for God of War 3, etc. Final concern: are GOW appropriate games for children? Absolutely not. It contains extreme blood and gore as well as nudity (it takes place over 1,000 years ago, so naturally, women did not cover their breasts). Now, to review the games: God of War is easily one of the best video game series. Ever. The story is wonderful if you're into Greek mythology, the game play is very fun and addictive, combat system is awesome, and puzzles can be very tricky but fun to solve. The story modes are fairly lengthy, which is good. God of War has great replay value: by beating the game, you unlock Challenges which you'll spend a few hours on. In addition, you also unlock very hard difficulty, new game plus (restarting the story mode with all upgrades you had from prior play-through), costumes which provide bonuses, and a fair amount of Trophies to unlock. I've been playing God of War since it was out on the PS2... and here I am, still playing about 10 years later. The games have been remastered: graphics are notably improved. I wouldn't quite consider it to be HD, but they still did good. And above all, the price was low. Five epic games for $20 new, compared to around $50 to buy them all separately (or around $35 if you buy used). If you wish to play in chronological order, first play God of War Chains of Olympus, followed by God of War 1, God of War Ghost of Sparta, God of War 2, and finally God of War 3. If you wish to play in order they came out: God of war 1, then 2, then Chains of Olympus, God of War 3, and finally Ghost of Sparta. If you're too impatient to wait for Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta to download, then start by playing God of War 1, then 2, then 3. Chains of Olympus is a prequel, and both Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta aren't necessary to understand the story.

What You Get God of War Saga includes every God of War game released thus far, except for the 2D side-scrolling God of War: Betrayal that was released to Java platforms. In fact, God of War Saga is a collection of collections. It includes the games from the God of War Collection (which feature the remastered PS2 games, God of War and God of War II ports) and God of War Origins Collection (which feature the remastered PSP games, Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta), plus God of War III (the PS3's 2010 high-definition series entry). That's a lot of game for two Jacksons. Two discs come in the package. Disc one houses God of War and God of War II; disc two has God of War III. Sony also includes a Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta download voucher, but this comes with a couple drawbacks. One, you must be mindful of PS3 storage space. And two, you can't let a buddy borrow the games. Cool Carnage This collection is obviously designed for God of War fanatics or those who like a hefty amount of carnage in their video games. Kratos is essentially the video game version of the Hulk; he growls, rages, and tears opponents asunder (with magic and weaponry rather than bare hands). Many video protagonists violently dispatch foes—Ninja Gaiden's Ryu comes to mind—but developer SCE Santa Monica gave Kratos an extra amount of gore. Besides using his base weapons (which he can level up using red orbs dropped by fallen foes and found within treasure chests), he accumulates new, more powerful ones such as The Arm of Sparta and Bow of Apollo depending on the game played. These weapons obliterate grunts, but Quick Time Events (QTE) typically bringing down boss-level characters. QTE requires players to tap buttons in time with on-screen prompts in very cinematic sequences that see Kratos severing limbs, ripping torsos opening, and other delightfully gore-filled segments. You'll feel like a bad ass as you mow down enemies—until you Kratos freezes in place and gets pummeled, which happened to me on two occasions. God of War Saga's visuals are excellent—you'd expect such from the PS3's God of War III, but the PS2 and PSP games look great, too. Naturally, the older games aren't quite as colorful or detailed as the PS3 series entry, but they won't look horrid on your HDTV. A God-Level Collection If you're a God of War fan, chances are that you own many if not all of the games in this collection—they've all been previously re-released. God of War Saga is the video game equivalent of a home video's Super Duper Special Ultimate Edition—Sony's hoping for a double (or triple) dip. Unfortunately, there aren't any extras to justify a repurpose. Series newcomers who waited to the tail end of the PS3's lifecycle will find this an excellent bargain, however.

I was happy to see the God of War Saga (mostly) all together in one place. I had played the first game about halfway through and abandoned it for games with less platforming when it first came out then never went back to it and never got the first sequel before getting rid of my PS2. With the PS4 and Xbox One coming out I decided to get a PS3 to play (bargain priced) games exclusive to it and have a blu ray player rather than take the plunge on a new console with limited titles available. So naturally the first thing I went for was this God of War Saga. A couple things to note: The package is misprinted in stating that GOWIII and the two downloads are in stereoscopic 3D, only the downloaded games are in 3D also 2 of the 5 games are as previously stated included as a download voucher so you will need to download them to your console. If you don't have an internet connection this may be a problem for you. I would have liked them to be included on a disk. It would have saved me some bandwidth. Both downloads completed long before I was done playing the first game but I am worried the voucher will expire and I will be unable to download them again in the future should I need to delete them to make space for other stuff or if I have a console or drive failure. The Remastering is done pretty well. Gameplay looks great in HD and all updated. In the first game you will notice that the game and the cinematics look excellent but the mini cut-scenes (like where it shows a door opening) look ancient and worse than I remember them looking on the PS2 (probably enlarged too much going from SD to 1080p). In GOW II and up this is less noticeable. I would have hoped that some of the more controversially difficult scenes would have been reworked as well but they are still just as difficult as I remember them (like the spike room and the spire etc where an extra 1/2 a second would be amazing). The controls are as they were in the original games. It would have been cool if they had remapped them or had an option for making all the games control the same to make it a little more fun for people planning to play these as a marathon. These games have an epic feel based on ancient greek mythology and the stories of the Gods of Olympus and the Titans. They only stay true to mythology (if thats a thing) when it doesn't get in the way of the story of Kratos and making the game fun. I would like the game a lot better without all the platforming (jumping from this to that) and puzzles but the story and action are good enough that I suffer through it. To me the platforming and puzzles feel like it drags the game out and they feel out of place. If you are not a fan of platformers I suggest getting a strategy guide or viewing a walkthrough online while playing to make that part go a bit faster. Just keep in mind you don't have to collect every item and visit every orb chest to get a satisfying God of War experience. You can skip more than a few of them. The games are all 5-Star but the misprint on the package saying GOWIII is in 3D and 2 of the 5 games being downloads prompted me to take away a star for the collection. 5 games with probably 12-15 hours of gameplay each is a good deal though so I can't be too critical. Update: Some are saying their download codes did not work. Mine did. That is all.

For the price it can't be beaten - God of War is a marque game series that defines this genre on the PS3 - some gamers I suspect may have been heavily influenced by GoW alone just to chose this platform. For me, I'm certainly not a gamer, but having picked up a used PS3 recently for cheap cheap money (50), I thought why not? This is definitely the time to pick up cheap yesteryear games on the PS3 rather than $60 titles on the PS4, especially if you're not too fussy about keeping up with the latest and greatest and secondly, it's clear (to me) that the PS4 may undergo a hardware revision to offer better 4k support (whether intermediary interface support, or something more long term such as displayport). So all in all, I think for us non-gamer types, the PS3 might be undergoing a renaissance. It's a great blu ray player, and you'd be mad to buy just the DVD version these days. Also the Atari 2600 was the last time I played in anger, possibly losing life years on Asteroids - I would say though that I do miss the simplicity of those Atari games. To that end I'm more tuned to (simpler) Diablo vs GoW - GoW is definitely an adventure - visually fantastic and something almost movie like that you'd want to watch just to see what comes next. Love the mythological context. For a gamer, I'm sure that it's second nature to make all the complex moves to battle through the game - for me I'm little less "capable", but definitely have no regrets about buying the game. OK so a couple of feedback items: 1. Two of the games are downloads and they are MASSIVE - so although you have the 1,2,3 on discs, you'll have to wait for the download and install of the two others. Also disc size fills up FAST - don't have the PS3 to hand, but if I remember correctly Olympus and Sparta downloads take up close to 10Gig each. Add in all those demos and maybe a movie or four and suddenly your drive is full. 2. The original description promised a voucher for a 1 month trial of the playstation plus membership - there was no voucher in the brand new package - it's not just me - noone will get the voucher. I called both SCEA (The Sony game people who made the game) who directed me back to Amazon. Note for SCEA - I don't like it when people don't take responsibility for their own products. It was written on the case and you're clearly not supplying what you sell. At least Amazon has taken down the incorrect description. OK that's it. It's a great value for 5 top tier games. Buy it new vs used to ensure the download codes haven't already been redeemed. Dingo

Bought new and it came factory-sealed and the code for the Origins collection still worked! Worth purchasing if you buy new!

What better way to dive into the God of War universe than with this massive collection? If you are a Playstation owner, this is one collection you do not want to miss. If you decide to buy this game make sure you buy it "NEW" because more than likely if you buy it used it will NOT come with the code vouchers you need to download Ghost of Sparta and Chains of Olympus which are digital ONLY. PROS + 5 Games for one low price, (GoW 1&2 Disc one, GoW 3 Disc two, GoW: Chain of Olympus & Ghost of Sparta are digital code vouchers ) + Epic story from beginning to end. + Combat is entertaining, satisfying and fun. + The game can be a bit challenging but it is fair, (Meaning if you keep dieing at one part theres something you are doing wrong, not the A.I) + A lot of content to keep you busy for months, Trophies, Challenge of the Gods, Arena battles. + The environments are beautifully remastered in HD. GoW 3 visuals alone is just jaw dropping. CONS - Some puzzles seem too trivial. It's mostly trial and error while others are extremely particular to the way the camera angle is positioned. - Camera angles can get a bit awkward in the midst of combat, not always but every now and then. - Backtracking, You will come across a bit of backtracking through the same levels and can quickly get boring for some. I give this title 5/5 Stars simply because I love this game that much, so much so than I overlook the cons. It's a must buy exclusive for Playstation owners.