The reviews for God of War II are out (despite the game not being available until March), and, no surprise to me, they are extremely positive.  I'm an enormous fan of God of War, but it's hard to pick any one thing that makes it such a fantastic game.  It's a strange thing when all the pieces of a game fall into such wonderful alignment, but in the case of God of War, I knew after playing it for a short time that it was going to be something special.  What lessons can be learned from this?  How can developers be inspired by the success of God of War?  First of all, it was an original property as opposed to a sequel.  I love sequels as much as the next guy, but sequels rarely break ground or introduce new concepts.  They just improve on the original idea (and, yes, I see the irony in the fact that this whole discussion is started by a sequel that basically improves on the original, but we're talking about the first game here).  God of War took the action platform game and ramped everything up as high as it would go.  It was ridiculously violent, the bosses were huge, and just when you thought you scraped through a fight by the skin of your teeth, you find that you still have to fight three more of the same monster at the same time.  Second is the star of the game, Kratos himself.  This is a fantastic game character in every aspect.  He has a unique look, an original backstory, devastating moves, awesome signature weapons, a clear motivation, and is excellently voiced by actor T.C. Carson.  Kratos is the kind of character that could also carry a comic.  Third, the gameplay is easy to learn and difficult to master.  Getting Kratos to wield the Blades of Chaos in a satisfying way is easy in the start of the game, but as you face the more difficult enemies in later levels, you're forced to string together more combos.  Hitting those high-hit combos is also extremely satisfying.  Lastly, the musical score is incredible.  Many games feature a strong musical component these days, but the God of War music really pushes you along.  When you hear that theme run through the music, you feel that you should probably be kicking more ass now. 

So I'm really looking forward to God of War II on the PS2.  Shortly after the release of two new consoles, I am most looking forward to a game for a console released almost seven years ago.  Just a reminder that all the fancy pants new graphics and hardware only amount to so much, and sometimes you don't want to "really feel like I'm swinging a bat!!"