I purchased my PS2 late. PS2 Slim late. As I ran the gamut of the console's back catalog I inevitably purchased a $20 Greatest Hits copy of God of War. My experience of the first level was a very good one and like most I was enthralled by the silken graphics, visceral story, and the build your own combo fighting mechanics. The problem didn't occur until I reached the crescendo event of the Aegean Sea: The Hydra, where players receive an in-game prompt to mash the circle button to smash its head into the mast of a ship. No matter how hard I tried to mash that button the head of the Hydra would never smash the mast and time after time its health would restore and my frustrations would rise. Upon searching the internet I found no official news about what was happening in my game, in fact the interwebs seemed split completely down the middle about weather this was just a matter of physical prowess or in fact a glitch. After a frustrating phone call to Sony's consumer support line I was told by a sincerely apathetic Sony representative that there was in fact a glitch and this only arose in the greatest hits version when played with a PS2 Slim. The representative told me this would not happen with first print copies which at this point were hard to find. I told him I was baffled at the what he was suggesting: A readily available copy of a game is only compatible with a scarcely available hardware sku? The guy affirmed my confusion and actually laughed at me when I asked if I could receive a refund for game that, according to him would not comply with my system! I was furious at this point and decided to give up on GOW altogether and let my frustrations melt away as I settled in with a new copy of Resident Evil 4 instead.

Months later I received a phone call from a helpful friend at a local game store who knew of my situation and told me that a guy just traded in a completely new copy of a first print, and (according to Sony) glitch free GOW and that I was welcome to it free of charge! I picked up the game and beat the Hydra on the first try with almost no effort at all during that particular context sensitive mini game. On the God of War website forums, the current consensus suggested the problem had to do with the duel layered data on the disks and that some models of PS2 had trouble reading the disk if smudged even slightly. It should be noted that each of the aforementioned play attempts were on the normal difficulty level but whatever the actual issue, GOW on the PS2 is a very glitchy game to begin with and all the trouble I endured just to play this masterpiece soured my initial experience.

It is an unfortunate oversight of a large company to employ associates ill informed of the product they are hired to represent. It does not send any message of good faith to the consumer about the products they sell or the contract generated with purchase of said products. It is also unfortunate but unsurprising that a company would make promises they have trouble keeping: this demo voucher being a prime example. It is obvious Sony decided to ship the game before the linguistics of demo distribution were ironed out or even decidedly possible. All gripes aside I am now almost finished with God of War in the collection and I am loving every second of it! If any game deserves a remastered collectors edition it is this one. The remastered polygons are gorgeous and seeing it in HD helps to project the scale of what GOW was and what it has done for games since. I still have not heard word from Sony with regard to my empty demo voucher and I don't really care. The game will be upon us soon enough and in the meantime I have all the God of War I need.