God of War III may be releasing in March of next year, but that isn’t stopping Sony from cashing in on fanboys of the original game (such as myself.) Although in this case, my fanboyism is justified – God of War is the pinnacle of PlayStation 2 technology, as well as being one of the standards at which other third person action games are made. I mean, after all, the game is pretty much responsible for popularizing Quick Time Events.

The God of War Collection is a $40 Blu-Ray disc that contains both God of War I and II, as well as some extra behind the scenes videos. The biggest draw here is that both titles have been updated to run at 720p resolution, as well as run at a fluid 60 frames per second – which translates to less video lag and more fluid combat.

That said, the games look absolutely amazing, and could probably hold their own against most current generation games. Although the games themselves runs at 720p, the pre-rendered cut scenes do not – and they aren’t updated to run in widescreen either. This results in a rather fuzzy and stretched cut scene image, but it’s not bad.

Combat-wise, nothing has changed. Both games are exactly the same as they were on the PlayStation 2, and that’s a good thing. I was actually quite amazed to find my (finger) muscle memory remembering the various combos and moves, and it didn’t take me very long to start pulling together 100+ hit combos. The combat remains satisfying, fast paced, and just as frantic as it ever was on the PlayStation 2. If you’re worried about the sex mini-game, it’s still there too, and I’m very good at it.

If you’ve never played either God of War game, now is a great time to redeem yourself. From my very limited technical understanding, it’s pretty impressive that Sony managed to bring both games into the modern era and make them run like a native PS3 game. It also stands to show the quality of the God of War gameplay design that a game five years old can still provide excellent entertainment value.