Reading my post now, I feel a bit sheepish. I wrote that post at 1:30 am with an early work day fast approaching, having been stuck on an action portion for half an hour, and having just lost power without saving.
The second is probably superior. And yea, I think the second game is pretty good and I have been having a great time with it for the most part.
The problem is that I am terrible at these sorta games. Throw an RTS, old-school RPG, or point and click Adventure at me, and I will be easing through those games at the hardest difficulty.
Games like Crysis, Company of Heroes, and Dragon Age, I played through on the hardest difficulty on the first try, because those sorta games just click with me.
As a kid, I had an Atari, a Sega but then moved on to the C64 and from there, regular PCs.
I never had a N64, PS1, or PS2, so playing a third person action adventure game like this has been a new experience.
I bought the original Xbox and PS2 for my brother, but didn't play anything on them except for sports and wrestling titles I could play with him. I had watched friends play games like God of War, Tomb Raider, Devil May Cry, Soul Reaver, Final Fantasy, as well as tons of other Jap. titles, but never really played any of them myself.
The 360 was my first console, and most of the games I played on it were the sort you'd play with friends over. Singeplayer games I didn't play too much of, and those I did, were games that could have been on the PC.
I think Heavy Rain was the very first game I completed on a console, and it was the first game I played extensively with the playstation controller.
God of War 1, was the second, and I found it pretty difficult.
God of War 2, I found for the most part less difficult, but have had an insane time with the boss battles so far.
Every hour or so, the game will ask me if I'd like to lower the difficulty, but my pride won't let me do it.
As for the adventure elements, honestly, I don't know where to go, and have been playing with the IGN walkthrough open.
The respawn points are too far apart. This feels more so for me, because I get creamed whenever there are more than two medussas to fight against. I know how to dodge their gaze, and I know with timing, I can block their crap, but it is still quite hard for me.
So yea, I probably would have finished this game already, had I been a normal console gamer.