God of War III

GOD OF WAR III REVIEW

PS3

God of War III needs no introduction if you own a PS3, and I’ll wager a guess it doesn’t need much of one even if you don’t. It seems like since the PS3 was announced everyone, their dog, and their dog’s fleas have been waiting for this game, and for the most part the wait was worth it. There’s some new toys to play with, better hardware to showcase some of the best scenes of bludgeoning in gaming, and an epic world that is far more realized that any previous attempt by the series. There is, however, an overwhelming sense that very little has changed but the coat of paint used.

The third game in the series, and fifth in the franchise, starts off immediately following the end of God of War II, with Kratos scaling Mount Olympus on the back of the Titan, Gaia, screaming to his father Zeus that death is coming. In a move that is so standard in hack and slash adventure games now it’s almost laughable, Kratos is, of course, stripped of all his powers when he’s sent hurtling down to Hades. Now, don’t mistake that as a criticism. It’s just an observation of one of the conventions GOW 3 doesn’t bother refreshing and to be fair, that’s fine because it’s practically responsible for most of these now stereotypical moments in action games.

The very first thing you notice with the game is how large everything is being presented to you. The world feels massive, right down to the rooms, puzzles and enemies. It’s a valuable component to the maturity of the series in that it injects a good dose of challenge just by appearing so the daunting scale of it all. At this point most players won’t be intimidated by enemies, so placing them in a setting that showcases Kratos more as David than Goliath goes a long way in keeping things exciting. Boss battles are easily the best example of this and it’s shown early on in an exciting and perfectly paced start to the game that shows you the pattern of the game you’ll, more or less, be following until the end.

As you traverse your way back to Zeus you’ll have to acquire the strength and weapons to ultimately defeat him. Doing so essentially pits you against Zeus’s recruited army of God’s, each whom hold an important piece in your goal, either a weapon or utility that helps gain access to the way forward. In this area I found the game to be more fun because the weapons are better implemented and control more intuitively with the baseline the series has established.

While some weapons have a specific purpose, such as crushing protective armors and shields like the Nemean Cestus, others assist by being better choices against certain enemies than the Blades of Exile, your new and re-imagined starter weapon. This, in itself isn’t enough to make the new choices of killing tool overly enticing when juxtaposed with others we’ve come across during Kratos’ journey. What does make them better is how they handle. Each weapon works like a lateral extension of your starter, meaning that while they each have unique moves and combos, they all feel similar in execution. At harder difficulties this is a welcome choice because it means you’re never stuck with something that feels cumbersome or out of place.

Most users will find one or two weapons to their liking and stick with those primarily, leveling them up as soon as possible. There’s an added layer to your choices, though, which comes in the form of magic, and what each weapon delivers for you in that respect. One delivers a specific power that varies greatly from the one previous, sometimes a blast that crushes the ground and damages everything in a wide circumference (the previously mentioned Nemean Cestus, large gauntlets basically), while another like the Nemesis Whips  has the ability to shock opponents and can rack up a ludicrous combos in mere seconds. It’s the ease of control with which your actions are manipulated that make any of them a good choice and the overall combat a pleasure from start to finish.

Further to this end is an obvious element of the brutality inherent in the franchise, which is just how nasty you can deal with your foe. It’s not usually something that important to mention in a review especially because you’re going to kill a few hundred, if not thousand, enemies during your time with the game. But I’d be remiss not to mention just how glorious some of these death dealing animations really are.  These brutal slayings are astonishing in their graphically ferocious calculation and will stop you dead with laughter, in a good way. And it’s not just the technical prowess of the PS3 that makes it worthwhile, it’s that it finally showcases the sheer force of Kratos in every regard. It’s not something I’ll recommend showing your seven year old kid, but most mature gamers will definitely get a kick out of it.

Now, I suppose some of you are wondering what they did with quick time events, the nuisance that now a good number of years after its arrival has quickly risen on the list of non-wishes by gamers. Here they’re invoked with a subtle nod to just how much things have changed since the series made them the next best thing in gaming. They’re no longer in the middle of the screen, and they seem short lived to their counterparts of yesteryear. In practice they’re the same old thing, but having them more streamlined makes them easier to forgive and forget. So worry not, they won’t bother you that much.

QTE’s do work their way into more than just combat, during certain large puzzle’s you’ll be required to time your button presses just right. But those instances are fairly minor and don’t take away from the otherwise great puzzle layouts you come across. The challenges are sometimes pretty simple, but the size of them alone can be enough challenge for you. There’s a neat thread throughout the game too that has you utilizing different pieces of the environment that eventually culminate into a Labyrinth that you must traverse, itself being one giant puzzle with a penchant for taking your life. It’s rare that these puzzles are so much fun, and maybe that’s because they aren’t always tough, but they’re paced throughout the game excellently, showing just how refined the mechanics are in this game.

It’s not all perfect in Olympus wonderland. The Titan gameplay feature boasted about is actually pretty lame, resulting in action that isn’t much different from everything you do on the ground or, more specifically, exactly like combat while climbing on a wall. Sure, these set pieces look fantastic and they fit with the grand scale I mentioned before, but there’s really nothing revolutionary or interesting involved with it compared to the rest of the gameplay. In fact, some might make that argument about the game as a whole. If, for instance, you bothered to go back through 1 & 2 recently with the great God of War Collection on the PS3, you might be amongst this crowd. As slick and pretty as GOW3 is, I can’t really say that much on display is a game changer, and by the time I was done I didn’t exactly need to hop right back in, either.

One clear explanation for my growing weariness with the game upon finishing is the story, and how it unfolds toward the end. Kratos is not someone we can easily sympathize with any longer. While he was once the unwitting dupe to Ares, I think it’s fair to say that he’s taken on his role of revenge incarnated with aplomb. So much so that any time the series falls back into themes of redemption and regret, the sentiment rings hollow and forced. Luckily, the game pushes such things aside for a good while, but, not so fortunately, it tries to pick this message up and run with it near the end of the game like it had been running with it the entire time. If this was the intention from the start, I think they forgot it along the way.

God of War 3 succeeds in being one of the best looking titles on the PS3, and easily the champion of the series (as if it wasn’t going to be). They get a lot of from the environments they use, even though there isn’t the diversity to make that an easy task. Combat animations, enemies, slayings, rooms, and nice little touches in the backgrounds make it a pleasure to take it all in. Strategic little viewpoint prompts come up during levels to let you do just that, and you owe it to yourself to oblige the offering. I was rarely disappointed with what there was to see. If you’re looking for a comparison; it’s not as good looking as Uncharted 2, only in that there isn’t as much variety, technically speaking you can make a case for either title.

The voice work is, once again, excellent with each character fulfilling their role as God or Titan with the confidence required to fill out this world. I wasn’t blown away by the score the same way as previous God of War games, and that might be because it feels like more of the same. It’s still well above the average marker but I never felt compelled to just listen, even during huge battles. It gets it right, but doesn’t seem to go beyond that expectation.

Fundamentally, God of War 3 is the same experience as each of its predecessors. Take that for what it’s worth, because really, every vehicle you drive is fundamentally the same too, but it’s still more fun to drive a sports car than a family sedan. It’s also probably the most accessible game in the series, offering fluid combat that’s easy to wrap your head around but enough depth to keep veteran players interested. There’s nothing to sway any fan of the series away from this title, and those that are new still owe it to themselves to check this out immediately.

SCORES:

HOW DOES IT LOOK? Pretty damn amazing. I’m going to leave it at that. 10/10

HOW DOES IT SOUND? Voice work is great and the score is decent enough. Nothing else really wowed me.      8.5/10

HOW IS IT PRESENTED? There’s an art to the pacing, but the story ends poorly by trying to be something it long ago forgot about. But know – that’s rather minor in the scheme of it all. 9/10

HOW DOES IT PLAY? Combat, puzzles and even the sex mini-game are all fun; the new weapons are the best in series. Even the quick time events don’t suck. 10/10

HOW LONG WILL IT LAST? The truth is, not very long. 7 hours 35 minutes is what it took me, fully upgraded and collected everything.  There are challenges opened up at the end of the game which provide life. For the final act in this wonderful revenge story, it definitely ends too quickly, but it also wards off falling into feeling repetitive – so we’ll call it a wash.   9/10

FINAL GRADE: 95%

GRADE IS NOT AN AVERAGE OF SCORES BUT AN OVERALL RATING OF THE GAME EXPERIENCE