God of War 3 - Review
GOW3 - Great game, somewhat underwhelming conclusion
Ive got to say, I was looking forward to God of War 3 a lot. When it missed it release date last year and was shifted to March this year I was disappointed sure, but I couldn't help but think a few more months would make this a game to be reckoned with.
Anyway, yesterday I completed the game in just under 9 hours and came away feeling totally indifferent to the completed storyline. GOW1 was a great introduction to the Kratos character and the overall mythology set out for the franchise. GOW2 followed on from this with a tight storyline with more weapons, great puzzles and was widely agreed to be a great sequel. Unfortunately I only managed to get 3/4 of the way through this game and I'm still kicking myself now that I never managed to finish it. GOW3 however felt like the Terminator Salvation of the series. It seems as though the developers were more interested in creating boss fights with not so great hit detection than a cohesive well paced storyline that draws the player in. I couldn't help but find that as the game went on I felt less and less for Kratos. The ending, well, not only did it seem abrupt (if you can call a 30 min+ section abrupt) but it left me empty and devoid of any emotion as the credits rolled. Hope? The only hope I had was that if I sat through what felt like another 30 mins of credits that Id be greeted with a Bobby Ewing shower scene and that it would all be a dream. But alas, it was all true. My girlfriend came in from work as the credits were still rolling and asked me "Have you finished it already? what happened at the end?" Erm, well...I wont spoil it but to try to make the end sound like something Kratos deserved wasn't even worth attempting at that point, so I didnt.
That's the end out of the way, now for the rest of the game.
Graphics
Obviously the character model looked sweet, animation, backgrounds etc all looked well rendered and had great scope. But I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed with some scenes and some enemy character models looked rushed and lower resolution.
Sound
Music and Sound effects were great although some of the voice acting such as the 3 Kings holding the Chain of Olympus and Hermes stuck out for me as being just plain bad. I never realised Hermes was homosexual, I couldn't help but feel like he wanted me to catch him and give a massage or shave his legs.
Gameplay
Something about the gameplay didn't feel quite right for me, either it was the frame rate, the hit detection or the speed of movement. I cant pinpoint it but it wasn't as tight as GOW1 or 2. Some levels felt uninspired or like totally separate rooms tacked on to each other just to fill out the game between boss battles. Later levels had backtracking or warp zones with areas not accessible without a certain weapon, Metroid style, but nowhere near as well implemented. I didn't have as much time as I would have liked just tearing it up on screen with the lesser enemies. I would get a couple of areas were I could do this but they would either be followed up with a puzzle or a boss fight or another cheap mechanic thrown in to kill me instantly. Speaking of instant deaths, imagine this scenario. For 15 mins solid you have been ripping enemy Olympians' eyeballs out of their sockets like its going out of fashion covering the screen with blood and gore. You immediately follow this up with walking or jumping off the edge of some badly placed cliff edge/stairs etc and dying instantly! Nothing quite takes you out the game and damages the illusion of a badass Kratos quite like that! I also had more than one occasion were I simply did not know what to do next in the boss battles, I didn't know whether I was doing any damage or whether I needed to use a different weapon etc. It didn't seem clear enough to me at some points.
To conclude, even though it seems Im talking yang about this game, I'm not. I enjoyed it to a degree, but I was expecting much much more and because of this, ultimately I felt disappointed at the end. Ill therefore be trading GOW3 in and picking up the GOW Collection next month when its available in the UK :)
