God of War 3 is the latest Playstation 3 juggernaut, that is most likely going to sell systems for Sony.
The story so far is that in God of War you killed Ares the god of war because you were tired of being his servant, and some other unfavorable things he tricked you into doing. In the second God of War, you having been the god of war, and kind of a power-hungry asshole, are tricked by Zeus and stripped of your godly powers. This sets you off on a quest for revenge on Zeus, which is later aided by the Titans. You convince them(the Titans) to time-hop with you back to the present when the Gods are weakened in order to destroy Mt. Olympus. God of War 3 picks up right where God of War 2 ended, with you on the back on Gaia while she climbs Mt. Olympus.
Is God of War 3 going to be dominating game of the year awards around this time next year like fellow PS3 exclusive Uncharted 2 is doing now?
YAY :
- Variety of weapons available without pausing, and in general actually, is way better this time around. By the end of the game you’ll have four weapons that you can switch between without pausing. Instead of gaining different magic abilities and keeping roughly the same weapons, you gain the different weapons that each have their own specific magic attack tied to them. At first after hearing that you’d probably think it’d limit how quickly you can switch between different magic, but it’s just as easy as before, because all of the weapons are mapped to buttons on the d-pad.
- The game looks great, it’s very pretty and detailed. I spent around 10 minutes toward the beginning of my play-through just walking around looking at stuff and seeing how the light affected Kratos and his shadow. Actually, during playing this my TV developed a random purple line vertically down it on the right side of the screen. So, I guess you could say it looks so good it gave my TV a seizure. I wouldn’t worry about that happening to yours though.
- Combat and combo moves along with the ability to switch between all your weapons and items on the fly are awesome. There are enemies that will force you to use one weapon against them, and enemies you’ll learn are more susceptible to certain weapons. And when you destroy a room full of various enemies having switched to the weapon you prefer to use on each one, seemingly without pause, try not to have a smile on your face or sense of accomplishment.
- The first half of the boss fights are quite good. The very first one in particular stands out in my mind. There’s another one further into the game that’s on a huge scale and is also very memorable.
- They managed to do the near impossible and improved the quick-time events. Instead of being in the middle of the screen above the head of the enemy, forcing you to look away from the action, the button you need to press now shows up on the side of the screen that corresponds with the side of the button pad it’s on. This is a great addition as it allows you to actually watch what Kratos is doing instead of worriedly looking elsewhere to find out what button to press before you die or have to do it all over again.
- The intro you see before the title screen reminds me of the beginning of Casino Royale, and some other movies, because of how they kind of tell a story through the silhouette images.
NAY :
- The second half of the boss fights, including the one at the very end are lackluster. It’s a huge bummer when the first boss fight in a game is way more epic and fun then the last boss in an epic game like this.
- Speaking of end, it is a little too open for me to be a conclusive end to the trilogy.
- The story is by far the worst part of the game. A lot of what happens doesn’t make sense when you think about it, especially in relation to the other stories in the series. Their attempt at making Kratos a likable character through his interaction with another character, after all the bad stuff you do as him, is feeble and doesn’t really change your opinion of him as much as I think they’d like it to.
- There’s a part in the game where the controller layout is visible on an element of the environment, and you have to play a guitar hero-like rhythm game to unlock something. It completely ruins the aesthetic in that area, and makes you wonder if they really couldn’t come up with a better ‘puzzle’.
- I don’t know if this is too nit-picky, but it’s shorter than God of War 2 was. Or at least playing through it and finding all of the gorgon eyes, phoenix feathers, minotaur horns, and most of the godly items took me less time than doing the same in God of War 2 did. I expected the next game in a series like this to be bigger and badder on every scale, including play time.
God of War 3 is a very good game, that with a better writer could have probably been great. It improves upon the already great combat aspects of the earlier games in the franchise, and thankfully lacks most of their frustrating moments (like the spinning blade column in the first game). But, it’s hard for me to definitively say this is the best game in the series. It’s very close, but it’s not a sure shot. It’s definitely one of the best games to have been released this year, but it’s only March, so we’ll see how it holds up going forward. At 10 hours or less for a play-through I can’t really recommend this for a purchase, unless you’re a huge God of War fan. But, if you fall into that category you probably already had this pre-ordered since E3 2009.
