Review - 'God of War 3'

Submitted by admin on 3-21-2010
Comments: 2 - Likes: 1 - Views: 150

For many gamers, just the thought of Kratos, the main character of the God of War series, brings in visions of intense scenes of gore and battles that are simply badass. As the God of War 3 release approached its set date, fans of the action-adventure franchise, and many other gamers alike, had a feeling that things would not change for Kratos in his fourth game. Due to loads of gameplay videos and teasers from Sony's Santa Monica Studio, the developer of the game, anticipation for the title built up as fast as any other game in a greatly-received series would. With the game now available to PS3 gamers worldwide, is God of War 3 just as awesome as its predecessors?

To put it nice and simple, yes it is. In fact, if anything, God of War 3 completely surpasses the rest of the titles in the franchise in terms of just how epic the gameplay and graphics are. Although it only contains a campaign mode (along with a few small challenges and mini-games), the game still easily rockets past other games with more content.



As almost anyone can guess, you play as Kratos, Olympus' god of war. The game has a nice story riding along beside it that continues from previous God of War games. In short, Kratos is seeking revenge on the gods that have once betrayed him. You'll fight these gods throughout the campaign mode and, when you do, you'll think of them as boss battles. Each one is more difficult to defeat than the last and some are even accompanied with souls and warriors of Olympus. These fights are epic and all seem to have their own unique style. There's Poseidon, Helios, Zeus, and much, much more gods to conquer.

When you aren't taking down the praised gods, you'll be moving the mentioned souls and warriors of Olympus out of the way as you make your way to the top of Mt. Olympus or, in some cases, down into the depths of Hell. Although Kratos could probably take them all down with just his bare hands, he does have a set of weapons and magic abilities to help him out. His weapons consist of four main weapon types, three of which that will be earned during your first playthrough of the title. Each weapon type can be accessed after it is earned via your controller's directional pad and they all have a heavy and light attack along with a magic ability.

All types featured in the game can be upgraded to a certain extent by collecting orbs found scattered across levels. By upgrading a weapon type, you're improving its power and occasionally adding an add-on to its magic ability. Along with weapons and magic, Kratos also carries a small array of special items that, like weapons and magic, are eventually earned and can be upgraded to a specific level.



Even though normal button-pressing fighting is more common in God of War 3, some enemies can be finished off through quick-time events. These events act like your normal CG cut-scenes except you'll have to press a few buttons to completely put down whoever you're fighting. These quick-time moments are also present in all of the boss fights and make each battle twice as epic.

The experiences you are presented with in the game are ones that you will never forget. Titans are definitely one of these experiences. They're huge creatures composed of rock and vegetation that are on the climb to the top of Mt. Olympus. At the beginning of story mode, you actually get to fight on one of these monsters and you'll take down a few of them a bit later on too. Their massive size in the game is a grand feat for Santa Monica Studio and they should be proud of it.

Another exciting experience would be the sequences where you are flying either up or down the giant chain of Olympus. The feeling you get as you rise or fall through the giant vertical tunnel while avoiding obstacles is a jaw-dropping part of the title. Lastly, there are short sections in the game that alter your perception of a small area. You have one camera angle and you move around blocks and trigger switches to make it look like they connect in this angle (even if they don't truly connect). These are fun and offer a nice challenge that differs from the game's regular gameplay.

During your adventure to defeat the gods, you'll also have to climb up slopes, jump over dangerous pits, fly to different platforms using your pair of Icarus wings, swim in bodies of water, and swing through vast spaces of openness. Occasionally, you'll run into books, tablets, and documents that give an extra boost to the game's experience and help explain an Olympus landmark or story point.



Since Kratos' health isn't regenerative, you will often need to find boxes that can be opened to help gain some space on your health bar. There are also boxes to help refill your magic bar (which allows you to perform your magic abilities) and boxes that contain collectibles that are collected and can eventually increase the amount of health, magic, and item usage you have at once. Overall, I spent around nine hours completing the single-player mode.

Separate from the campaign mode of the game is a few mini-games, challenges, and a combat arena. The mini-games are short and don't contain much replay value, but the challenges and combat arena will definitely keep you playing God of War 3 for at least a few more hours.



Among the amazing aspects of God of War 3's gameplay, there are some downsides to playing it. At times, I felt confused on what to do next for a certain objective. A simple set of hints that appear after a certain amount of time would of helped a lot, even though the confusing segments were rare occurrences. Some of the underwater moments were also a pain since the controls for guiding Kratos through the deep waters were a bit challenging to grasp a hold of. And although the third-person camera was fine the majority of the time, its fixed position didn't quite impress me much and sometimes got annoying. Lastly, I did experience a glitch where I fell through the ground when fighting the god Poseidon, but that one-time issue is nothing to complain about.

In terms of God of War 3's graphics, they are extremely well polished and look fantastic. The special effects, gold dust, fire, smoke, backdrops, and character models all look wonderful. It's amazing to think how Santa Monica Studio could put such massive events into a game with such high-quality graphics. The visuals of the cut-scenes also look fantastic, although you can't skip through them (which might get annoying during future playthroughs). Unfortunately, there are some times in the game where different character animations look rather odd, although they look pretty sweet most of the time.

God of War 3's sound and audio are not bad at all. Kratos has a deep voice that makes even Zeus sound like a wimp. The dialog is well thought out and the rest of the character's voices are smooth and flawless. The sound of Kratos' blades slicing through the nearest enemy is just brutal, in a good way.



In conclusion, the game is quite simply the most brutal game I have ever played. The experiences featured in Olympus are those like no other. Like mentioned before, you will not forget the things you do to the poor souls along your journey to kill Zeus. None of the fighting ever gets really repetitive and the boss battles really keep you going. Just like the gameplay, the game's graphics and sound are spectacular. The only flaws in God of War 3 are a few problems with the gameplay (confusing moments and challenging sequences) but they are easily put aside as the good aspects of the title make up the majority of the game.

Even if you haven't played one of the other God of War titles, you need to play God of War 3. Yes, it's missing an online mode (or any multiplayer mode for that matter) but the epic-ness of the campaign mode help make up for it. God of War 3 is downright awesome and the large sum of other PS3 games are no where near the quality of Kratos' latest adventure.

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Score: 9.4/10  —  More Reviews

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Comments

Posted by Guest

on March 22, 2010

I'd give this a 9.9 as NO game is perfect, flaws can be found in EVERYTHING!! Some people whined about this game's puzzles and 'confusing moments and challenging sequences'!! Give me a break.......... GOWIII is far easier to play than that the first two and COO! The only little problem i had with GOWIII is the story parts take a long time to get to........seems like I'm just fighting away which is all good, but I wanted more story bits.........mayb i shld finish it 1st.

Posted by admin

on March 22, 2010

well, those bad experiences in the game were pretty rare so maybe it was just me. the game still got a high score in my books but it just had some bumps on the way

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