Released: March 16, 2010
Difficulty: Moderate
Time Spent: 10 to 20 Hours
Headline: Let’s end this, come hell or high water
In GoW I, it was saving Olympus from Ares? In GoW II, he went against the order of the Gods to seek revenge? And now, in GoW III, Kratos will finally destroy his father, his traitor, and the God of all Gods: Zeus? There is no doubt of the hype surrounding GoW III; but is this conclusion worthy?
Happening right after GoW II, Kratos and a mass of Titans are climbing mount Olympus to finally take down Zeus. However, Zeus too has allies; Gods, famous warriors / Olympians, and legions of hellish creatures. Kratos narrowly misses his chance at early revenge and gets struck down all the way back to Hell. The stories in God of War fancy starting off big and badass; the third time around keeps this tradition up by bringing a Goliath sized 45 minute, unfathomably sized battle… and then we come to the rest of the game. In the quest for redemption, a fair hunk of time is spent reminiscing over the well bookmarked past events and character cameos that take a few hours before the plot progresses beyond “Kill Zeus, don’t think about anything else.” When we do get that plot progression, it’s not bad but you can tell that the events of the 1st and 2nd games just had some more classic and inherently fresh ideas. This one only has a few and delves over them a bit much... then again, that problem is simply unavoidable for how things have been set up. It’s kind of like God of War II part 2, the story carries a lot of itself from all the momentum right behind it, straight for the finish line and a well done ending. The anti-hero remains well written with the super effective, slow burn storytelling and Kratos’ unstoppable vengeance that clashes along with old villains, new obstacles, and the innocents being victimized by these consequences.
First thing to die in God of War III, that bird
So the design concepts haven’t really changed that much since the series started. This last adventure takes place on the top of Olympus, far below in the depths of Hell, and all the way in between amongst a great chain that controls the power allowed to the heavens and the underworld. You’ll explore some of the last remains of Olympus, delving caverns, and seemingly sacred, larger than life puzzle environments. Progressing through the many challenges is similar to ways the series has offered up before like lifting hulking, iron gates, crossing taught ropes, grapple swinging with your blades and more of what’s been seen before. You still get new weapons, magic powers, and get to power them up into deadlier weapons that also bring new combo attacks. You also have items that are meant to help you find the passage through an area (one is someone’s head now used for a lantern in dark cave passages - he didn’t wanna give it up). They can also be used as weapons, but only as minor tactical fallbacks as they obviously were made to elaborate the level designs. The levels remain designed for combat encounters, light amounts of platforming, and 3 dimensional puzzles that do add some flavor and make you think just long enough to brain yourself.
“Ouuuuuuch! Not my eyeball!”
Of course what was just said in the last paragraph was just covering the standard basics because it’s expected in a game that’s followed this design. What makes this game worth playing first of all is a healthy 7 boss battles to play out and 4 of these are the big time boss battles the developers have a reputation of hitting home with by capturing brilliantly divine setups and even better executions. The others aren’t necessarily small in scale, but they do pale a bit in terms of showiness. Next up, just about all the enemies from the main games come back on occasion, although some like the Satyr and Centaur only appear 3 times in the whole game. There are also a couple more new enemies too including Chimera, a flaming Cerberus, scorpions, and Stone Warriors. One divinely new addition is you now get to a grapple atop of some enemies like the Cyclops and flaming Cerberus to control their amassing destruction for a short period. Best of all, the new and old enemies provide a great mix of tactical variety and make combat encounters mingle their best with the very tightly scripted pacing.
Man vs Horseman. Fight!
God of War has barely changed in terms of gameplay; you still have access to your blocks, parries, rolls, platforming, light + heavy attacks, and additional weapons. Sadly, of the 4 weapons, 3 are very similar to your chained blades. Although one does have a sorta unique summon magic that allows you to incarnate some of the main monsters for a quick bout on your side. The other weapon is like a brutalizing set of ancient boxing gloves and forms a later-at half point concept of smashing hardened crystals that seal an important item. Even more of a letdown is that a lot of secondary weapon attacks feel modeled off of the series’ signature weapon. Each weapon can be swung around oneself, lunge an enemy into the air, and they just feel like copies of Kratos’ hallmark blades. Also, almost all your weapons share these similar attacks with the button prompts. For each of the 4 weapons, L1 + Square equals 360 blade spin, tapping Square 5 times quickly, gives you a long, escalating slash / pummel attack. Control precision does remain quite sharp, but the camera does in rare cases need work as it can be hard to judge distances while jumping and gliding. Speaking of the camera, you can pan it around when looking at murals (from one of those podiums) but that’s it. You still autotarget when using the bow and all viewpoints while navigating are programmed in.
I’m gonna break this horn off and stab it in your eye!
As far as content value, GoW has always offered the comparable value of a great movie. There is almost no natural replay value beyond wanting to experience everything (which you will); furthermore, movie releases and this game back themselves with plentiful ‘making of’ insider videos. After those 2 features, the package is just about finished but of course, the ‘hellish’ Challenge of the Gods mode and an arena combat mode (free-for-alls in stadium like battlegrounds) also arrives. The real deal of this package remains as the single player game which is just a tad too brief at 9-10 hours. Also, the arena combat can only be unlocked by beating Challenge of the Gods… Challenge of the Gods is not an easy or really, genuinely enjoyable experience due to its almost sadistic design on timing, trying to ‘game’ the enemies, and the extent of exactness demanded from the game’s mechanics. Ultimately, even though it’s a little short, GoW III still feels like a complete package and doesn’t feel like the cutouts or contradictions left a noticeable ‘missing’ element anywhere throughout the game.
The PS2 and PSP entries showed off some serious graphical prowess. A sound presentation also would capture your ears and had you feeling full of vengeance after a big battle drumming or a grandiose scaling of one upon many of Greece’s ancient marvels. This is the 4th ‘big time’ release, do you think GoW is gonna spare its audiovisual quality after a trio of golden eggs? Not a chance, in fact because of the game’s high popularity, I doubt I need to say more because ‘it’s always that good.’ I will say that any secondary character seems to have a bit of a relatively low polygon, rushed look to their face. Also, the series may be growing beyond its one-way minded camera, but none of this sticks out.
God of War has gotta have boobs in its games, it’d be like having a Ferrari without the keys
You want a real ending in GoW III? You’ve got it! You want to kill enemies in cruel and uninviting ways in GoW III?.. You’ve got it! You want to experience a sex orgy in GoW III?!. YOU’VE GOT IT!!! Still, at the end of the day, if you’ve never played a GoW game, this trilogy’s end isn’t where to really start. Much of the story has already been spent and the creativity has somewhat faded away, where the first 2 hold their own just as well across all lines (beyond graphics) and spin up a story with vigorous momentum. This is the endgame for Kratos and perhaps the entirety of Greek Mythology. Anybody who’s been waiting to finish this had better hang on when they play this because when this game ends, IT ENDS, and nothing can stand in his way.
8.5 / 10 GREAT
+Brings the ending’s defiance, hatred, and vengeance from the start to conclusion
+Astonishing momentum, scale, and pacing drive you to keep going
+Brings the whole package without making sacrifices
+“Killing all these Gods and hellish legions kicks a hell of a lot of ass!”
-Combat doesn’t have enough integrations and feels over relied upon from before
TWiSTEDmerc
Difficulty: Moderate
Time Spent: 10 to 20 Hours
Headline: Let’s end this, come hell or high water
In GoW I, it was saving Olympus from Ares? In GoW II, he went against the order of the Gods to seek revenge? And now, in GoW III, Kratos will finally destroy his father, his traitor, and the God of all Gods: Zeus? There is no doubt of the hype surrounding GoW III; but is this conclusion worthy?
Happening right after GoW II, Kratos and a mass of Titans are climbing mount Olympus to finally take down Zeus. However, Zeus too has allies; Gods, famous warriors / Olympians, and legions of hellish creatures. Kratos narrowly misses his chance at early revenge and gets struck down all the way back to Hell. The stories in God of War fancy starting off big and badass; the third time around keeps this tradition up by bringing a Goliath sized 45 minute, unfathomably sized battle… and then we come to the rest of the game. In the quest for redemption, a fair hunk of time is spent reminiscing over the well bookmarked past events and character cameos that take a few hours before the plot progresses beyond “Kill Zeus, don’t think about anything else.” When we do get that plot progression, it’s not bad but you can tell that the events of the 1st and 2nd games just had some more classic and inherently fresh ideas. This one only has a few and delves over them a bit much... then again, that problem is simply unavoidable for how things have been set up. It’s kind of like God of War II part 2, the story carries a lot of itself from all the momentum right behind it, straight for the finish line and a well done ending. The anti-hero remains well written with the super effective, slow burn storytelling and Kratos’ unstoppable vengeance that clashes along with old villains, new obstacles, and the innocents being victimized by these consequences.
First thing to die in God of War III, that bird
So the design concepts haven’t really changed that much since the series started. This last adventure takes place on the top of Olympus, far below in the depths of Hell, and all the way in between amongst a great chain that controls the power allowed to the heavens and the underworld. You’ll explore some of the last remains of Olympus, delving caverns, and seemingly sacred, larger than life puzzle environments. Progressing through the many challenges is similar to ways the series has offered up before like lifting hulking, iron gates, crossing taught ropes, grapple swinging with your blades and more of what’s been seen before. You still get new weapons, magic powers, and get to power them up into deadlier weapons that also bring new combo attacks. You also have items that are meant to help you find the passage through an area (one is someone’s head now used for a lantern in dark cave passages - he didn’t wanna give it up). They can also be used as weapons, but only as minor tactical fallbacks as they obviously were made to elaborate the level designs. The levels remain designed for combat encounters, light amounts of platforming, and 3 dimensional puzzles that do add some flavor and make you think just long enough to brain yourself.
“Ouuuuuuch! Not my eyeball!”
Of course what was just said in the last paragraph was just covering the standard basics because it’s expected in a game that’s followed this design. What makes this game worth playing first of all is a healthy 7 boss battles to play out and 4 of these are the big time boss battles the developers have a reputation of hitting home with by capturing brilliantly divine setups and even better executions. The others aren’t necessarily small in scale, but they do pale a bit in terms of showiness. Next up, just about all the enemies from the main games come back on occasion, although some like the Satyr and Centaur only appear 3 times in the whole game. There are also a couple more new enemies too including Chimera, a flaming Cerberus, scorpions, and Stone Warriors. One divinely new addition is you now get to a grapple atop of some enemies like the Cyclops and flaming Cerberus to control their amassing destruction for a short period. Best of all, the new and old enemies provide a great mix of tactical variety and make combat encounters mingle their best with the very tightly scripted pacing.
Man vs Horseman. Fight!
God of War has barely changed in terms of gameplay; you still have access to your blocks, parries, rolls, platforming, light + heavy attacks, and additional weapons. Sadly, of the 4 weapons, 3 are very similar to your chained blades. Although one does have a sorta unique summon magic that allows you to incarnate some of the main monsters for a quick bout on your side. The other weapon is like a brutalizing set of ancient boxing gloves and forms a later-at half point concept of smashing hardened crystals that seal an important item. Even more of a letdown is that a lot of secondary weapon attacks feel modeled off of the series’ signature weapon. Each weapon can be swung around oneself, lunge an enemy into the air, and they just feel like copies of Kratos’ hallmark blades. Also, almost all your weapons share these similar attacks with the button prompts. For each of the 4 weapons, L1 + Square equals 360 blade spin, tapping Square 5 times quickly, gives you a long, escalating slash / pummel attack. Control precision does remain quite sharp, but the camera does in rare cases need work as it can be hard to judge distances while jumping and gliding. Speaking of the camera, you can pan it around when looking at murals (from one of those podiums) but that’s it. You still autotarget when using the bow and all viewpoints while navigating are programmed in.
I’m gonna break this horn off and stab it in your eye!
As far as content value, GoW has always offered the comparable value of a great movie. There is almost no natural replay value beyond wanting to experience everything (which you will); furthermore, movie releases and this game back themselves with plentiful ‘making of’ insider videos. After those 2 features, the package is just about finished but of course, the ‘hellish’ Challenge of the Gods mode and an arena combat mode (free-for-alls in stadium like battlegrounds) also arrives. The real deal of this package remains as the single player game which is just a tad too brief at 9-10 hours. Also, the arena combat can only be unlocked by beating Challenge of the Gods… Challenge of the Gods is not an easy or really, genuinely enjoyable experience due to its almost sadistic design on timing, trying to ‘game’ the enemies, and the extent of exactness demanded from the game’s mechanics. Ultimately, even though it’s a little short, GoW III still feels like a complete package and doesn’t feel like the cutouts or contradictions left a noticeable ‘missing’ element anywhere throughout the game.
The PS2 and PSP entries showed off some serious graphical prowess. A sound presentation also would capture your ears and had you feeling full of vengeance after a big battle drumming or a grandiose scaling of one upon many of Greece’s ancient marvels. This is the 4th ‘big time’ release, do you think GoW is gonna spare its audiovisual quality after a trio of golden eggs? Not a chance, in fact because of the game’s high popularity, I doubt I need to say more because ‘it’s always that good.’ I will say that any secondary character seems to have a bit of a relatively low polygon, rushed look to their face. Also, the series may be growing beyond its one-way minded camera, but none of this sticks out.
God of War has gotta have boobs in its games, it’d be like having a Ferrari without the keys
You want a real ending in GoW III? You’ve got it! You want to kill enemies in cruel and uninviting ways in GoW III?.. You’ve got it! You want to experience a sex orgy in GoW III?!. YOU’VE GOT IT!!! Still, at the end of the day, if you’ve never played a GoW game, this trilogy’s end isn’t where to really start. Much of the story has already been spent and the creativity has somewhat faded away, where the first 2 hold their own just as well across all lines (beyond graphics) and spin up a story with vigorous momentum. This is the endgame for Kratos and perhaps the entirety of Greek Mythology. Anybody who’s been waiting to finish this had better hang on when they play this because when this game ends, IT ENDS, and nothing can stand in his way.
8.5 / 10 GREAT
+Brings the ending’s defiance, hatred, and vengeance from the start to conclusion
+Astonishing momentum, scale, and pacing drive you to keep going
+Brings the whole package without making sacrifices
+“Killing all these Gods and hellish legions kicks a hell of a lot of ass!”
-Combat doesn’t have enough integrations and feels over relied upon from before
TWiSTEDmerc