The Box Art May be Bad But the Game Is Pretty Rad. God of War III Review.

Seriously, who was it that decided close-ups of characters' faces would make good box art this generation? GoW III is probably the worst example; it's not even his face, just one scowl-y eyeball! But I digress, on with the review.

I'm going to try and keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, but in order to discuss the full range of Kratos' weapons and attacks I'm going to give some stuff away. My recommendation, if you wish to keep every aspect of the game a complete surprise, is to either skip this review altogether or jump to the summary and score at the end.

The game picks up exactly where 2 left off, with Kratos hitching a ride on the titan Gaia while she ascends mount Olympus to put an end to Zeus. You'll get a few minutes, and a handful of bad guys/blade-fodder, to re-acclimated yourself to the controls before hitting your first boss fight. This entire opening sequence is quite the site to behold as nearly all of it takes place while riding a titan that would make any Colossus say "daaaaaayyyuuuummm."

Although you don't spend the entire game riding, or otherwise interacting, with titans of various types as most early information on the game hinted, the more limited appearances of the titans keeps their gargantuan size and the spectacle of the fights they are part of from getting to the point of "yeah, seen it."

For those of you that have been wondering, yes, Kratos will lose all of his powers and have to start from scratch, just like God of War II and any Metroid game. Although I would have liked to see a game where I don't have to regain all the powers and abilities I gained twice already, I also understand the need to not start out with a sizable library of moves that would be hard to expand upon without becoming absurd. In short, I'll let it slide. Rebuilding Kratos offensive arsenal is also important as there are some significant changes to his moveset. The L1+O special attack has been replaced with a "combat grapple" that pulls Kratos to his enemies, allowing you to close distances quickly and thus keep the combos flowing. This is also one of two moves that are universal through all your weapons, a good thing as you will be picking up 4 different weapons for Kratos before the game is over. I use the term "different" lightly, however, as two of those weapons are nearly identical to your standard blades. It's hard to fault Sony Santa Monica for this misfire too much, considering the challenge inherent in making weapons that are different but still familiar and I suppose it's better to have weapons that aren't all that different rather than completely different ones no one wants to use. (*cough* God of War 1, Blade of Artemis *cough*) Still, seeing what was accomplished with the Nemean Cestus, the carbon-copy Claws of Hades and Nemesis Whip are a disappointment.

There are a few other changes in regards to the weapons. You no longer have separate magical attacks to upgrade, all magic attacks are tied directly to specific weapons. The Blades of Exile (which are exactly like the Blades of Chaos/Athena from the last two games) have a Spartan Phalanx magic attack that anyone who has seen 300 should be familiar with. The Claws of Hades will summon various spectres who will fire off some of their own attacks before disappearing. The Nemean Cestus has a ground-pounding are effect attack that will knock most enemies of their feet. The Nemesis Whip has an electrical attack very similar to Crono's Rage form God of War II. This works fairly well since the other move all weapons have in common is a L1+X combination that switches to, and attacks with, the next weapon in your possession.
Also a significant change for magic use is that, since these attacks are now directly linked to weapons, they upgrade along with the weapons and require no extra expenditure of red orbs. In general, every other level will increase the power of a weapon's magic attack, up to 3 levels. Upgrading the Claws of Hades increases the variety of souls Kratos can summon rather than your standard "More Powah!" type upgrade. There's even a trophy for those that use every type of soul in battle.

It is especially good that you no longer need to spend orbs upgrading both weapons and magic as Kratos has an entirely new edition to his arsenal: items. While magic is fired with the R2 button and depends on the currently equipped weapon, items are equipped with L2 and switched/fired with the face buttons. These items have their own, recharging, energy bar and can be used for combat as well as puzzle solving such as burning away obstructing bramble or running up certain walls. Like the weapons, these items can be upgraded with the key difference being that item upgrades are cheaper and only go up one level.

Even with these noticeable changes to the overall God of War combat, it remains as fast, fluid and brutal as ever. The controls, however, do make a stumble or two. For one, it's a little too easy to mix up doing a counterattack with Kratos damage-reflecting Golden Fleece (still with him from GoW II) since the button presses are identical to certain special attacks and the only difference being a fraction of a second on the timing. Secondly, the double-jumping and gliding seems to have some problems I dont' remember popping up in the previous entries. All too often I found myself looking at "You Are Dead" simply because the second jump didn't initialize or my holding X didn't result in an Icarus glide for some reason. From what I've seen, this results from a change to when you can make that second jump. Before you could jump once, and then throw a little mid-air hop into that anytime before Kratos hit the ground. In III, you have to hit that second jump immediately or nothing will happen when you press X. Stumbles, yes, but not something that's impossible to overcome.
Going back to the brutality, it has definitely been turned up a notch or two since the last game. There are entirely new ways to spill blood and organs that even have their own trophies (disembowel 3 centaurs, for example) but I'll let you discover those on your own. Suffice to say that God of War III absolutely earns it's M rating and probably isn't something you want your younger brother, or son, playing.

Also contributing to the M rating are the numerous bare breasts. True to the style of Greek mythology, any mythological enemy that is female in nature, be it medusa or harpy, will be completely bare-chested. You will also come across a young woman that, for some reason, decided to wear a shirt that only covers her shoulders. Much like the three females Kratos encounters in the highly-publicized "foursome" minigame. While an obvious attempt at attracting the horny teenage boys that populate the market and the unspoken part of most grown men, God of War III at least displays a sense of humor about the gratuitous nudity that falls somewhere along the lines of sitting in study hall and saying "Hey look, I drew boobs, hahahah."

Speaking of visuals, those found in God of War III can be absolutely stunning. It's often hard to believe that everything you're seeing is rendered in real-time by the game engine. From the opening moments to the roll of the credits, there are many acts of absolute graphical wizardry that Sony Santa Monica managed to pull off. The textures, for the most part, are super-high resolution, loaded with detail and special lighting effects and even outdo the almighty Uncharted 2 on multiple occasions. There are also some lighting effects so gorgeous to behold you may find yourself crying involuntarily. Best of all more than once I noticed that the framerate climbed beyond 30fps and seemed to reach a silky 60fps or at least close, so it's not only more detailed than the majority of games on any console but also just...buttah.

On the flip side, however, there are some places where the graphics seem to falter slightly. You'll occasionally see a low resolution texture or a really obvious polygon seam. Hephaestus comes to mind; of course, he's ugly in other ways. No wonder his wife was so...excited to see Kratos. However, these failings are far outweighed by the number of "Holy crap! That looks so amazing I think my eyes are bleeding!" moments. In fact, if the rest of the game wasn't so damn pretty, these occasional missteps would hardly be noticeable.

There are a few glitches worth mentioning as well. All too often I found myself running into, out of and around save points trying to get the "R1" prompt to appear so I could actually save my game. This also happened a few times with chests and other grabbable things that require the player to hit R1. It doesn't seem to be a matter of standing in just the right position as the game just not catching on to the the fact that you're supposed to be able to grab/open the object. There was also a particularly irritating glitch during the final boss fight where Kratos was supposed to land in a "cave" to continue the fight, but he just never appeared on the screen for me. I just sat there for a minute or two with my HUD fully displayed and no Kratos onscreen before I heard him grunt, was told "You Are Dead" and had to redo the entire fight that preceded this part.

Speaking of the final boss fight, I felt it was a little disappointing for a game, and especially trilogy, ending fight. It was just a little too easy and lacked that "epic" feel of several boss fights that took place earlier in the game, which I attribute to the cramped arena most of the fight takes place in. There is one notable stage of the battle, however, that will only feel cool to people that spent some time playing Street Fighter II, Cammy's stage in particular.

The rest of the game's level of challenge is right in line with what series fans have come to expect. I recommend veterans play on Titan (Hard) and everyone avoid Spartan (Easy). Chaos is the new Titan difficulty (just as Titan was the new God difficulty in GoW II) and is as expletive inspiring, controller smashingly difficult as Titan was. Spartan, on the other hand, is insultingly easy. I tried it for my attempts to claim the Platinum Trophy (a suprisingly easy task in GoW III) and found that there's no real reason to ever need block or dodge with how little damage enemy attacks do. Anyone that actually needs Easy mode probably isn't old enough to be playing the bare-handed-decapitation-including game anyway. Just steer clear, trust me.

The storyline that ties all of this sex and violence together is exactly what one should expect after the first two games. Lots of Kratos being angry and one character selfishly betraying another and/or changing sides for no real reason and so on. There are some philosophical, and likely controversial, bits towards the end that tie directly in to the final boss fight and also manage to show some growth in Kratos as a character. And I have to applaud the creators for finally giving Kratos some depth beyond "You pissed me off, now DIE!" The ending, however, is probably going to irritate you. It's very abrupt and manages to create a few questions right then and only answer about 3/4 of them. Despite multiple claims to the contrary, this may not be the last time we help, or at least see, Kratos rip someone's head of.

Overall, the game is absolutely outstanding, a definite reason to buy Playstation 3 and a worthy "conclusion" to the story of Kratos and his angry, blood-filled quest.

Score
Graphics - 9.5/10 - Most of the time the best looking game on any system with ridiculously detailed models, superlative lighting effects and butter-smooth framerates. Other times...not so much
Story - 8/10 - Exactly what you'd expect from God of War: a reason you're decapitating all these people. With a little dash of depth added to Kratos and a "Really!?" ending.
Gameplay - 10/10 - Fast, fluid and ferociously violent, this is the combat that made God of War the powerhouse franchise that it is. The few puzzles scattered throughout don't quite reach the scale or complexity of the previous game, but it's unlikely you'll even notice.
Replay/Extras - 8.5/10 - There are some really cool videos that are unlocked after you beat the game. I thought the one focusing on Quality Assurance was particularly good since most people still think those guys "just sit around and play games all day." There's also the unlockable bonus costumes and "Godly Posession" items that can be used on repeat playthroughs as well as the Challenge of Olympus and Arena options to mess around with. The game box claims there will be "add-on content," but we'll have to wait and see on that one.
Overall - 9/10 - Go buy it, you know you want to.

Rate Your Vengeance! God of War III Reviews are in.

The game may not have dropped yet (although you can get some serious hands-on time if you happen to be in the San Francisco area) but the reviews are everywhere. God of War III can now be considered a hit amongst gaming critics. A stop at any one of you favorite gaming sites will likely find you at a review for the game, but you're already here, right? 1up.com, IGN and Europe-based CVG all have fairly level-headed reviews that, in general, seem to agree: God of War III is awesome. Fun side note, if you have a certain amount of time you need/want to fill by reading the review, CVG has the shortest review, followed by 1up and IGN definitely has the longest.

Note that I said "in general" they seem to agree. IGN still seems to prefer GoW II, with the other two sites granting slight favor to the most recent entry. In regards to the graphics, while they all seem to agree that God of War III is absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous at times, both IGN and CVG claim that the game can range from that to pretty good. 1up, on the other hand said "the visuals almost make it worth playing on their own." The same can be said for the story with regards to how well and coherent it is as well as how it compares to the previous entries in the series. Although from the sounds of it, the ending seems to be quite the dividing factor.

The best part of all these divided opinions, though, is that they are a great excuse to play the game and see for yourself. So...you know...get on that.

Blood-smeared Impressions, God of War 3.

(click for larger scowl)

In case you missed it this past Thursday, the God of War Demo was released on the Playstation Store. This is the same demo that was shown at least year's E3, but for the majority of us this was the first chance to play, so the level of asskickery contained within suffered no loss of awesomeness. Also good news: according to the Playstation Blog God of War III has gone gold. But on to the demo impressions!

This is God of War. Chances are pretty good that if you're reading this you're familiar with the first two games. If not, well there's now an easy way to solve that. Regardless, this is one of the most revered titles in over-the-top action games (think Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta and you'll get the idea) and with good reason. Even better, if you decided to try and stave of your hunger for GoW III by partaking in the outstandingly mediocre Dante's Inferno, (sigh, and I had such high hopes...) then Kratos' gloriously violent escapades will just seem that much more impressive by comparison. In fact, to remind you not only of how Kratos came to be embroiled in the circumstances of God of War III, but also to remind you how far past 11 he pushes the "badass-o-meter" let's have a look at IGN's handy video "God of War in 5 Minutes (Sort of)" which even includes the side/in-between story from the PSP entry, Chains of Olympus.

God of War Collection PlayStation 3 Video - God of War in Five Minutes

As awesome as that looked, actually playing the games is so much more satisfying. So let me remind you again that this doesn't require backwards compatibility or for you to still have a PS2 lying around.

Alright, now I promise I'm actually going to talk about the demo, and try to avoid spoiling anything nifty while doing so. As I mentioned earlier, this is the exact same demo shown at 2009's E3, so you should be fairly familiar with its content. You start off slicing, stabbing and otherwise maiming your way through some zombie-like soldiers and reacquainting yourself with Kratos' controls. Speaking of which, there are some slight differences from the last time you handled the Ghost of Sparta. The basics are still the same, Square is light attack, Triangle heavy, X jumps and Circle grabs, so the only real differences affect weapon and "magic" switching. You no longer select your desired magic with the D-pad and fire it off with L2. Now, holding down L2 equips whatever magic you used last, and you change between them by pressing the appropriate buttons (which also fire the magic's attack) while holding L2. By default, L2 pulls out your Bow (apparently not Typhon's Bane, though it serves the same basic purpose) with a change to Helios' head (the only other "magic" you pick up during the demo) accomplished by tapping R1. As mentioned earlier, using Helios' head makes that the default magic (L2), switching back to your Bow requires the player to press Square. This setup works quite well in the demo, and unless Kratos picks up an absurd amount of magical attacks, should prove effective throughout the entire game.

The previous selection method for magic, the D-pad, now changes Kratos equipped main weapon on the fly. During the demo the only other weapon Kratos has access to are the Cestus and well...they're pretty rad. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I never found myself giving much time to the other weapons in God of War I or II. The Cestus, on the other hand, are a lot of fun and I even found myself favoring them over the blades by my third playthrough of the demo. Acting mostly as gigantic metal boxing gloves in the shape of lion heads, the force of the Cestus can stun multiple enemies and throws whoever it strikes backwards. This causes damage to any enemies enemies struck by your primary victim. The ground-pounding of the heavier attacks will even launch just about every enemy around you into the air. Each strikes from the Cestus also pause time, very briefly, but this seems to be more for visual effect than any combat advantage. Essentially, the more limited range of the Cestus is not as great a detriment compared to the standard Blades as it was for supplemental weapons of games past. In fact, the Cestus even have extendable chains similar to Athena's blades, but their use is limited to special moves (still accomplished by a combination of block -- L1 -- and an attack button). It's also worth mentioning that, unlike heavy weapons of previous games such as the Barbarian's Hammer, Kratos can still dodge while using the Cestus. However, the move becomes a hop rather than a roll and the distance is cut down to about 75% of what it is while using the Blades.

There's some fun new additions to combat itself, mostly in the form of the grabs and quick-time events. In Krato's third outing, grabbing an enemy looks like it will have more uses than just ending them quickly. The method of execution that follows a grab is still dependent on the button press that follows (decapitate with square, tear in half with triangle, etc.) but you can also turn that enemy into a rather formidable weapon. Going beyond the previous games where you could throw most standard enemies you grabbed at another, you can now pick up your captive and run around the screen using the poor soul as a combination shield/battering ram. This is quite the effective attack and there's one section of the demo where you can lay waste to an entire squad of soldiers using only one of their comrades. So what you do with your grabbed enemy now requires a little more thought but can potentially have a significant reward. One of the smaller additions to God of War's combat actually requires the player to not do very well. It's possible for Kratos to be overpowered by a large enough force of enemies that will then pile on top of him in a kind of evil dogpile. Escaping is a simple matter of shaking the left stick back and forth and throws back every enemy involved. It's worth letting yourself get overwhelmed by enemies in this way at least once just to see the move in action.

Speaking of choices, there's one particular are of the demo that I want to talk about for a moment. Those of you that remember the E3 demo videos might recall the point at which Kratos reaches Helios' broken body only to find it protected by a phalanx of skeletal soldiers with very large shields. The Blades of Athena are completely impotent against this defense. What was most often shown in the demo was Kratos climbing aboard a Cyclops (using the improved quicktime interface that I will address shortly) and taking control of the beast in order to break apart the phalanx. This is not your only choice for overcoming the dome of shields however. The raw blunt force of the Cestus can also overpower the shields. So it's up to the player whether or not he uses the Cestus or bat at the defenses with the blades and prompt the cyclops to show up. Even if you choose the Cestus, the Cyclops will show up eventually so you can still climb atop the it and crush the enemies below...until you decide to rip the cyclops' eyeball out and kill it that is.

As for the quicktime events, the on-screen has improved considerably. The required button press is now located on the corresponding side of the screen -- X on bottom, Triangle on top, and so on -- so that you can actually concentrate on the action your button presses are performing without having to focus your attention on the symbol at the center of the screen. What's the point of having over-the-top violence if you can't actually watch and enjoy it, am I right? Especially since the new graphics engine Sony Santa Monica has come up with shows the effects of your attacks in real time. The most dramatic of these being "zipper tech" which allows for an "accurate" portrayal of organs spilling out when you've sliced an enemy open. Speaking of which, the graphics are exactly what you would expect from God of War: gorgeous. Four years into it's lifecycle the PS3 is really showing it's graphical muscle.

Once you've killed the soldiers, disemboweled the centaur, maimed the chimera, de-eyed the cyclops and decapitated Helios you'll get a chance to try vertical flight sequence that requires some fairly quick thinking to make through unscathed while you dodge beams and falling debris while you pilot Kratos straight up a vertical shaft. Once this sequence is completed the demo ends, all too soon I might add.

From the impressions the demo left, it looks like God of War III is well on its way to being as much of an improvement over II as that game was over the original. And that's really saying something.

God of War 3 to install only ass-kickingness, not data

(click to Spartan-size)

While the ridiculous debate over whether the unreleased God of War 3 will surpass the current king of console graphics, Uncharted 2, rages on there is one thing that both games will have in common: a lack of mandatory hard drive install.
As stated by Sony Santa Monica director of technology, Christer Ericson, via his twitter account: "God of War 3 does NOT do a HD install. The 5MB listed on box back is for save game only." This should come as a huge relief to those that started up smoking because of Metal Gear Solid 4 or just found themselves bored after the third read through of Devil May Cry 4's backstory.
Whether or not this means that God of War 3 will still manage to be devoid of load times like Uncharted 2 remains to be seen and will likely have to wait until the game's actual release. Of course, it could head in the same direction that this guy took the graphical debate and use screenshots, and even concept art, with almost nothing in common to draw conclusions that have no basis on anything other than what game the author prefers. How would you use screenshots to compare load times? I don't know, how do you compare the graphical detail in the main character's faces when one screenshot isn't close enough to show any detail? Even better, how do you compare the graphical detail in an enemy's hands when one of the screenshots doesn't show the enemy's hands?
Ah the internet, allowing opinion to pass itself off as fact ever since its invention by Al Gore...