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God of War III review

Game: God of War III
Platform: PlayStation 3
Genre: Fighting Action (Brawler)
Developer: SCEA

Reader review by Suskie

April 08, 2010

Five minutes into God of War III, the game was already such a grand, glorious spectacle that it permanently skewed my perception of what can be done in a video game. A shot from the game’s first level might reveal Kratos confronting a horde of demonic soldiers in a lush forest, and it’s a scene that would make any other game blush; the impeccable attention to detail is even easier to admire in high definition, and as our protagonist slings his blades through the air, it’s a testament to modern gaming that something so beautiful can remain so consistently fluid. And then the camera pulls back. Why is the ground shaking? Why is the backdrop moving? It’s because – lo and behold – we’re standing on the shoulder of the earth titan Gaia, who is herself battling Poseidon while the other titans storm the slope of Mt. Olympus around her.

Just when you think even the mighty PS3 engine couldn’t possibly take anymore, just when you think the shot will cut away, it doesn’t. Kratos himself is a disturbingly lifelike sight to behold, yet as the camera sweeps and pans every which way throughout the entirety of this sequence, Sony Santa Monica are constantly reminding us that they haven’t yet even scratched the surface of what they can accomplish. How does a spectacle of such monstrous proportions run so smoothly and seamlessly throughout? How can they show us what they’re showing us without a single interrupting loading screen or distracting framerate dip? How do they do that?

Poseidon himself uses his command of seawater to balloon to around ten times his normal size, bewilderingly sprouting tentacles with horse heads and spider legs on each end – just go with it – that drill through Gaia’s stony hide. Kratos battles several of these as he struggles to stay aboard the titan, dangling from her enormous limbs throughout and even travelling inside of her body at one point. The climax of the encounter comes when Kratos rips Poseidon from his watery shell and proceeds to beat the living crap out of him the old-fashioned way: through quick-time events. Except it’s shown from Poseidon’s perspective, and the brawl concludes with Kratos gouging the sea god’s eyes out with his thumbs… an action the player mimics by clicking the two analog sticks simultaneously.

Are you sold yet? Well, don’t get too excited. Once the first level is over, God of War III turns into a regular old action game – a very good one, mind, but one that rarely delivers on the promises presented in its first half-hour. If you’re disappointed, imagine how I felt.

The God of War series may be the victim of its own success. While I don’t have much experience with the series – this is the first one I’ve played all the way through – I’ve certainly seen its influence, not just in direct rip-offs like Dante’s Inferno, but in the action genre as a whole. By now, we’ve seen fast, visceral combat. We’ve seen cinematic finishers punctuated by quick-time events. We’ve seen angry, bloodthirsty protagonists. God of War III’s one defining attribute is its emphasis on over-the-top spectacle, and yet it’s almost more punishing to get only a few tantalizing glances at what could have been done than to get nothing at all.

None of this is bad, mind you. It just means that God of War III, all said and told, is simply a video game, and every time I’d hoped it would rise to something more – as Uncharted 2 proved, a game can achieve greatness through theatricality alone – I was abruptly pulled back down to Earth. For all of the series’ hype over being a “cinematic” experience, the story is disappointingly dry, with perfunctory dialog delivered with excessive self-importance by voice actors who are trying too hard. The plot itself is little more than a series of confrontations with iconic mythological figures, and you get the sense that Sony felt the last two games were underachieving and thus set out to have Kratos murder every single god who wasn’t already slain in the previous installments.

It ultimately feels a bit overstuffed. You’d think the battle with Hades would carry quite a bit of weight, but it’s just another boss battle against a big, ugly monster. Maybe Kratos’s contempt for all of these characters was believably conveyed in the last two titles, but God of War III has little time to dwell on the death of one god before hastily moving on to the next. Confrontations that should feel monumental – and this is a series that has earned a living by feeling monumental – don’t. Even your final encounter with Zeus is just a punch-up with a bearded guy; a passerby wouldn’t realize it’s even a boss battle, let alone the finale of a so-called epic trilogy.

On the other hand, though, if God of War III is “simply” a game, it does a terrific job of “simply” being a game, with combat that’s as fast, deep, fluid and consistently entertaining as any other action title on the market. The timing couldn’t be better, either: With the repugnant Dante’s Inferno still fresh in our memory, it’s fitting for this game’s inspiration to follow immediately afterwards and remind us how it’s done. That the first few hours are spent trekking through the Underworld is something I’d interpret as an ironic jab to Visceral’s depiction of hell had God of War III arrived just a little later.

Hell, getting locked in a small room and being told I can’t leave until I’ve slain all of the (repeatedly respawning) enemies within is a design choice I’d attribute to laziness in any other game, yet God of War III is deep and varied enough to get away with it. I’ll spare you the details on every single move in your arsenal (aside from a brief shout-out to the sick-nasty new ranged grab), but I’ll remind you that much of this series’ success stems not simply from the fluidity with which you can unleash Kratos’s rage on his sorry-sap foes, but from the very things you’re doing in the first place. One of the finishers has Kratos ripping the horn from a beast’s head and then impaling him with it, and if that’s not the sort of thing to get your blood pumping, I’d have to wonder why you got into gaming in the first place.

Amidst the vast carnage, God of War III even comes across as a rather thoughtful game. The puzzles are surprisingly clever (one involving perspective changes is devilishly inventive), and their incorporation into everything else you’re doing is rather graceful. Even more impressive are the constant attempts to mix up the various battle scenarios not simply by giving us new enemies to kill, but by rearranging the circumstances in which we fight. I recall with a smile a brief sequence in which I was trapped in a giant cube, with insta-kill spikes protruding from each side. The only way to stay alive is to repeatedly latch onto flying enemies – a technique you’re taught earlier as a means of extending jumps. Even if God of War III isn’t the wall-to-wall spectacle you’d anticipate, it’s still filled with memorable little moments like that.

But you know all of this. All signs point to God of War III being a fun, challenging and exciting action game that grips you till the very end, and while this is no small feat, that’s really all it is. The absolutely astonishing opening sequence paints a picture of a product that is not screwing around, yet only once does the game even come close to matching its promising start. (I wondered for much of the game if I would ever fight one of the titans. The answer is yes.) For all of the sweeping camera shots over each elaborately designed set piece, for all of the shrieking choirs and wailing strings in the orchestra, God of War III is simply an action game. Try not to get caught up in its rich production values and you’ll still have an awful lot of fun with it.

Rating: 8/10

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