zippdementia's God of War III review

Both you and Zig seem to share similar views on this series, and it's very interesting to hear a take that completely differs from my own. Having now played the entire trilogy, I'd say that the plot is easily the weakest thing about the series, and that includes the first one. I judge these games as action games and nothing more, I think one of the reasons I enjoyed reading both Zig's review and yours is because you've both taken on a stance that never would have even occurred to me otherwise. And you both do a terrific job of selling your points. I don't agree with them, but well done!

My only suggestion with this review is to maybe divide that massive third paragraph into two smaller ones. Bit intimidating, you know? Otherwise, jolly good work.

I agree about that paragraph. It bugged me posting it that way. I'll have another look and see what I can do!

I've been looking at other member's writing styles this past month and seeing what works for me. There have been some great reviews in the month of May, many of them from you, and I've been learning a lot about how better to put an alternative view out there. Glad it seems to be working.

"The Kratos that gamers were introduced to back in 2005 was a strangely sympathetic character. Despite his savage methods and his disdain for human life, his quest felt like one of redemption. He suffered for his brutality, he didn’t revel in it."

*nods* Good sentences. Have to admit that with the God of War games, I've always been stuck at the entire "taking figures from mythology and making you fight them" thing. I've never liked that. But.. I've always thought the character was a good one. If you ignore the entire butchering of Greek mythology business. He's.. a bit like Achilles, except he's not vain or blessed - instead he's that self-made man that simply embraces his fate without reservation or (much) regret. But not without understanding what he's doing.

So as action heroes go, he's interesting.

And I sort of thought Asmussen was all about promoting that personality in this game - nothing like that at all?

Liked the descriptions of the fighting, by the way. I've only played the demo - but the sameness of the moves, that's something that stuck me as well. I think I understood how to make things flow better after the.. ninth time I played through it, or something like that :D But before that it really was more fun to watch someone else play than play yourself.

That's still there as well...?

Thanks for the comments, Fleinn! I think the first God of War captured the whole Greek thing better than any of the other games because its story builds off the same format as the classic songs, like the Odyssey. My favorite example of this is the "second ending" that is present in Greek epics and is also present in God of War (Kratos' death leads to a second ending in the form of the final confrontation against Ares and the return home).

The third game doesn't have nearly as cohesive a story, in my opinion. There are some cool attempts made with the character of Pandora but I was disgusted by how quickly that turned into the classic JRPG "friends are good and believing in yourself is awesome-possum."

As for watching God of War, I think it is fun to watch (my sister watched me play for, like, four hours one night and she NEVER does that). Probably because there's a lot going on at once that the player doesn't see. Like I was watching a clip of one of the battles last night and noticed that a Titan was moving around in the background... something I'd failed to notice while actually playing, so concentrated was I on watching the enemy for the proper time to dodge.

Dodging remains fun in God of War because the timing has to be just right. But it's diminished by the ultra-block button that you can just hold down with a rubber band while you go get a sandwich. That's a bit of an exageration, of course, but any GOW player knows what I'm talking about. The biggest problem is that there are two really useful combos (if memory serves me, it's sq. sq. tr. and tr. tr. tr.) that do massive damage, knock enemies back, and interrupt attacks. I tried to vary it up at times to make things "cooler" but I usually just ended up getting my ass handed to me. Enemies are sometimes impossible in God of War unless you fight cheap. Especially the fucking Satyrs. Gods of lust and drink, my ass.