God Of War Review

God of War 3, the final installment the grand ending to an epic tale. That’s what we were told, read the countless reviews and you’ll no doubt see phrases like ‘It’s so close to 10/10’ and ‘Almost perfect’ but after playing the game to its completion then again to find more of the items, I cant help but feel underwhelmed by the whole experience.

Don’t misunderstand this review God of War 3 is a good game, but that’s it, and of course good will do but compared to the expectations of great we had for the title we were left underwhelmed.

But let’s not start beating down on Kratos and look at the strengths of God of War 3. Firstly the graphics stand as a handful of titles, which are truly the best looking games of our current generation. It is easily as good looking as Killzone 2 and more recently Uncharted 2. The most impressive aspect of the graphics are the shadows and particle effects that are on display; sparks fly off and cascade down when weapons clash. This is most noticeable when you “acquire” Helios’ Head which when used fills the screen with a beam of sunlight stunning the enemies.

Overall the textures are of a very high standard, the gorgons skin gleams with a scaly quality while the brittle textures of rock and wooden titans are suitably brittle.

The major downside of the game is that the gameplay has not moved on from its predecessors and by the ugliness of similarity it feels old before it gets going. There are new additions to the gameplay namely in the new Bow that you are equipped with early on in the game. This does add a new dynamic to the gameplay as rather than dish out the pain at close range; Kratos can instead have the option of a ranged attack. It works brilliantly well to delay the advance of enemies or pick off Harpies as the swoop in to attack.

Puzzles; a key feature of the God of War series are also impressive, requiring a pause and crucially a break from the relentless action.

The problem with the game is that the action is very much relentless, especially in the final third of the game. The initial scope and grand scale is almost obliterated by the monotony and volume of enemies that you have to destroy, just to advance the storyline. Zeus takes an age to die in fact you have to fight him in total three times and by the end you’re just screaming ‘ God when will this game end!”

It is not only the gameplay that feels tired; overall the character of Kratos is as two dimensional as games of the 16-bit era. I get that he is kick ass, I get that he hates everyone for being betrayed and consumed with the guilt of killing his family. I understand all this and while at first it was fresh to have such an anti-hero, gaming trends have come and gone. Now its’ almost impossible to find a game without an anti hero. Kratos only late on befriends Pandora and leaves the audience with not an ounce of compassion for the character when the story ends.

God of War is a good game if you previously enjoyed the game, but expect anything new or different and you’ll be sadly disappointed. Even in storyline there is very little development and when compared to Dante’s Inferno’s storyline the game feels lacking.

This leaves the reviewer with a dilemma, on almost every meaningful level of comparison with Dante’s Inferno God of War 3 wins, however as a story God of War fails to live up to expectations.

In conclusion I’m left feeling disappointed especially as I had such high hopes of the game after playing the demo in addition to being a huge fan of the original games. Maybe in that lies the answer to enjoying the third iteration of the game; in small bursts and with nostalgic glasses on. God of War 3 should be played and enjoyed but critically it is a game well deserving of the title ‘Playstation 2 game with new graphics’

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