God of War III

Well, this is it folks. The supposedly final installment in the God of War series. The end of Kratos' long long journey to revenge. Does it stack up with it's predecessors? The answer is no. Instead, it sets them on fire, skewers them in the stomach, and rips out their entrails while screaming "I AM THE GOD OF WAR". It even sneers at them a little for good measure.

Make no mistake. God of War III contains more carnage, bloodshed and sneering than the previous two COMBINED. The graphics also happen to be some of the best that have ever been showcased, making the entire experience an HD extravaganza. Even the cutscenes are rendered in game, meaning that instead of getting beautiful cutscenes and then returning to worse graphics while fighting, EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL. OH GOD IT'S SO PRETTY. The designers spent some major time on making everything about this game completely visceral, and it shows. Kratos is finally wonderfully facially expressive, and when he leaps into battle with his war cry you can tell you're playing as the most dangerous man that has ever lived.

Anyways, let's get the seemingly unimportant part of this review out of the way: the story. Seemingly unimportant because, let's face it, you play God of War for the combat. However, the story here is one of the highlights. We start of literally exactly where God of War II left off, on the back of the titan Gaia climbing Olympus to take on Zeus and any other god that gets in the way. You start with the obligatory horde of grunts attacking you as you figure out your moves, but before you can get three words through "This is looking familiar" Poseidon crashes up from the sea and manifests as a giant water horse with CLAWS that looks so freaking impressive you might lose a fair bit of health before you realize you should be attacking and not staring. Wear him down enough and suddenly Gaia moves her hand, meaning THE ENTIRE SURFACE YOU ARE ON BECOMES UPSIDE DOWN. Now you have to fight the damn thing while hanging. Hit it enough and the world shifts again so that you're on a wall. Then back to a flat surface where you finally get the quicktime sequence to kill it. But you don't just kill it. Oh no. That's previous God of Wars. This one? YOU RIP ITS JAW OFF and it slowly turns back into water and falls to the sea. The rest of the battle is one ginormous epic sequence where you deal with the fact that you are a very small person on a giant moving rock that's fighting with a giant water monster, and that none of that matters because Kratos doesn't take shit from anyone. The finale comes when Gaia punches the monster, and you, using the momentum from her fist, crash straight through it and drag the hiding Poseidon with you. Removed from the sea, Poseidon is powerless. So just chop off his head and it's done, right? Again, previous God of Wars. In this, you take the perspective of Poseidon as Kratos proceeds to bash his brains in. At one point he starts crawling for the edge to get to the sea, and an unseen Kratos behind you pulls you back and then PUNCHES HIS THUMBS INTO YOUR EYES.

And that's the first battle.

Just about every five minutes after that you'll be doing something that makes you curse with excitement, glee or anxiety, and 30 seconds after that you'll be asking yourself, "Did that really just happen?"

Of course, soon there's a big twist and you're forced to lose your magic, experience and half your health to start out as a lowly mortal once more. Oh, and you travel into the Underworld. Again. You are given a new set of blades from Athena (yes, she's dead, but not really) and slowly relearn your old moves, along with the long awaited grapple feature whereby you can hook an enemy and reel yourself into them, knocking them back. As you go throughout the game you gain more and more weapons, and in a twist each one has it's own specific magic spell. So instead of switching spells and weapons like in II, you're just switching weapons. This is not a bad thing. Each weapon has its own distinct feel and combat style, and switching between them on the fly is a breeze. For the first time, the trademark blades are not your best weapon. In fact, I didn't use them for most of the game. The other weapons are that much fun. Also, for those like myself who didn't like the combat as much in II thanks to the long and uninterruptibile combos that made it much less strategic, those combos are back, but they are severely reduced in time, meaning combat flows much more easily now and incorporates blocking as much as the original. There are also a few weapons/items (like a fire bow) that run off a separate rechargeable meter that you can throw into fights to make things interesting.

Another new feature is the inclusion of completely dark areas, which you have to illuminate using Helios' head (another of the items). You can charge it to illuminate the immediate area for a short time, or fire a short burst to illuminate specific enemies. This makes the battles in the dark tons of fun, as managing illumination and combat together makes the battles even more tense. Though, it is also fun to just wave your blades around in the dark trying to hit things, using the illumination they give off when you swing to see where your next target is.

The game seems short, but maybe that's just because I really really really wanted it to keep going. Once you beat the game there's a host of behind the scenes videos that are fun to watch, along with the traditional inclusion of alternate costumes, the Challenge of Olympus, and a Very Hard mode. In short, it's got the same amount of stuff to make it as replayable as the previous installments, but is much more replayable thanks to the amazingly epic scope involved and the fact that there's no end to the enjoyment of watching Kratos do what he's best at and doing it in stunning graphical quality.

I think it's quite safe to say that God of War III will stand as one of the greatest games ever made up to this point, and is easily the best in its genre.

God of War III gets a 10/10.