As testosterone filled rage of Kratos started to ascend onto the gods of Olympus by the end of God of War II, only a few could imagine the anger that its inevitable sequel would possess. Now after a gestation period of nearly three years, we bore witness to the fury of blades of exile for 12 hours and Kratos’ dialogues for undying quest for revenge and came out with completely mixed feeling about one of Sony’s most prized titles for this year.
God of War 3 picks off right where the second one concludes and the opening segment without a shadow of doubt is spectacular. It’s vast, intense and with so many things crowding the screen it’s insanely satisfying to see such an explosion in the very first few minutes of the game. The combat takes place on Gia being assaulted by Poseidon who has transformed himself into a vile and nefarious sea creature. Veteran players of the series will comfortably slip into the combat mode that the game has to offer. In fact, if you have been playing repeatedly through the re-mastered games now available on the PlayStation 3, the transition is seamless. The jaw dropping sequence is followed up by one of the most brutal moments in gaming whose rival can only be found in the snuff sadistic game that Manhunt once held the crown for. Kratos rips out Poseidon in a barbarous manner and adding rage to the pool of blood is the nature in which this sequence has been depicted. The developers have shifted this segment of the quick time event from Poseidon’s view making players feel the fury that burns within Kratos.
Then comes the lull spread through the game when Kratos drops back into the realm of Hades. The entrance to his dark and depressing castle has been painted quite exquisitely, as his statue stands tall guarding the souls of the dead, one does spend a few moments marveling at the beauty that is presented by the developers. However, this begins to fade after a point in time where the design looks to fall drab and monotonous till he encounters Hades himself. This is perhaps the biggest complaint one might have with God of War III. It does not stay consistent in any form be it the slashing, platforming or the visuals. Certain sections of the game have an extremely mundane feel flowing through it and just when the player might think of getting bored with the game and switching it off, voila he is caught in a spectacular moment that pushes him back into the action. Most people have been raving about it since the developers have graced them with the presence to the most visually astounding sequences present within the game, the overall structure is unbalanced and built on a shaky foundation. A prime example of this notion is the sequence where Kratos is hunting for Hermes in an area called “Chains of Balance,” one instantly gets repulsed looking at the horribly empty environment with an extremely detailed rageholic standing in its midst.
Since we played through God of War 1 and 2 right before popping in the disc for GOW 3 we couldn’t notice any exaggerating differences between all three games. It is true that GOW III has the superior quality of textures present everywhere and certain amazing segments that look highly intricate and detailed purely because it’s running on the PS3 hardware, but they are not something that you would not have seen before. All of throughout the trilogy there are scenes when Kratos was interacting with Titan or a creature which was 20,000 times bigger than him. The difference in the experience on the PS3 was to see an artist’s vision being finally realized with the available hardware. Say if you were to port God of War 1 and 2 using God of War 3’s engine you would get the exact same game. It seems to stay within the boundary of the trilogy that the developers have tried to do more of the same and induce the WOW factor they had initially imagined with the original two games rather than work on the core problems that the two games initially suffered from.
The combat mechanics spell this out more clearly than all the other things present in the game. Kratos almost has the same set of moves in all the three games. He smashes and juggles his opponents with a similar skill set that he acquired way back in 2005, the only difference being that moves are much flashier in the sequel. The flaming shadow that the blades of Athena leave while performing a jump is exquisitely detailed with a shadow being cast on the ground but the subtlety ends there, the rest looks just the same. Even when the players acquire the weapons crafted by the gods themselves they have an eerie “I have done this before feeling to it.” Though the developers claim that they have ensured that players balance out their choice of weapons during combat, it’s not really the case unless they encounter a special kind of an enemy who requires the use of a weapon of god. For instance, the stone behemoths that charge onto Kratos with their hammers can be beaten with/without the boots of Hermes.
Even though these powers add ease and fluidity to combat it’s potentially difficult to distinguish between the different powers that Kratos acquires, since at the peak of combat rummaging through L2 and the action buttons is downright confusing. Most of the basic weapons also fall within the same category set. An example would be the Claw of Hades which cannot be quite distinguished and demarcated on too many grounds when in use with the Blades of Athena. There are interesting puzzle/platforming sections in the game which do require some thought to be put into them but again they are inconsistent, the gap between a puzzle that actually requires one to think and evaluate his surroundings and slicing an leg and arm off is far and between. The earlier two games had a much better sense of balance while portraying these sections.
There is not much character and depth to the story if this sequel did not even have a story most people would just marvel at the spectacular sights that the game sets. Forget that we have a man who has lost everything and is practically deranged and has any form of emotions in it. We could connect to Kratos in the first two at some level besides the incessant violence in his life. But here players are actually controlling a puppet who only emotes through rage and sharp volleys. Boss battles fall in the line with this inconsistency, the first boss battle will make sink into the excitement of the game. The second one falls a bit lower, the third even lower and the fourth one the lowest and then wham one of the most exciting boss battles you would witness ever and then it’s back to being more of the same. The enemy, though not varied, fits the weapons of combat through dodging is bit tricky. But most of them require some level of thought before bringing them down. This might sound absurd but some of the non-boss encounters are more challenging, satisfying and require a fair amount of thinking than butchering a god of Olympus. The visuals are also trying to find a middle ground as aforementioned throughout the game, there are segments which make you believe that this arena of fiction accurately recreates the Greek mythological tales and animates them in an unbelievable manner and then there are areas where it all falls flat with sorry looking environments and texture work. The only thing that is consistent is the soundtrack that rarely disappoints the choral of Kratos’ fury feels satisfying and gets the adrenaline jumping. His voice though booming fits in expressing lewd levels of violence that he wishes to achieve.
The Final Word: God of War 3 is a good action game but since we have seen most of the mechanics work in its previous games they feel washed out. This does imply that it’s not satisfying to see Kratos drenched in the bold of his enemies but the problem is that it is not completely consistent throughout. It brings closure to the trilogy in a spectacular fashion but when looked upon as an action/slasher game in the sea, it falls weak. We believe it suffers from the Halo 3 syndrome where if you loved Halo 1 and 2 you would love all Halos created. Kratos’ journey could have been exemplified in a much more vivid manner with fine tuned combat mechanics and a level of consistency spread throughout. Though Uncharted 2 belongs to a slightly different genre, it meshes and balances out its mechanics in a far superior manner than GOW 3.
Graphics: 9.5/10.
Sound: 10/10.
Gameplay: 7/10.
Budget Pocket: 9/10.
Overall (Not on an average): 8.5/10.