God of War 3 Video Review

April 16th, 2010

When you talk about the God of War series, you really don’t have to justify anything to any gamer.  Both GOW and GOW II met and exceeded any expectations we had and cemented the series in the holy grounds of video game excellence.  The first two raked in huge numbers in terms of sales and took home a yacht full of awards.   Yeah, SCE Santa Monica has built themselves a reputation and a pretty rabid following with this one.

Naturally, SCE SM looked to complete their trilogy shortly after God of War II, and alas, 2010 rolled around and opportunity knocked.  It was Kratos at the door and he still had some killin’ to do.  The pressure is now fully placed on the shoulders of Stig Asmussen and his team to follow a couple of pretty tough acts in the first two, and ultimately, attempt to surpass them.   After playing and beating God of War III, the only question that is left unanswered is “Can you make another God of War? Pretty please?”



Let me start off by saying that I would pay $59.99 for the intro alone.  It almost seems like a big chunk of their production values were directed towards this epic introduction to one monstrous title. Within a few minutes, you may need a new pair of shorts.  Many of you have already met Kratos, The God of War. If you haven’t, you should know that the character of Kratos oozes as much bad-assery as any character in video game history.  No mercy, no sympathy, and no prisoners.  His story is a memorable adventure featuring loss, chaos, and vengeance.  If you have never played the God of War series (you endangered species), you’ll be drawn in by the environments, attention to detail, and sophisticated characters that have made the series a mainstay in most gamers’ collection.  If you could care less about story, you will have plenty of eye candy to feast on, thanks to the PS3's horsepower.

Let’s take it from the top, shall we? The most “in-your-face” aspect of the game is clearly the visuals.  The best part?  Everything is crafted with in-game graphics.  That means no CGI whatsoever, whether it be a cut-scene or an intense cinematic sequence.  The new motion-blur technology makes character movements, camera motions, and overall direction incredibly fluid.  The camera technology is brilliant as it follows Kratos around almost flawlessly.  Overall, there are new viewpoints and camera angles that give the game a fresh feel even though it stays aggressively true to the elements of the series.  The hardcore fan base will be most pleased.   You’ll notice, much like previous GOW, that the camera will provide hints throughout the game with slight motion.  There is a perfect balance between making each camera placement feel cinematic and giving the player the view they need to accomplish their goal.



One aspect of the visuals themselves that caught my attention was the lighting.  God of War III uses volumetric lighting, which makes anything that projects light come to life.  The light rays, or in this case god rays, are crystal clear and have 3D depth to make it look and feel organic.  This is lighting done right, and because of this the shadows look exceptional.  Let me also mention an element from the game where Kratos has to block sunrays out with his right hand (Right Stick) and advance forward (Left Stick) in order to get to the God of Sun, Helios.  This simple stroke of genius makes scenes like these come to life and highly memorable.  For this, we thank Santa Monica Studios.

This is the biggest and most detailed scale of any game to date. Scale isn't just for sight seeing though as it has been incorporated into massive puzzles, combat scenarios, and pretty memorable platforming.  The sheer size and volume of this experience is just one of the aspects that puts the game over the top. 



When it comes to the gameplay, the folks at SCE’s Santa Monica Studios made an effort to stay loyal to the games roots.  The controls will be incredibly familiar to the die-hard God of War fan base.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  Can’t think of a better philosophy to live by, especially when you consider how successful the previous two games were.

The addition of three new weapons (the Bow of Apollo, the Claws of Hades, the Nemesis Whip) and the Nemean Cestus on top of your almighty chains make for much better variations in combat.  Each of these weapons have unique attacks and can be upgraded multiple times for new moves, advanced techniques, and powerful special attacks, depending on the weapon you are wielding.  Also these weapons will give you the ability to smash special objects that can either take down specific enemies or aid towards progression.



The Combos have been tweaked to work best as they can in GOW3.  It is more challenging now and much more fun to accomplish crazy numbers.  The opponent battering ram is a new move that introduced an alternative combat method to take on groups of enemies.  You’ll also be able to grapple enemies (ground or air) in the distance and smash yourself into them further intensifying the combat.  The AI is much more realistic in that enemies can inadvertently strike and hurt each other when in the line of attack. 

The game has a dynamic physics system that brings depth to things like gravity and inertia.  For example, if an enemy knocks Kratos up in the air, you have the chance to evade or pull off moves from that blow to keep things moving.  No more static animations of you falling on the floor with no sense of control.  This also allows the combat system to feel more seamless and allows the gamer to feel the fear that Kratos embeds in his enemies.



The puzzles are extremely fun and challenging, forcing you to use your head a little bit.  Once completed, you do feel like you accomplished something.  This aspect of the game has received a major upgrade.  The scale of these things has improved dramatically, as well.  Before it was on a much smaller scale and less imaginative.  Pushing has been improved, where if you push in the right direction, the objects move faster.  Direct rotation of objects in the puzzles is a new touch and a valuable addition.  The game has minimal loading and remains barely noticeable - a completely seamless gaming experience from beginning to end. Checkpoints are immediate and exact in most cases.  There’s no need to make up for ANY lost ground.  



The Boss Battles in GOW3 put any other boss sequence in any action-adventure genre to shame.  For example, the first god you face – Poseidon - happens to be the uncontrolled God of Water who takes on both Gaia and Kratos in the epic opening battle. The visuals in this battle alone are insane and it uses Gaia the Titan as your battleground.  The end is particularly memorable as Kratos bullets himself into Poseidon and pulls his true self out.  During the actual killing of Poseidon there is some amazing camera work including Poseidon’s POV of his own death, something that made this grown man smile like a pre-pubescent boy.   



This should be no surprise to anyone, but Gore is the headliner of this game.  For all the dark souls that play this game, you are going to have a Gore-gasm.  Blood is consistent in that it stays on your body and on your weapons and goes away with time or by water/rain. The violence level is as brutal as it should be and ripping off body parts from your weakened enemies has never looked so gorgeous.

Climbing and scaling is as solid as ever. GOW defined action platforming and even today, games are modeling their platforming after the series.  GOW3 pushes platforming to a new level by introducing physics into the system. This means that you can be on a giant titan palm fighting for you life, and as the titan decides to flip his hand completely upside down, it will force Kratos to act accordingly and hang upside down.



The Underwater experience is really enjoyable and won’t take up much of your time, mission-wise. It is the same control swimming mechanics as its predecessors, only with the best visual effects of water (both on surface and underwater) we have seen.  The swimming animations are really neat and fluid, and the underwater blur effects set a terrific tone.  

Level designs are much improved.  Having to use your character is every way possible and puts you in scenarios that will have you on your toes (such as rotation of the entire level).  There are times where you will be flying through or dropping down narrow corridors and caves, maneuvering through tons of dangerous obstacles.  There are also scenarios where an ally (Pandora) or follower is with you and you will have the option to protect and follow them.  You can help them and more than likely will have to in order to move forward in the game.  This also brings in an element of co-op even though your partner is AI.  You will need to help one another in order to complete specific tasks and this process in itself isn’t tedious like other titles that try to incorporate the same logic.  The game isn’t perfect.  An example would be the situations where certain items in the environment become static, whereas they were interactive before.

Your ears will also be most pleased.  The voice acting fits the setting perfectly. The Audio design is impeccable, allowing you to hear every little thing - every snap, crackle, and pop of bone and cartilage will be like a sweet melody.  GOW3 defines grand scale music and gets as big and bold as possible with familiar rhythms that we have all grown to love.  Minoushi! KRATOS! Y Minoushi!



There is a lot of heart poured into the Extras in the game.  From awesome behind the scenes videos, alternate costumes to earn, the combat arena, and heaps of testing challenges, you can really see the work that these men and women put into this game to ensure that they rewarded their loyal fan base with a true passionate effort.  All these extras will heighten your love and appreciation for the game, while potentially maximizing the replay value.

This is Sony at it’s finest. They bring us massive titles that can only really work for the Playstation 3 console, but even they’d be hard pressed to show you a game that’s clearly more massive than God of War III.  Uncharted 2, which blew the masses away with it’s brilliant story telling, superb visuals, and impacting game play elements, came real close.  Now with God of War 3 they push the visuals to peak limits, take the action-adventure genre to places it’s never been, and ultimately the make all of you gamers feel the heroic experience, forgetting that you’re only playing a video game. This is also the best reason to get a PS3 if you don’t have one yet. GOW3 easily earns its spot as one of the best games of the year (Best in it’s genre since God of War 2) and we’d be foolish not to ask you to straight-up buy this game.

Submitted by: VoreekMAN