God of War 3 Review
| Classification | MA15+ |
| Publisher | Sony CEA |
| Developer | Santa Monica Studio |
| Platforms | PS3 |
| Reviewed On | PS3 |
Having not known Kratos in his previous incarnations all I can say is this guy is a dick. Obviously attempting an anti-hero in design; it's a role that I found a little grating after a while. At first I really loved the smart-arse wise cracking and the total disrespect to other characters. The script is a little too 'try-hard badass' to be taken seriously. The story isn't going to set the world on fire but I guess it sets itself up to be a big dumb Michael Bay film as opposed to a Stanley Kubrick opus. This isn't a bad thing, but after coming off games like Mass Effect 2 you'll be a little disappointed.
Relentless in his quest for revenge, Kratos' anger stems from the death of his family, albeit from what I gather it's his own stupid fault; killing them in some sort of 'roid rage' moment illustrated in flash back. So how does it play? Well, not being a guy that is into learning long complex combos, I didn't have much trouble in finding a few effective combos and learning how to execute them on enemies that are weak against this type of attack. After bumping up the difficulty you are in for a challenge if that's what you are looking for. God of War is the game that brought the gaming world the Quick Time Event. I've never been a big fan of them, however I did go into God of War hoping that the pioneers of QTE might be capable of executing them to my satisfaction. I was wrong. If I'm required to 'finish off' an enemy with a set combination of button presses, I'd like to have the capacity to learn a combination so as to perfect the execution of it, as opposed to it varying from one attempt to another, causing me to empathise with Kratos' rage (Don't get me started on the 'match the half circle' turn on the L-stick).
My honest opinion on this game sounds a little harsh; I did find it very repetitive, compounded by the constant button mashing and quick time events that, at times, can cost you your life and a long loading screen. However, I finished this game in around 7.5-8 hours and for the entire time the game rarely lets up on the action. It goes from 1-300 kilometres an hour in the first 5 minutes and will constantly keep you at that pace for the entire play time. It's like a punch in the face and a bit of a sensory overload at times, although it does slow quite abruptly when the game turns into a puzzle platformer. These moments are a nice change of pace and some are quite clever, but eventually in these moments I did find myself longing for the balls to the wall action moments in which this game excels. The puzzles are few and far between and thank the God-of-War for that.
