God of War III is the “final” game in the God Of War trilogy, but the first for the Sony PS3. Does Kratos go out with an almighty bang? Read our God Of War III review and find out.
God Of War III sees cursed Spartan warrior Kratos finally bringing his battle with his dad, Zeus, home to Mount Olympus. Initially riding the backs of the Titans, then later working his way up through the bowels of Olympus; Kratos battles hordes of enemy soldiers, mythical creatures and the odd god as a boss along the way. It’s exactly what gamers have come to expect from the God Of War series, only now on the Sony PS3 it’s bigger, bolder and bloodily brighter than ever before.
God Of War III utilises all of the Sony PS3′s visual performance power – that’s for sure. It is probably the most visually stunning game of the current console generation, trouncing anything Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has (for now). But visuals aren’t everything; so how does the gameplay fare?
Not quite as well, sadly. God Of War III may look state-of-the-art, but at its heart it is fundamentally the same game as the first two. That means a constant welter of upgrades and new items, but underneath it all a simple light/heavy attack/jump/grapple set of face buttons that handle most of the combat-oriented gameplay (throw in blocks, evades and magic and you’re done).
True, mostly God Of War III sees you bringing the pain not just to Kratos-sized minions, but also to Titans the size of skyscrapers and everything in between. But once you get over the scale and visual awesomeness, there really is little new here.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t rush out and buy the game – there simply is nothing (not even Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or Uncharted 2) that provides such a slick, muscular and relentlessly over-the-top array of action out there. But God Of War III is still just a slicker, sharper model of what’s gone on before. Nothing really wrong with that.
Where God Of War III does put a few, minor toes wrong though is in not fixing issues of the past. The camera sometimes annoyingly lags behind you. Worse, the controls occasionally feel sluggish – you end up three button presses ahead of what Kratos is actually doing on-screen.
It’d also be nice to see a game that reacted to your abilities and adjusted itself, rather than just giving you the option to drop difficulty level for the entire game if you get stuck (and the difficulty of sections does vary wildly). But these are minor quibbles in what is otherwise a superbly visual and visceral action epic.
