Title: GOD OF WAR III

Developer: SONY SANTA MONICA STUDIO

Publisher: SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT AMERICA

# of Players: 1

ESRB Rating: M for Mature

Price: $59.99

Available: NOW

The Spartan Warrior Kratos returns at last to complete his quest for vengeance of Zeus and the other Gods of Olympus is the long-awaited God Of War III for Playstation 3. Developed by Sony’s Santa Monica Studios, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment America, this is the first God of War made for the next-gen console, and it shows. Let’s get down to the basics. I’m here to answer the question: Is the Game Worth It? Let’s find out.

The graphics are way beyond anything that you seen in the previous games. Levels feature varied terrains and surfaces. Fires cast realistic reflections, metal shines amd water shimmers. Enemies come in all shapes and sizes and are varied and detailed. Weapons have all new animations and they really show off their brutality. And then, there is the most important graphical element: the blood. It gushes and flows freely and often. This is absolutely the most brutal of the God of War games, with several first person sequences involving the merciless beating of an opponent to death. Although the regular enemies all meet satisfying ends, the best deaths are reserved for the bosses. Most of the bosses are Olympian gods, but there are a few other bosses in the game. Cutscenes are detailed and gorgeous. The music is perfectly suited to enhance the game’s epic feel, with great sweeping orchestrations that serve to highlight the game’s tenser moment, particularly the battles. It sounds a bit “300ish”, but since Kratos is a Spartan, that’s ok. The voice cast is also superb, with some new additions. The familiar voices of Kratos, Zeus and Gaia return. In addition, you will hear the voices of Rip Torn and Malcolm McDowell as you progress through the game.

The control scheme and gameplay mechanics have not changed much from the previous games, movement is accomplished with the Right analog stick. Light attacks with any of the four chosen weapons are performed by pressing the square buttons. Heavy attacks by pressing ?. You jump by pressing x. Double jumping and holding x will deploy Icarus’ wings, which you still possess from the previous game. You can use these to glide a short distance. ?  is the Grapple button. The L1 button is used to block, though combing it with the ? button initiates a Combat Grapple. The L2 button governs teh use of the various items you obtain throughout your quest. Holding the L2 button and pressing either x, square or triangle will use an item. The game will tutor you in item use when appropriate. R1 is the “action” button. It is used to read, lift, swing, grapple, climb…etc. R2 is the magic button, which is used to perform themagic attacks associated with your various weapons. Switching between your weapons is done with the directional pad. Finally, to unleash Kratos’ ultimate attack, The Rage of Sparta, press tthe buttons on top of both analog sticks. This attack will continue until the power meter in the right bottom corner fo the screen runs out. Three major changes have been made to gameplay. First, items now have their own meter which refills automatically. This is extremely helpful. Second, although you will still sacrifice phoenix feathers and gorgon eyes, to gain an increase in your magic and health bars respectively, a third sacrificial item, minotaur horns, has been added to the mix. These will increase you item bar when sacrificed. The number of items you must sacrifice has also been reduced from 5 to 3. Finally, during the series’ tradmark Quick Time Events, the location of the button you must press has been moved to the corresponding edge of the screen. This frees up the middle of the screen and does not detract from the main battle area. I love thisa new feature, it becomes much easier to press the buttons, if you remember the layout of the controller’s buttons. As before, you restore depleted portions of your life and magic bars by collecting  orbs. Green orbs restore heath, blue orbs magic. Orbs are found in chests and defeated enemies sometimes drop them. Weapons and items can also be powered up using red orbs. Red orbs can be obtained from chests, enemies or breakable objects.

The story picks up literally where the last game left off. Youa re clinging to the Titan Gaia as she ascends Mount Olympus. The Gods begin their counterattack. You spend the first level climbing up the Titan until she is attacked by a huge water creature which turns out to be the mount of Poseidon, the God of the Sea. After a first encounter with teh mount, you take on the Sea God himself in a spectacular battle that sets the stage for the experience to come. This first battle features an astounding first person sequence that has to be experienced. The story will take you from the depths of the Underworld to the legendary Labyrinth to Mount Olympus itself. Olympian Gods and Goddesses you will encounter include: Poseidon, Hades, Helios, Hermes, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hera and Zeus. Other bosses include: Cerberus and Skorpius. Other famous faces include Pandora, Daedalus and Hercules. The shocking and somewhat controversial ending serves to end the Spartan’s quest for revenge. A scene after the credits, however, opens the door for future adventures. When I say the ending is shocking, I mean it! I gasped out loud during the final cutscene. The ending seems the most divuse thing about the game. You either will love it or hate it.

The game has high replay value due to it’s four different difficulty levels. Three of them: Spartan (Easy), God (Normal) and Titan (Hard) are available from the start. Beating the game on Titan unlocks Chaos (Very Hard). Also unlocked after beating the game are the Challenges of Olympus. Beat these special battles using the conditions set and you will unlock teh Combat Arena. There are also numerous extra costumes to unlock. Laos, as you travel through the game, you will uncover treasures of the Gods. You can use these treasures after you beat the game to tip the odds in your favor on a higher difficulty. There also numerous Trophies to obtain by performing specific actions in the game.

There really aren’t many problems with this game at all. Two stand out for me. One, I have never understood why none of these game have camera control. I can’t tell you how many times I fell off a ledge because I could not see exactly where I was landing on a glide. The other gripe I have is with one of the puzzles. It is a musical puzzle that requires you to play a “Guitar Hero” type game where you press the button corresponding to symbols as the pass a point on the screen. This puzzle really doesn’t seem to fit with the nature of the rest of the game and it can really slow you up if, like me, you suck at Guitar Hero. It just sort of kills the pace of the adventure and it is a mandatory puzzle that you must complete to proceed. I applaud them for coming up with such and inventive puzzle, but in this case, it really doesn’t fit.

However, since those are the best gripes I have been able to come up with, you can can probably see where the scoring is heading.

In all seriousness, the makers of God of War III set out to create a unique experience on the Playstation 3 which would pay off the story and success of the earlier games, while using the power of the new hardware to take the series to the next level, creating a gameplay experience that no-one who owns a Playstation 3 should miss out on. They have succeeded beyond all expectations and I truly hope that we will see more adventures of Kratos from this talented team. I give this game my highest possible recommendation. Play this game now!

God of War III gets a 5 out of 5.