The first patch came out. Patch 1.01. Apparently it fixed some online stuff. The game also now checks for DLC. Nothing's due out on that front until March 15th. Seems kinda odd though that a patch had to be added for that. I would think the game would do that out of the box.
What is with the random select mode in Marvel vs Capcom 3? I honestly can't call it very random. The game would literally seem to get stuck on certain characters. Last time I was playing versus with my wife I think we saw Morrigan every round. It was a good dozen fights in before Felicia was selected and then she started showing up almost every round. Deadpool was also a popular choice from the random button but Arthur? Nah, I don't think we even saw him and we played a good 20 rounds. I just wish that random felt a little more random.
I really feel that more of the character endings need to be like Spencer's. At the end of his playthrough Spencer actually has the nerve to ask She-Hulk on a date. AND SHE ACCEPTS! Well Spencer actually takes her to a war zone and the two of them beat up bad guys. It's funny, it's silly, and it doesn't take itself seriously. We need more of these in the game.
What we don't need is more of Chris capturing Wesker, Jean Grey losing control and Dark Phoenix taking over, or Akuma lamenting on how there are no more worthy opponents in all of existence. These are pretty cliche' for these characters. The story for this game should in no way, shape, or form, take itself that seriously. We get their normal games/comics/shows for those types of story lines. This game should completely up the camp/cheese factor. It really needs to let lose and have more fun. Sure Iron Man's Galactus Buster armor is pretty neat looking, but why not have Tony get in trouble for trying to date multiple women from the Capcom universe? That could have been far more interesting then what we got.
I think it's funny that I found Spencer's ending funny, because She-Hulk's fall flat. She's apparently a judge now and she breaks her desk with her gavel. Should have been funny, but the presentation just doesn't work.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 - REVENGE!
So von Bardas is dead and the heroes are chilling out back at Stark Tower. We're still dealing with story setup at this point. The main story hasn't gotten underway yet. Now if you've played the last game, you know that it ended with Galactus threatening to come to Earth and take revenge. I was really hoping that story would be fleshed out. Sadly it's not. The Civil War story really isn't that new. The Mutant Registration Act from the X-Men series caused a similar split. The big difference this time is that all the Heroes get broken up into loyal government dogs or traitorous rebels. It's all a matter of perspective.
So we take the next mission. There's something about Ms. Marvel having gone missing while exploring (aka captured) so a whole team is sent in to investigate. Into the sewers we go. I had Green Goblin on my team, that guy is fun to use. I also took along Ms. Marvel. I felt that she should help rescue herself. Like most of the game the sewers are straight forward. There are a few hidden items off to the sides and your normal variety of destructible items.
Speaking of destructible, what is with the sounds effects in this game? Everything seems so muted. It really seems like the placeholder effects are still in the game and someone forgot to switch them out for the real sounds. It's really distracting. If I throw a missile at someone I want it to explode like I threw a missile. Make it BIG! But for some reason this game really holds back.
In the sewers we finally find Ms. Marvel, she's being held captive by Shocker. Oh goody a pathetic Spider-Man villain. And that's pretty much describes the fight. Shocker is nothing to be impressed with even if I wasn't already overpowered. But I find myself starting to wonder who my healer is... Do I even have one? I don't remember one from my last playthrough. Hmm...
With Ms. Marvel freed we head down an elevator to a...factory? Why is there a factory below the sewers? I've always thought of the sewers as the bottom floor, unless we ever get invaded by mole people or something. But sure enough there's a factory. There's some machinery to destroy, but for me the best part of the factory are the robots in the containers. Masses of robots will just come pouring out of various containers all nicely lined up and ready to be destroyed. Think of them as free XP.
Again, the factory is pretty straight forward. There's a fight against the Grim Reaper. He does this thing where he runs around with his blade spinning in front of him. He's invincible during that time. When he's not invincible you can just crush him. Move on past the downed Reaper, run through the factory and eventually you'll reach a big and fairly tough boss battle.
Lucia Von Bardas lives! Technically, she's now a cyborg and a pretty ugly one too. She reminds me of a lizard. She's recovered pretty quickly since it's only been one year to the day since she was blown up. But she's here in New York looking for revenge. There are four cannons setup around at the corners of the arena and each cannon has a super-villain controlling it. The cannons are all targeted at New York City. Now that just won't do.
This fight can quickly get out of hand if you're not careful. When you destroy a cannon Von Bardas will take the villain controlling it and then drop them into battle. This is what I like about this fight. You have to watch what you're doing. There are normal enemies running around and if you destroy the cannons to quickly you can have up to four super-villains joining in the fun. Super-villains are fine to fight normally, but if you start throwing in multiple villains along with normal enemies and environmental dangers then things can get tough. I find it best to take out a cannon, take down the villain who was driving it and then move onto the next cannon. Do this four times for the next stage of the fight.
I actually don't understand why they setup the next stage the way then did. Von Bardas will officially join the battle. I guess she's using the super-villains life force to create a shield for herself. It doesn't really make any sense, but this is comic book logic we're talking about here. Mix that with video game logic and things can get out of hand quickly. You have to take down each of the super-villains again, but they only have a sliver of health this time. Every time you do Von Bardas loses her shield for a little while. That is your obvious sign to attack.
Like I said, I really like the first part of this battle. It's got that fun frantic atmosphere that can keep you on your toes. There's lots going on, but it never feels horribly overwhelming. The fight against Lucia herself is a bit of a let down. Sure there's still environment stuff to dodge, but it's just not as fun at this point.
Once Von Bardas is down we get to see a cutscene. Super-heroes are helping to clean up the disaster, but it's been leaked to the press that the heroes are actually responsible for the problem since this is retaliation for the covert raid into Latveria last year. Turns out that wasn't a mission sanctioned by the government. Fury is wanted for questioning but he's gone into hiding. Already the heroes are starting to fear that the government will take some kind of action against them.
And that's pretty much where we're at.
So we take the next mission. There's something about Ms. Marvel having gone missing while exploring (aka captured) so a whole team is sent in to investigate. Into the sewers we go. I had Green Goblin on my team, that guy is fun to use. I also took along Ms. Marvel. I felt that she should help rescue herself. Like most of the game the sewers are straight forward. There are a few hidden items off to the sides and your normal variety of destructible items.
Speaking of destructible, what is with the sounds effects in this game? Everything seems so muted. It really seems like the placeholder effects are still in the game and someone forgot to switch them out for the real sounds. It's really distracting. If I throw a missile at someone I want it to explode like I threw a missile. Make it BIG! But for some reason this game really holds back.
In the sewers we finally find Ms. Marvel, she's being held captive by Shocker. Oh goody a pathetic Spider-Man villain. And that's pretty much describes the fight. Shocker is nothing to be impressed with even if I wasn't already overpowered. But I find myself starting to wonder who my healer is... Do I even have one? I don't remember one from my last playthrough. Hmm...
With Ms. Marvel freed we head down an elevator to a...factory? Why is there a factory below the sewers? I've always thought of the sewers as the bottom floor, unless we ever get invaded by mole people or something. But sure enough there's a factory. There's some machinery to destroy, but for me the best part of the factory are the robots in the containers. Masses of robots will just come pouring out of various containers all nicely lined up and ready to be destroyed. Think of them as free XP.
Again, the factory is pretty straight forward. There's a fight against the Grim Reaper. He does this thing where he runs around with his blade spinning in front of him. He's invincible during that time. When he's not invincible you can just crush him. Move on past the downed Reaper, run through the factory and eventually you'll reach a big and fairly tough boss battle.
 |
| Cyborg Von Bardas |
This fight can quickly get out of hand if you're not careful. When you destroy a cannon Von Bardas will take the villain controlling it and then drop them into battle. This is what I like about this fight. You have to watch what you're doing. There are normal enemies running around and if you destroy the cannons to quickly you can have up to four super-villains joining in the fun. Super-villains are fine to fight normally, but if you start throwing in multiple villains along with normal enemies and environmental dangers then things can get tough. I find it best to take out a cannon, take down the villain who was driving it and then move onto the next cannon. Do this four times for the next stage of the fight.
I actually don't understand why they setup the next stage the way then did. Von Bardas will officially join the battle. I guess she's using the super-villains life force to create a shield for herself. It doesn't really make any sense, but this is comic book logic we're talking about here. Mix that with video game logic and things can get out of hand quickly. You have to take down each of the super-villains again, but they only have a sliver of health this time. Every time you do Von Bardas loses her shield for a little while. That is your obvious sign to attack.
Like I said, I really like the first part of this battle. It's got that fun frantic atmosphere that can keep you on your toes. There's lots going on, but it never feels horribly overwhelming. The fight against Lucia herself is a bit of a let down. Sure there's still environment stuff to dodge, but it's just not as fun at this point.
Once Von Bardas is down we get to see a cutscene. Super-heroes are helping to clean up the disaster, but it's been leaked to the press that the heroes are actually responsible for the problem since this is retaliation for the covert raid into Latveria last year. Turns out that wasn't a mission sanctioned by the government. Fury is wanted for questioning but he's gone into hiding. Already the heroes are starting to fear that the government will take some kind of action against them.
And that's pretty much where we're at.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Marvel vs Capcom 3 - Nothing Too New
I did a quick playthrough of Marvel vs Capcom 3. I didn't have a lot of time so a quick pick me up session was worth it. I beat the game with Chris Redfield. I was trying to beat it with Iron Man, but Galactus flicked him off the screen. Chris showed up and shot Galactus once with his hand gun. Galactus went down. Chris' ending is the lamest to date. He has to go off and arrest Wesker. Wesker is then shown on trial for the Raccoon City incident. The prosecution is Matt Murdock a.k.a. Daredevil. I wish Chris' ending was more interesting. Maybe he could've been hunting Dormamu thinking he was a new BioWeapon or something. But no, they just had to stick with Wesker.
With a little more time I did a run through and beat the game with Deadpool. Deadpool is a great character. He's the type that enjoys breaking the fourth wall on a regular basis. His comments to the player are great, especially if he dies. "Wrooooong Buttooooon!" Ah Deadpool. Appropriately Deadpool throws a party and chaos breaks out. After the party the police are on the hunt for Deadpool and his accomplice who is only known by the name "Player".
I saw Galactus use a new attack this time round. He used some massive energy move and every thing in the background turned red. Interesting, but I don't really know what the point was.
With a little more time I did a run through and beat the game with Deadpool. Deadpool is a great character. He's the type that enjoys breaking the fourth wall on a regular basis. His comments to the player are great, especially if he dies. "Wrooooong Buttooooon!" Ah Deadpool. Appropriately Deadpool throws a party and chaos breaks out. After the party the police are on the hunt for Deadpool and his accomplice who is only known by the name "Player".
I saw Galactus use a new attack this time round. He used some massive energy move and every thing in the background turned red. Interesting, but I don't really know what the point was.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 - Spandex on the Move
So I've gone back into my library of games and pulled out an older title. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. Released for the PS3 September of '09. I have played and beaten the game before. This will be my second playthrough.
Ultimate Alliance 2 is based off of the Marvel Comics Mega-Crossover Event called Civil War. During this time the government introduces a "Hero Registration Act". Under this act all Heroes must enlist with the government and reveal their secret identities. I've never read the Civil War series, but I understand that the game deviates from the comics pretty significantly and it's pretty obvious where it does it.
Ultimate Alliance 2 is the most dumbed-down of the series (including the X-Men Legends games). There is no real stat building. You only have 4 powers to choose from, there are personal buffs for each character, but it's all pretty simple run of the mill stuff. I think my desire to play this game came from playing Marvel vs Capcom 3 (which is a fun game).
The game offers what is basically a "New Game+" option. I get to keep all of my characters levels from my last playthrough. The game begins in Latveria, a fictional nation that is normally controlled by Dr. Doom. The events of the last game left Dr. Doom "dead" (no one really dies in comic books) and the country is now controlled by Lucia von Bardas. S.H.E.I.L.D. director Nick Fury has discovered that von Bardas is working with the villain known as the Tinkerer. Fury declares that this is terrorism so he enlists various super heroes to invade the country.
The game starts with Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man & Captain America being playable characters. Nick Fury tags along as an NPC. Gameplay actually annoys me right off of the bat. I'm looking for X to jump, square basic attack, triangle strong attack, and circle for grab. Instead X is basic attack, square is grab, triangle is jump, circle is strong attack. This bizarre setup really throws me off and I end trying to use the wrong button repeatedly. To make matters worse, I can't change the setup. BOOOOOO! New to this game are the Fusion attacks, this is where 2 characters team up to do a large attack. Fusions are fun and good for crowd control, the only problem is that there's only like 5 of them in the whole game. Different characters will pull off the same Fusion attack as an entirely different team.
Game play occurs from a 3/4 view normally, but that can be slightly adjusted by using the right analog stick. After God of War, it's nice to have the control of the camera back.
So your characters have invaded Latveria. About 2/3 of the level is trying to locate Bravo Team and Black Widow. There are some boss fights against Electro and then a team up fight against Wizard and Scorcher. I know who Electro is, but I'm not familiar with the other two. Since my characters are so overpowered I was able to crush these guys pretty easily (I would like to point out that I have no idea what difficulty I'm playing on).
The level moves forward pretty normally until a cutscene occurs. And I swear the entire population of Latveria comes charging out of the bunker. Latveria is a really small country.
See! It's really small. I have to wonder how they got such a large army. I get the robots to boost the army, but these are real people. At this part Fury splits up the team. Fury, Iron Man and Captain America will hold off the Army while Spider-Man and Wolverine need to find Bravo team. What makes this funny is immediately at the end of this scene the player is taken to the character select screen. New characters have suddenly become available (for me everyone is available). Once you leave the character select screen Fury contacts you and refers to you has Bravo team. I guess I found Bravo team, that wasn't all that hard.
Wandering through the remaining part of the level is pretty simple. There are some fun things that happen off to the side where you can see Iron Man blowing up enemies and such. The level moves down into the Tinkerers laboratory and eventually to a boss confrontation with Tinkerer himself. Tinkerer is in this giant spider tank. You have to destroy his legs and once the legs are down the tank goes down. This is a fun fight and it's probably the best fight for truly teaching you the game mechanics. You can't just rush the tank or else it will massacre you. This fight requires planning and patience.
Battle over, mission over. Lucia von Bardas gets caught in the blast of Doom Castle and everyone goes home. Well at least everyone goes to Stark Tower. Stark Tower is your main hub at this point in the game. There are various things to do here. You can replay previous missions, accept the next mission, do a trivia game, do training missions, view unlockables and talk to various NPCs.
There are some character specific conversations that can occur while talking to NPCs. You have to be in control of the correct character or else you'll miss the conversation completely. These are pretty neat and can help get answers for the trivia.
I like comics, but I don't normally get the chance to read them. As such, I don't know if I was impressed or horrified by how many of the trivia answers I was able to get right.
Ultimate Alliance 2 is based off of the Marvel Comics Mega-Crossover Event called Civil War. During this time the government introduces a "Hero Registration Act". Under this act all Heroes must enlist with the government and reveal their secret identities. I've never read the Civil War series, but I understand that the game deviates from the comics pretty significantly and it's pretty obvious where it does it.
Ultimate Alliance 2 is the most dumbed-down of the series (including the X-Men Legends games). There is no real stat building. You only have 4 powers to choose from, there are personal buffs for each character, but it's all pretty simple run of the mill stuff. I think my desire to play this game came from playing Marvel vs Capcom 3 (which is a fun game).
The game offers what is basically a "New Game+" option. I get to keep all of my characters levels from my last playthrough. The game begins in Latveria, a fictional nation that is normally controlled by Dr. Doom. The events of the last game left Dr. Doom "dead" (no one really dies in comic books) and the country is now controlled by Lucia von Bardas. S.H.E.I.L.D. director Nick Fury has discovered that von Bardas is working with the villain known as the Tinkerer. Fury declares that this is terrorism so he enlists various super heroes to invade the country.
The game starts with Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man & Captain America being playable characters. Nick Fury tags along as an NPC. Gameplay actually annoys me right off of the bat. I'm looking for X to jump, square basic attack, triangle strong attack, and circle for grab. Instead X is basic attack, square is grab, triangle is jump, circle is strong attack. This bizarre setup really throws me off and I end trying to use the wrong button repeatedly. To make matters worse, I can't change the setup. BOOOOOO! New to this game are the Fusion attacks, this is where 2 characters team up to do a large attack. Fusions are fun and good for crowd control, the only problem is that there's only like 5 of them in the whole game. Different characters will pull off the same Fusion attack as an entirely different team.
Game play occurs from a 3/4 view normally, but that can be slightly adjusted by using the right analog stick. After God of War, it's nice to have the control of the camera back.
So your characters have invaded Latveria. About 2/3 of the level is trying to locate Bravo Team and Black Widow. There are some boss fights against Electro and then a team up fight against Wizard and Scorcher. I know who Electro is, but I'm not familiar with the other two. Since my characters are so overpowered I was able to crush these guys pretty easily (I would like to point out that I have no idea what difficulty I'm playing on).
The level moves forward pretty normally until a cutscene occurs. And I swear the entire population of Latveria comes charging out of the bunker. Latveria is a really small country. See! It's really small. I have to wonder how they got such a large army. I get the robots to boost the army, but these are real people. At this part Fury splits up the team. Fury, Iron Man and Captain America will hold off the Army while Spider-Man and Wolverine need to find Bravo team. What makes this funny is immediately at the end of this scene the player is taken to the character select screen. New characters have suddenly become available (for me everyone is available). Once you leave the character select screen Fury contacts you and refers to you has Bravo team. I guess I found Bravo team, that wasn't all that hard.
Wandering through the remaining part of the level is pretty simple. There are some fun things that happen off to the side where you can see Iron Man blowing up enemies and such. The level moves down into the Tinkerers laboratory and eventually to a boss confrontation with Tinkerer himself. Tinkerer is in this giant spider tank. You have to destroy his legs and once the legs are down the tank goes down. This is a fun fight and it's probably the best fight for truly teaching you the game mechanics. You can't just rush the tank or else it will massacre you. This fight requires planning and patience.
Battle over, mission over. Lucia von Bardas gets caught in the blast of Doom Castle and everyone goes home. Well at least everyone goes to Stark Tower. Stark Tower is your main hub at this point in the game. There are various things to do here. You can replay previous missions, accept the next mission, do a trivia game, do training missions, view unlockables and talk to various NPCs.
There are some character specific conversations that can occur while talking to NPCs. You have to be in control of the correct character or else you'll miss the conversation completely. These are pretty neat and can help get answers for the trivia.
I like comics, but I don't normally get the chance to read them. As such, I don't know if I was impressed or horrified by how many of the trivia answers I was able to get right.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
God of War III - Hope, Be More Useful
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*wipes tears from his eyes*
Holy crap.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
hehehehehe....
hehehe...he..he
The game is over *snort*. Credits are rolling as I type this (hehehehe). They'll probably finish first, but boy do my sides hurt. The ending, HAHAHAHA!!! If you want to call it that.....it's just so, so, HAHAHAHAHA!!
Yeah, I'll try to take this seriously. If that's possible. This is quite literally the ending where the writers just said, "Screw it. Just kill everything." Now if you actually expected more from God of War then you were playing the wrong game. The dev team does make a grab for the artistic side right at the very end, but it does feel pretty tacked on. Oh, and there's an extra scene after the credits now, great. So here we go.
Kratos was standing on top of the Labyrinth. He needs to climb that Chain again and it's a long climb back up to the top to reach the Flame of Olympus. Once at the Flame Kratos pushes a lever that slowly raises the Labyrinth up to the Flame. There's not actually enough room for the Labyrinth to fit so parts of it break off and it breaks off parts of the environment it gets dragged through. All the while Pandora cowers in fear. It really is a great metaphor for Kratos' life. Kratos has moments of sheer brillance, but in the end he destroys everything. With the Labyrinth up at the Flame the building he's in is pretty much decimated.
Pandora's Box is now accessible so Pandora makes a dash for the Box. Kratos has a last second change of heart and tries to stop Pandora. Kratos has pretty much made saving Pandora equal saving his own child. Pandora escapes Kratos, but Zeus has already shown up and now he stops Pandora. Zeus threatens to kill Pandora but Kratos convinces him to fight instead. So it's round 1 of Kratos vs Zeus.
This fight is actually pretty cool. It takes place on a 2D plane and it's a brutal knock-em-down drag-it-out free-for-all. Well, not really. Zeus does have a pattern and it needs to be cracked if you want to beat him. I found that L1+O is actually really effective against Zeus in this fight. It tends to break most of his attacks. Most of Zeus' attacks carry him forward so it's easy to get behind him and wack him around. This is a fun fight and once again I can easily see Kratos in the new Mortal Kombat.
Once Zeus goes down (down, but not out) more destruction happens and more of the building collapses. Pandora has to run on a giant chain while it's falling into the massive pit below, it's unintentionally comical. But eventually she's able to make a dash for the Box. Kratos actually grabs her and stops her but the power of the Box is trying to suck her in. Zeus encourages Kratos to save her but he then makes the mistake of telling Kratos not to fail like he's failed his entire life, like he failed his family. That was a stupid thing to say. Kratos snaps, lets go of Pandora and attacks Zeus.
So Pandora hits the box and the box unlocks much to Zeus' horror. Kratos opens the box and it proves to be empty. An incredibly happy Zeus tells Kratos how much he's failed and then he leaves. No choice but to follow. The box may be empty but Kratos isn't done yet. He still hasn't had his revenge.
Kratos finds Zeus outside at a gazebo-like overhang. Very few words are spoken and the battle gets underway. It's time for Kratos vs Zeus round 2. But this isn't an actual fight. I can only assume that you can die, but you can't beat Zeus yet. Eventually Gaia shows up. I was pretty certain that Gaia wasn't dead yet. Gaia yells at Kratos for the condition that the Earth is in and she tries to kill Kratos and Zeus by crushing the gazebo. Kratos and Zeus both escape by diving into a hole into Gaia's body that Poseidon opened up at the beginning of the game.
I'll say right here that I'm disappointed that I don't get an actual fight against Gaia. Once inside you move pretty quickly to Gaia's Heart. I was really hoping that Kratos would fight Gaia (similar to the Cronos battle) and eventually end up inside her at her heart. Instead it's fairly straight to the heart and on to the final(ish) battle.
It's Kratos vs Zeus round 3: The Battle for Gaia's Heart. No I'm not just trying to be funny. During the fight both characters can use Gaia's heart to recharge their health so whoever controls the heart can control the battle. But only slightly. Kratos really needs to stay on top of Zeus in this fight and he needs to unleash the Rage of the Spartans whenever possible. Zeus makes clones of himself during the fight and he can make a lot of them. This can greatly complicate the fight, but the Army of Sparta is a great nullifier and can quickly reset the playing field. If the player can stay on top of Zeus that will prevent him from creating too many clones. Once Zeus goes down a QTE begins, predictably this ends with Kratos stabbing the Blade of Olympus through Zeus and into Gaia's heart. There a big explosion and it's believed that the fight is over.
Here's where things get silly and I feel my laughter is justified. You're given control of Kratos again. Kratos finds Zeus' body and he pulls the Blade out of Zeus' body. At this point Zeus' spirit rises up, knocks Kratos over causing Kratos to lose all of his items except his regular blades, drains Kratos of all of his power (at least they didn't wait until the start of the next game this time) and kills Kratos again.
Kratos ends up in a "dream-like" darkeness state. That's the best way I can think of putting it. The whole thing has a slight fish-eye look going for it to try to give it a surreal effect. Kratos is mostly black now with glowing highlights and his tattoo glows bright red, this is also an attempt to create a surreal look (beating the game reveals this to be Fear Kratos). Kratos wanders what I assume is actually the corridors of his mind. But luckily plucky young Pandora makes a reappearance after her "noble sacrifice" and encourages our "hero" to continue forward. Kratos needs to learn that he can earn his forgiveness by forgiving himself or something along those lines. Kratos has to relive his biggest failures. Those would be when he killed his wife and daughter, and when he killed Athena. But Pandora tries to help him past of all this.
Eventually Kratos finds himself in bloody water where he's hearing voices. It's intrepid young companion Pandora to the rescue again. She leads Kratos to Pandora's Box, which is still empty. But Pandora tells Kratos to use the power of Hope! It's what we use when we have nothing else (get it? you know, since Kratos lost all of his items and powers earlier?)! Go Team! So that was the dev team's one attempt at being artistic in the whole series. It makes me laugh. Kratos using the power of hope, hehehehehe.
Now if you know anything about Pandora's Box, Hope is what laid at the bottom of the Box and, according to Greek Mythology, it's the one thing that didn't escape when Pandora opened it.
Apparently Pandora's words have an effect on Kratos as he comes back to life. He frees himself from Zeus spirit. Take note that Kratos' hands now have a blue flame glow. Kratos pulls out his normal blades and you get to fight the Spirit in First-Person Mode. It's an easy fight, eventually the spirit turns back into normal Zeus and Kratos begins to pummel him, still in First-Person. This part is dumb. Technically Kratos can take out his endless frustration on Zeus corpse by just smashing the O button. Eventually the screen will be covered with blood. You won't be able to see anything except for red and you can still smash the O button repeatedly. If you stop pressing the button the screen clears and Zeus explodes. Kratos now gets to stare out over a wasteland.
It's at this point that Athena appears. She demands that Kratos give her the power that he used to kill Zeus. Kratos tells her that the box was empty. Time for a very silly reveal. Through this cutscene it is revealed that during the first game, when Kratos opened Pandora's Box he actually released everything that was inside of it. The Darkness infected the Gods and that's why Zeus became so paranoid and desperate to kill Kratos. Kratos was actually infected with Hope. It was Hope that allowed him to kill Ares. This basically means that the events of the third game were pointless! Kratos always had the power, opening the box was dumb. The whole quest to open the box was dumb. Every part of it was dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
Anyways, Athena still demands the power and Kratos tells her to screw off and that his vengeance ends here. Kratos picks up the Blade of Olympus and stabs himself with it, this spreading the power of Hope into the air and giving to whatever creature remain alive. Athena is mad, calls Kratos a disappointment and then leaves. We're shown Kratos with a massive hole through him slowly bleeding out. Roll credits.
And then the credits end. There's a short scene after the credits. It shows a trail of blood where Kratos had been lying that leads towards the ocean and then vanishes over a cliff. This of course leaves the ending ambiguous. Kratos may now find some way to survive and return for God of War IV: The Search For More Money.
I don't even know what to say now that it's over. The third game ends with the Earth as a wasteland. Kratos may or may not be dead. Hope is spread among whatever poor survivors are still hanging around. It's just such a sad state. This is all made worse by the shoe-horned story that was thrown together for this game. Yes it really is that bad which is shame since the combat is still so much fun. But let's be honest, that's why you play these games. You're not looking for something that makes sense, or blows your mind away. You want over the top action and God of War III delivers in spades. The games attempt at redeeming Kratos is just unnecessary. Kratos is a monster, a force of nature the likes the world never needed to see. They really should have just left it at that.
Now what should I play next?
*wipes tears from his eyes*
Holy crap.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
hehehehehe....
hehehe...he..he
The game is over *snort*. Credits are rolling as I type this (hehehehe). They'll probably finish first, but boy do my sides hurt. The ending, HAHAHAHA!!! If you want to call it that.....it's just so, so, HAHAHAHAHA!!
Yeah, I'll try to take this seriously. If that's possible. This is quite literally the ending where the writers just said, "Screw it. Just kill everything." Now if you actually expected more from God of War then you were playing the wrong game. The dev team does make a grab for the artistic side right at the very end, but it does feel pretty tacked on. Oh, and there's an extra scene after the credits now, great. So here we go.
Kratos was standing on top of the Labyrinth. He needs to climb that Chain again and it's a long climb back up to the top to reach the Flame of Olympus. Once at the Flame Kratos pushes a lever that slowly raises the Labyrinth up to the Flame. There's not actually enough room for the Labyrinth to fit so parts of it break off and it breaks off parts of the environment it gets dragged through. All the while Pandora cowers in fear. It really is a great metaphor for Kratos' life. Kratos has moments of sheer brillance, but in the end he destroys everything. With the Labyrinth up at the Flame the building he's in is pretty much decimated.
Pandora's Box is now accessible so Pandora makes a dash for the Box. Kratos has a last second change of heart and tries to stop Pandora. Kratos has pretty much made saving Pandora equal saving his own child. Pandora escapes Kratos, but Zeus has already shown up and now he stops Pandora. Zeus threatens to kill Pandora but Kratos convinces him to fight instead. So it's round 1 of Kratos vs Zeus.
This fight is actually pretty cool. It takes place on a 2D plane and it's a brutal knock-em-down drag-it-out free-for-all. Well, not really. Zeus does have a pattern and it needs to be cracked if you want to beat him. I found that L1+O is actually really effective against Zeus in this fight. It tends to break most of his attacks. Most of Zeus' attacks carry him forward so it's easy to get behind him and wack him around. This is a fun fight and once again I can easily see Kratos in the new Mortal Kombat.
Once Zeus goes down (down, but not out) more destruction happens and more of the building collapses. Pandora has to run on a giant chain while it's falling into the massive pit below, it's unintentionally comical. But eventually she's able to make a dash for the Box. Kratos actually grabs her and stops her but the power of the Box is trying to suck her in. Zeus encourages Kratos to save her but he then makes the mistake of telling Kratos not to fail like he's failed his entire life, like he failed his family. That was a stupid thing to say. Kratos snaps, lets go of Pandora and attacks Zeus.
So Pandora hits the box and the box unlocks much to Zeus' horror. Kratos opens the box and it proves to be empty. An incredibly happy Zeus tells Kratos how much he's failed and then he leaves. No choice but to follow. The box may be empty but Kratos isn't done yet. He still hasn't had his revenge.
Kratos finds Zeus outside at a gazebo-like overhang. Very few words are spoken and the battle gets underway. It's time for Kratos vs Zeus round 2. But this isn't an actual fight. I can only assume that you can die, but you can't beat Zeus yet. Eventually Gaia shows up. I was pretty certain that Gaia wasn't dead yet. Gaia yells at Kratos for the condition that the Earth is in and she tries to kill Kratos and Zeus by crushing the gazebo. Kratos and Zeus both escape by diving into a hole into Gaia's body that Poseidon opened up at the beginning of the game.
I'll say right here that I'm disappointed that I don't get an actual fight against Gaia. Once inside you move pretty quickly to Gaia's Heart. I was really hoping that Kratos would fight Gaia (similar to the Cronos battle) and eventually end up inside her at her heart. Instead it's fairly straight to the heart and on to the final(ish) battle.
It's Kratos vs Zeus round 3: The Battle for Gaia's Heart. No I'm not just trying to be funny. During the fight both characters can use Gaia's heart to recharge their health so whoever controls the heart can control the battle. But only slightly. Kratos really needs to stay on top of Zeus in this fight and he needs to unleash the Rage of the Spartans whenever possible. Zeus makes clones of himself during the fight and he can make a lot of them. This can greatly complicate the fight, but the Army of Sparta is a great nullifier and can quickly reset the playing field. If the player can stay on top of Zeus that will prevent him from creating too many clones. Once Zeus goes down a QTE begins, predictably this ends with Kratos stabbing the Blade of Olympus through Zeus and into Gaia's heart. There a big explosion and it's believed that the fight is over.
Here's where things get silly and I feel my laughter is justified. You're given control of Kratos again. Kratos finds Zeus' body and he pulls the Blade out of Zeus' body. At this point Zeus' spirit rises up, knocks Kratos over causing Kratos to lose all of his items except his regular blades, drains Kratos of all of his power (at least they didn't wait until the start of the next game this time) and kills Kratos again.
Kratos ends up in a "dream-like" darkeness state. That's the best way I can think of putting it. The whole thing has a slight fish-eye look going for it to try to give it a surreal effect. Kratos is mostly black now with glowing highlights and his tattoo glows bright red, this is also an attempt to create a surreal look (beating the game reveals this to be Fear Kratos). Kratos wanders what I assume is actually the corridors of his mind. But luckily plucky young Pandora makes a reappearance after her "noble sacrifice" and encourages our "hero" to continue forward. Kratos needs to learn that he can earn his forgiveness by forgiving himself or something along those lines. Kratos has to relive his biggest failures. Those would be when he killed his wife and daughter, and when he killed Athena. But Pandora tries to help him past of all this.
Eventually Kratos finds himself in bloody water where he's hearing voices. It's intrepid young companion Pandora to the rescue again. She leads Kratos to Pandora's Box, which is still empty. But Pandora tells Kratos to use the power of Hope! It's what we use when we have nothing else (get it? you know, since Kratos lost all of his items and powers earlier?)! Go Team! So that was the dev team's one attempt at being artistic in the whole series. It makes me laugh. Kratos using the power of hope, hehehehehe.
Now if you know anything about Pandora's Box, Hope is what laid at the bottom of the Box and, according to Greek Mythology, it's the one thing that didn't escape when Pandora opened it.
Apparently Pandora's words have an effect on Kratos as he comes back to life. He frees himself from Zeus spirit. Take note that Kratos' hands now have a blue flame glow. Kratos pulls out his normal blades and you get to fight the Spirit in First-Person Mode. It's an easy fight, eventually the spirit turns back into normal Zeus and Kratos begins to pummel him, still in First-Person. This part is dumb. Technically Kratos can take out his endless frustration on Zeus corpse by just smashing the O button. Eventually the screen will be covered with blood. You won't be able to see anything except for red and you can still smash the O button repeatedly. If you stop pressing the button the screen clears and Zeus explodes. Kratos now gets to stare out over a wasteland.
It's at this point that Athena appears. She demands that Kratos give her the power that he used to kill Zeus. Kratos tells her that the box was empty. Time for a very silly reveal. Through this cutscene it is revealed that during the first game, when Kratos opened Pandora's Box he actually released everything that was inside of it. The Darkness infected the Gods and that's why Zeus became so paranoid and desperate to kill Kratos. Kratos was actually infected with Hope. It was Hope that allowed him to kill Ares. This basically means that the events of the third game were pointless! Kratos always had the power, opening the box was dumb. The whole quest to open the box was dumb. Every part of it was dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
Anyways, Athena still demands the power and Kratos tells her to screw off and that his vengeance ends here. Kratos picks up the Blade of Olympus and stabs himself with it, this spreading the power of Hope into the air and giving to whatever creature remain alive. Athena is mad, calls Kratos a disappointment and then leaves. We're shown Kratos with a massive hole through him slowly bleeding out. Roll credits.
And then the credits end. There's a short scene after the credits. It shows a trail of blood where Kratos had been lying that leads towards the ocean and then vanishes over a cliff. This of course leaves the ending ambiguous. Kratos may now find some way to survive and return for God of War IV: The Search For More Money.
I don't even know what to say now that it's over. The third game ends with the Earth as a wasteland. Kratos may or may not be dead. Hope is spread among whatever poor survivors are still hanging around. It's just such a sad state. This is all made worse by the shoe-horned story that was thrown together for this game. Yes it really is that bad which is shame since the combat is still so much fun. But let's be honest, that's why you play these games. You're not looking for something that makes sense, or blows your mind away. You want over the top action and God of War III delivers in spades. The games attempt at redeeming Kratos is just unnecessary. Kratos is a monster, a force of nature the likes the world never needed to see. They really should have just left it at that.
Now what should I play next?
Monday, February 21, 2011
God of War III - The Escort Mission
Escort missions are pretty much the bane of video game existance. You're running along just fine having a grand time by yourself when suddenly you get a (generally) helpless companion who you have to protect. Normally this companion has horribly controlled AI, cannot fend for themselves, constantly dies/ gets in your way and is all around useless. When this mission finally happens I normally cannot wait for it to be over and this holds true in God of War III. The only escort mission that seems to get a lot of praise is actually an entire game called Ico. I wasn't really a big fan of Ico, but I love Shadow of the Colossus.
The actual Labyrinth should really have its name changed. A labyrinth is a giant maze filled with challenges. This Labyrinth has a couple of small puzzles that involve rotating the room and an occasional fight. Since each room is pretty straight forward you won't find yourself having to backtrack because you took a wrong turn. Plus there's no giant minotaur waiting at the end of the Labyrinth which is too bad since I was really looking forward to it. As a whole it doesn't feel very Labyrinth-like, more like cheap death-y.
The worst room in the whole Labyrinth is this room with spikes. The spikes will pop out of the floor in a predictable pattern while demons, minotaurs and sirens will spawn and give Kratos a hard time. I actually died in this room quite a few times (enough that I was offered easy mode). The room is more frustrating then challenging, but I find this true for most large enemy fights. I would end up getting stuck on the spikes while trying to dodge an enemy and it's a one hit kill. Once this room is cleared Kratos reaches the Heart of the Labyrinth, here Kratos finds Pandora.
This is what I thought of when I saw Pandora
So Pandora is this kid who's had a rough life and she's lived in this Labyrinth for a little while. Apparently she's been here long enough to know the way out. Kratos now has Pandora in tow. It's not really an escort mission since I don't think Pandora can be killed by enemies, I count that as a blessing. She also won't SHUT THE HELL UP!!! Shortly after rescuing her Kratos gets into a fight with some common enemies. The entire fight Pandora is running around yelling at Kratos to "watch out" or "be careful" or to "help her". She literally seems to yell something every 2 seconds or so. I just want her to shut up already.
Pandora also gets herself stuck in traps on a regular basis. Leaving the Labyrinth requires that two people work together. Since Pandora is so small she has to slide into narrower areas to activate switches. Every time she does she inevitably triggers a trap. This normally gives Kratos a small window of time to disarm the trap and save Pandora. The entire time Pandora is trapped she'll yell, "Eek! Save me Kratos!" "Kratos hurry!" "I'm incapable of doing anything myself Kratos" Ok, I made that last one up but hopefully you get the point. But that's what it feels like. I honestly can't wait for her eventual death. And if by some horrid twist of fate she should survive the end of the game, I'll be pissed.
Once Kratos and Pandora have escaped the Labyrinth Pandora tells Kratos that he mush break that Chain of Balance, ya know, the really big chain that Kratos flew/climbed up at the beginning of the game. Kratos jumps off the top of the Labyrinth and follows the chain. Back. Down. To. Hades. This is Kratos' 5th trip to Hades over the numbered games (so not counting the PSP titles). At least these last two times have been his own personal choice and not by someone killing him.
The flight down the Chain is not fun and it is long. Sections of gameplay like this can be rough to pull off properly. The biggest issue is the dev team has is to give enough warning so the player can reach an opening. This section doesn't really have that. Plus it's hard to tell what size hole Kratos can actually fit through. There were many times when I hit something when I thought I could fit and many times where I fit when I thought I would crash. This section also suffers from the "hit one and you hit them all" syndrome. I would literally smash into one wooden plank and then proceed to hit 5 more before I was able to gain control again. This section could have easily benefited by giving Kratos some sort of "smash" move so he could nullify a plank or board. The move would have to be limited so it couldn't be spammed. A move to slow Kratos down would also be appreciated. It would really help me get my barrings. Of course, this would also have to be limited. Just to note: if you die on the way down, you have to do the whole thing all over again.
Once at the base of the Chain Kratos has to fight a flaming Cerberus that spits exploding puppies at you. The fight gets harder once Satyrs start showing up. I had to learn to kill the Satyrs first and then focus on the Cerberus all the while dodging exploding puppies. I still had to use my Rage mode (which I'm still not a big fan of) to finish the fight. Once the boss was dead it was time to break the Chain.
Breaking the Chain requires deactivating the three Judges that control it. This is very simple. It just requires using the Gauntlets on the crystal on the back of each Judge's head. There are a few fights that appear, but they're fairly minor and easy to overcome. With the Judges down Kratos can easily break that chain. Once the Chain is broken Pandora calls for help (surprise, surprise). So Kratos rushes to her. This involves another flying sequence. Thankfully it's a short one.
Pandora's not really in trouble. It seems that Athena appeared just to keep her company or something. Athena tells Kratos to remember his purpose and that's pretty much where I saved. It's pretty obvious I'm near the end. I do look forward to finally taking Zeus down.
I'm also impressed that Daedalus was able to write Kratos a note in his own blood, especially since Daedalus is suspended in the air by his arms. His outstretched arms.
The actual Labyrinth should really have its name changed. A labyrinth is a giant maze filled with challenges. This Labyrinth has a couple of small puzzles that involve rotating the room and an occasional fight. Since each room is pretty straight forward you won't find yourself having to backtrack because you took a wrong turn. Plus there's no giant minotaur waiting at the end of the Labyrinth which is too bad since I was really looking forward to it. As a whole it doesn't feel very Labyrinth-like, more like cheap death-y.
The worst room in the whole Labyrinth is this room with spikes. The spikes will pop out of the floor in a predictable pattern while demons, minotaurs and sirens will spawn and give Kratos a hard time. I actually died in this room quite a few times (enough that I was offered easy mode). The room is more frustrating then challenging, but I find this true for most large enemy fights. I would end up getting stuck on the spikes while trying to dodge an enemy and it's a one hit kill. Once this room is cleared Kratos reaches the Heart of the Labyrinth, here Kratos finds Pandora.
This is what I thought of when I saw Pandora
 |
| Alexandra Cabot. She has a skunk on her head. |
Pandora also gets herself stuck in traps on a regular basis. Leaving the Labyrinth requires that two people work together. Since Pandora is so small she has to slide into narrower areas to activate switches. Every time she does she inevitably triggers a trap. This normally gives Kratos a small window of time to disarm the trap and save Pandora. The entire time Pandora is trapped she'll yell, "Eek! Save me Kratos!" "Kratos hurry!" "I'm incapable of doing anything myself Kratos" Ok, I made that last one up but hopefully you get the point. But that's what it feels like. I honestly can't wait for her eventual death. And if by some horrid twist of fate she should survive the end of the game, I'll be pissed.
Once Kratos and Pandora have escaped the Labyrinth Pandora tells Kratos that he mush break that Chain of Balance, ya know, the really big chain that Kratos flew/climbed up at the beginning of the game. Kratos jumps off the top of the Labyrinth and follows the chain. Back. Down. To. Hades. This is Kratos' 5th trip to Hades over the numbered games (so not counting the PSP titles). At least these last two times have been his own personal choice and not by someone killing him.
The flight down the Chain is not fun and it is long. Sections of gameplay like this can be rough to pull off properly. The biggest issue is the dev team has is to give enough warning so the player can reach an opening. This section doesn't really have that. Plus it's hard to tell what size hole Kratos can actually fit through. There were many times when I hit something when I thought I could fit and many times where I fit when I thought I would crash. This section also suffers from the "hit one and you hit them all" syndrome. I would literally smash into one wooden plank and then proceed to hit 5 more before I was able to gain control again. This section could have easily benefited by giving Kratos some sort of "smash" move so he could nullify a plank or board. The move would have to be limited so it couldn't be spammed. A move to slow Kratos down would also be appreciated. It would really help me get my barrings. Of course, this would also have to be limited. Just to note: if you die on the way down, you have to do the whole thing all over again.
Once at the base of the Chain Kratos has to fight a flaming Cerberus that spits exploding puppies at you. The fight gets harder once Satyrs start showing up. I had to learn to kill the Satyrs first and then focus on the Cerberus all the while dodging exploding puppies. I still had to use my Rage mode (which I'm still not a big fan of) to finish the fight. Once the boss was dead it was time to break the Chain.
Breaking the Chain requires deactivating the three Judges that control it. This is very simple. It just requires using the Gauntlets on the crystal on the back of each Judge's head. There are a few fights that appear, but they're fairly minor and easy to overcome. With the Judges down Kratos can easily break that chain. Once the Chain is broken Pandora calls for help (surprise, surprise). So Kratos rushes to her. This involves another flying sequence. Thankfully it's a short one.
Pandora's not really in trouble. It seems that Athena appeared just to keep her company or something. Athena tells Kratos to remember his purpose and that's pretty much where I saved. It's pretty obvious I'm near the end. I do look forward to finally taking Zeus down.
I'm also impressed that Daedalus was able to write Kratos a note in his own blood, especially since Daedalus is suspended in the air by his arms. His outstretched arms.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
God of War III - Enter Escher
Apparently the dev team decided to channel a little bit of M.C. Escher. If you don't know who I mean, M.C. Escher was an artist known for his unique take on perspective. In his work he would create structures that could not actually exist in the physical world. It's absolutely brilliant stuff. Here's a sample and for more info on the man go visit his official website.
Now to pass the Gardens Kratos has to create an Escher style walkway, nothing as fancy as the picture up above though. What I really like about this section is how it forces you to think outside of the realm of normal logic. While running through the Gardens Kratos can use a stone that allows him to see things from a different perspective. It's challenging, it's creative, and I had a good time.
I do, of course, have some complaints that I wish to address. First is the mystical gem that allows Kratos to see all of this. Kratos gets the gem off of a cup that belongs to Hera. Throughout the game, whenever Kratos killed a God or Godlike being they would normally drop an item. If Kratos picked up that item it would unlock a cheat that Kratos could use on the next playthrough. The cup is similar in that nature, it's Hera's special item. The problem that I have is that the cup is necessary to complete the Gardens so it's not actually an extra/bonus item. Personally, I just want to see some consistency, I don't get that here.
Also for Kratos to beat this area, a lot of random things have to actually happen. For instance, if Hera didn't throw away her cup at the start of the Gardens Kratos would never have been able to complete the area. It's actually crucial that Hera be in the Gardens for anyone to complete it. There's a point when Kratos has to fill these giant chalices with water. But Kratos can't access one of them because it has a bunch of vines growing on it. I don't see why Kratos can't just chop down the vines with his blades, but this is a game and it has rules.
To get past the vines actually requires Kratos to find Hera again and when he does she's still drunk and pissing and moaning about how everything is falling apart and how much Kratos sucks. Kratos actually doesn't care, at least until she insults Pandora, then Kratos snaps her neck. Hera's death causes all of the plant life to immediately shrivel and die. This is still odd since Hera was the Goddess of women and marriage. You would think that divorce rates would go up instead or something. But with Hera dead Kratos can burn the vines and fill the chalice.
That's great, but there's actually another chalice that needs to be filled, but there's no way to get water to it. It's a good thing Hera's body didn't explode or dissolve when she died, because Kratos dumps it in the final chalice thus allowing the Escher staircase to be completed and the exit discovered.
You see if Hera hadn't been there Kratos would never have gotten the cup, he never would have killed the plants, and he would've had to look harder for a body to use. Kratos beating the Gardens is all Hera's fault. If she hadn't been there she would of had her wish. Kratos would have wandered the Gardens forever and he never would have found his way out. But lets be honest, he probably would have just torn the place down brick by brick to get through.
The next part is much more straight forward. Kratos is actually back in that giant box room from earlier when he climbed the giant chain while chasing Hermes. All this area really involves is finding a giant "Skorpion" (it has a K, it's fancy) and getting an ice crystal thing from it. I was hoping this ice crystal would give Kratos an ice attack, but sadly the crystal is only used at certain points. With the crystal Kratos makes his way to Daedalus, who, much to my surprise, is still alive. I was expecting to ransack his body and use it for keys or something (this might still happen). Kratos informs Daedalus that Icarus is dead. But Icarus would have only died a couple of weeks ago so it actually wasn't unjustified of Daedalus to expect to see his son again. Daedalus is sad and Kratos doesn't care. Kratos uses the ice crystal on another key location (fun swinging parts along the way), Daedalus gets trapped between some boxes and Kratos finally enters the actual Labyrinth. And here I thought Kratos was in the Labyrinth the entire time. Turns out the Labyrinth is actually a bunch of giant boxes shoved together into a giant cube. This sounds like a set up for a bad movie. And that's where I saved.
I like the fact that I'm finding hidden chests and red orbs like mad through this section. It's like the devs said "He's close to the end and there's not enough collectibles in the game yet. Quickly, flood the Labyrinth with them." Not a complaint, just an observation.
I do, of course, have some complaints that I wish to address. First is the mystical gem that allows Kratos to see all of this. Kratos gets the gem off of a cup that belongs to Hera. Throughout the game, whenever Kratos killed a God or Godlike being they would normally drop an item. If Kratos picked up that item it would unlock a cheat that Kratos could use on the next playthrough. The cup is similar in that nature, it's Hera's special item. The problem that I have is that the cup is necessary to complete the Gardens so it's not actually an extra/bonus item. Personally, I just want to see some consistency, I don't get that here.
Also for Kratos to beat this area, a lot of random things have to actually happen. For instance, if Hera didn't throw away her cup at the start of the Gardens Kratos would never have been able to complete the area. It's actually crucial that Hera be in the Gardens for anyone to complete it. There's a point when Kratos has to fill these giant chalices with water. But Kratos can't access one of them because it has a bunch of vines growing on it. I don't see why Kratos can't just chop down the vines with his blades, but this is a game and it has rules.
To get past the vines actually requires Kratos to find Hera again and when he does she's still drunk and pissing and moaning about how everything is falling apart and how much Kratos sucks. Kratos actually doesn't care, at least until she insults Pandora, then Kratos snaps her neck. Hera's death causes all of the plant life to immediately shrivel and die. This is still odd since Hera was the Goddess of women and marriage. You would think that divorce rates would go up instead or something. But with Hera dead Kratos can burn the vines and fill the chalice.
That's great, but there's actually another chalice that needs to be filled, but there's no way to get water to it. It's a good thing Hera's body didn't explode or dissolve when she died, because Kratos dumps it in the final chalice thus allowing the Escher staircase to be completed and the exit discovered.
You see if Hera hadn't been there Kratos would never have gotten the cup, he never would have killed the plants, and he would've had to look harder for a body to use. Kratos beating the Gardens is all Hera's fault. If she hadn't been there she would of had her wish. Kratos would have wandered the Gardens forever and he never would have found his way out. But lets be honest, he probably would have just torn the place down brick by brick to get through.
The next part is much more straight forward. Kratos is actually back in that giant box room from earlier when he climbed the giant chain while chasing Hermes. All this area really involves is finding a giant "Skorpion" (it has a K, it's fancy) and getting an ice crystal thing from it. I was hoping this ice crystal would give Kratos an ice attack, but sadly the crystal is only used at certain points. With the crystal Kratos makes his way to Daedalus, who, much to my surprise, is still alive. I was expecting to ransack his body and use it for keys or something (this might still happen). Kratos informs Daedalus that Icarus is dead. But Icarus would have only died a couple of weeks ago so it actually wasn't unjustified of Daedalus to expect to see his son again. Daedalus is sad and Kratos doesn't care. Kratos uses the ice crystal on another key location (fun swinging parts along the way), Daedalus gets trapped between some boxes and Kratos finally enters the actual Labyrinth. And here I thought Kratos was in the Labyrinth the entire time. Turns out the Labyrinth is actually a bunch of giant boxes shoved together into a giant cube. This sounds like a set up for a bad movie. And that's where I saved.
I like the fact that I'm finding hidden chests and red orbs like mad through this section. It's like the devs said "He's close to the end and there's not enough collectibles in the game yet. Quickly, flood the Labyrinth with them." Not a complaint, just an observation.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Marvel vs Capcom 3 - Round 2!
Played some more Marvel vs Capcom 3 against the wife. She was feeling pretty confident since she kept beating me. We would use the random select to choose our teams and then go at it. It's pretty safe to say that she won every 2 out of 3 battles. I then revealed that I was giving her a 2 star handicap, so she told me to take off the handicap and fight. So I did. I proceeded to win every fight after that.
I'm not saying that I'm great, I'm not. I more often then not button mash my way to victory. I pretty much have no idea what anyone's special moves are or how they are actually activated (besides using the L2 button). But I do play fighting games so I am more familiar with the mechanics then she is. The scary part though is that she still put up a good fight. I didn't turn around and trounce her, I still had to earn my victories. I get the feeling that if she ever put some time into actually learning how to really use a character that she could become a force to be reckoned with. That's pretty cool.
I beat single player mode with Chun Li. I was trying for Spider-Man, but he died right before Galactus went down. Chun Li came in and finished the job so I got her ending. The endings in this game are of the "so bad they're good" category. Apparently Chun Li beat up the Kingpin and arrested him. Seems like an odd way to celebrate after beating a cosmic God. But isn't the Kingpin dead? While I enjoy comics I don't actually keep up with them. I could've sworn that Kingpin died. But so did Jean Grey (again) and she's in the roster. I guess continuity doesn't matter in this game, that's probably a wise decision.
And Asgard is one bizarre stage.
I'm not saying that I'm great, I'm not. I more often then not button mash my way to victory. I pretty much have no idea what anyone's special moves are or how they are actually activated (besides using the L2 button). But I do play fighting games so I am more familiar with the mechanics then she is. The scary part though is that she still put up a good fight. I didn't turn around and trounce her, I still had to earn my victories. I get the feeling that if she ever put some time into actually learning how to really use a character that she could become a force to be reckoned with. That's pretty cool.
I beat single player mode with Chun Li. I was trying for Spider-Man, but he died right before Galactus went down. Chun Li came in and finished the job so I got her ending. The endings in this game are of the "so bad they're good" category. Apparently Chun Li beat up the Kingpin and arrested him. Seems like an odd way to celebrate after beating a cosmic God. But isn't the Kingpin dead? While I enjoy comics I don't actually keep up with them. I could've sworn that Kingpin died. But so did Jean Grey (again) and she's in the roster. I guess continuity doesn't matter in this game, that's probably a wise decision.
And Asgard is one bizarre stage.
Friday, February 18, 2011
God of War III - Take It Over The Top
I would like you to know that the Olympians are dying of some sort of disease. I know this because an R1 prompt appears and when I press R1 it tells me that the Olympians are dying of some weird disease. I seem to be getting this prompt a lot. I blame this all on Hermes and I want to discuss that for a moment.
When Kratos killed Ares, he just died. The Gods were able to preserve his body on Olympus. When Kratos killed Athena she exploded, but nothing bad seemed to happen. Heck, she actually moved on to a higher plain of existence. When Kratos killed Poseidon the seas rose and went out of control. That makes sense, Poseidon was God of the Sea. When Kratos killed Helios the sun vanished. That also makes sense, Helios was the Sun God (or something like it). He pulled the Sun across the sky by using his flaming chariot. When Kratos killed Hermes, Hermes turned into a bunch of...flies? Isn't Hermes the messenger of the Gods and that's why he was really fast? Why did he turn into a plague? It doesn't make any sense. I just figured everyone would move slower, or that the mail would stop being delivered. At least those would be related to the guy. Can anyone help?
Now when I last played I was just outside of Aphrodite's chamber. Turns out I didn't miss the sex mini-game after all. Instead of slipping it in early on in the game the devs waited until much later. Kratos gets to bang Aphrodite herself in the most cheescake'd mini-game of them all. The vase falling off the stand in the first game made me chuckle because it was silly. The spray from the peeing statue in the second game made me roll my eyes because it was stupid. But this time two half dressed girls give commentary about how this "event" is for mature audiences only and they lament on how jealous they are of Aphrodite before they get so hot and bothered that they jump each other. Well, I never said God of War was a high-class game. The series pretty much runs on the sex and violence formula, so, yeah, let's just go with it.
After the little tryst Kratos goes back to Hades. No I'm not kidding, Aphrodite tells Kratos that he needs to talk to Hephaestus and that only he can help Kratos beat the Labyrinth. So Kratos gladly goes back to Hades to talk to this guy. Hephaestus eventually agrees to help Kratos, but it takes a bit to convince him. Personally I felt that Hephaestus switched sides too quickly. Hephaestus truly loves Pandora like a daughter and I would like to believe that no father would sacrifice their child, even for revenge. Heck it was the death of Kratos' wife and daughter that started him on this blood-fueled killing spree.
Hephaestus sends Kratos to the Pits of Tartarus. Apparently this is where the final battle between the Gods and the Titans took place. Of course that event never happened since Kratos zapped all of the Titans to the future, sheesh. The game overlooks this glaring continuity issue and moves forward. Tartarus is a very short area. The main purpose is the fight against Cronos. Cronos is mad at Kratos for opening Pandora's Box and getting him sent to Tartarus. I would figure that this place would be better then wandering the desert endlessly and being torn apart by sand. At least now Cronos should be able to take a nap or something. Cronos is a massive battle that involves a lot of QTEs. The biggest problem I had was at the beginning when I couldn't figure out how to really start the fight. Cronos' eyes were glowing, but I had no idea what that clue meant, I had never seen that effect before. Apparently you have to blind him with Helios' head.
Once that was out of the way the fight became pretty simple. Oddly the most painful looking moment for me was when Kratos ripped off Cronos' fingernail. That made me cringe. I do have to wonder if part of this area was cut though. During the first level Kratos spent some time running around inside of Gaia. During the fight against Cronos, Kratos gets eaten. I figured there would be some running around Cronos' insides then. Instead Kratos quickly slices his way out with this special stone in tow (the stone is the actual reason Kratos is here). The fight ends pretty quickly after this. The production value of this fight is off the charts though. Kratos feels like an insect fighting this massive Titan. It's very visually impressive.
With Cronos dead Kratos returns to Hephaestus. Hephaestus uses the stone to create a new weapon for Kratos and he then immediately tries to kill Kratos. This of course fails and Kratos kills him instead. It's nice to see that Hephaestus was actually trying to protect his daughter. Stupidly though the weapon that Hephaestus just made for Kratos is the cause of his undoing. Maybe the guy should have planned better...
Kratos should never meet new people, they always die. Kratos now has a new weapon, the Nemesis Whip. Sadly the Nemesis Whip is also pretty similar to the Exile Blades, Kratos' main weapon. The sword, hammer, and spear from the first two games were more original than this. Three of Kratos' weapons are blades attached to the end of chains that he can swing around and kill stuff with. The only reason I actually pull them out is to solve certain puzzles, or maybe to use their special attack. This is just such a low point on the creativity scale for this game series.
So Kratos goes back to the Labyrinth and with his new weapon he can now enter it properly. Here we get to read the mad ramblings of another architect. This time it's Daedalus the father of Icarus. Daedalus builds the Labyrinth after Zeus promises to bring his son back. Perhaps I should tell him that Icarus wasn't dead. He was very much alive until he met Kratos in God of War II. This also makes me wonder how much time passes between God of War and God of War II. Daedalus worked on this Labyrinth for over 4,500 days. That's at least 12 years! And everything in the series points to this Labyrinth not being built until after Kratos had opened Pandora's box.
Shortly thereafter Kratos encounters Hera again. She's angry because everything is dying. She does mock Kratos and tells him that he'll die from old age trying to solve this Labyrinth. I get a feeling that she's going to die very soon.
And that's where I'm at. Should be pretty strong with God of War III from here on out. I might end up playing some more Marvel vs Capcom 3 though. I do like unlocking characters for the model viewer.
When Kratos killed Ares, he just died. The Gods were able to preserve his body on Olympus. When Kratos killed Athena she exploded, but nothing bad seemed to happen. Heck, she actually moved on to a higher plain of existence. When Kratos killed Poseidon the seas rose and went out of control. That makes sense, Poseidon was God of the Sea. When Kratos killed Helios the sun vanished. That also makes sense, Helios was the Sun God (or something like it). He pulled the Sun across the sky by using his flaming chariot. When Kratos killed Hermes, Hermes turned into a bunch of...flies? Isn't Hermes the messenger of the Gods and that's why he was really fast? Why did he turn into a plague? It doesn't make any sense. I just figured everyone would move slower, or that the mail would stop being delivered. At least those would be related to the guy. Can anyone help?
Now when I last played I was just outside of Aphrodite's chamber. Turns out I didn't miss the sex mini-game after all. Instead of slipping it in early on in the game the devs waited until much later. Kratos gets to bang Aphrodite herself in the most cheescake'd mini-game of them all. The vase falling off the stand in the first game made me chuckle because it was silly. The spray from the peeing statue in the second game made me roll my eyes because it was stupid. But this time two half dressed girls give commentary about how this "event" is for mature audiences only and they lament on how jealous they are of Aphrodite before they get so hot and bothered that they jump each other. Well, I never said God of War was a high-class game. The series pretty much runs on the sex and violence formula, so, yeah, let's just go with it.
After the little tryst Kratos goes back to Hades. No I'm not kidding, Aphrodite tells Kratos that he needs to talk to Hephaestus and that only he can help Kratos beat the Labyrinth. So Kratos gladly goes back to Hades to talk to this guy. Hephaestus eventually agrees to help Kratos, but it takes a bit to convince him. Personally I felt that Hephaestus switched sides too quickly. Hephaestus truly loves Pandora like a daughter and I would like to believe that no father would sacrifice their child, even for revenge. Heck it was the death of Kratos' wife and daughter that started him on this blood-fueled killing spree.
Hephaestus sends Kratos to the Pits of Tartarus. Apparently this is where the final battle between the Gods and the Titans took place. Of course that event never happened since Kratos zapped all of the Titans to the future, sheesh. The game overlooks this glaring continuity issue and moves forward. Tartarus is a very short area. The main purpose is the fight against Cronos. Cronos is mad at Kratos for opening Pandora's Box and getting him sent to Tartarus. I would figure that this place would be better then wandering the desert endlessly and being torn apart by sand. At least now Cronos should be able to take a nap or something. Cronos is a massive battle that involves a lot of QTEs. The biggest problem I had was at the beginning when I couldn't figure out how to really start the fight. Cronos' eyes were glowing, but I had no idea what that clue meant, I had never seen that effect before. Apparently you have to blind him with Helios' head.
Once that was out of the way the fight became pretty simple. Oddly the most painful looking moment for me was when Kratos ripped off Cronos' fingernail. That made me cringe. I do have to wonder if part of this area was cut though. During the first level Kratos spent some time running around inside of Gaia. During the fight against Cronos, Kratos gets eaten. I figured there would be some running around Cronos' insides then. Instead Kratos quickly slices his way out with this special stone in tow (the stone is the actual reason Kratos is here). The fight ends pretty quickly after this. The production value of this fight is off the charts though. Kratos feels like an insect fighting this massive Titan. It's very visually impressive.
With Cronos dead Kratos returns to Hephaestus. Hephaestus uses the stone to create a new weapon for Kratos and he then immediately tries to kill Kratos. This of course fails and Kratos kills him instead. It's nice to see that Hephaestus was actually trying to protect his daughter. Stupidly though the weapon that Hephaestus just made for Kratos is the cause of his undoing. Maybe the guy should have planned better...
Kratos should never meet new people, they always die. Kratos now has a new weapon, the Nemesis Whip. Sadly the Nemesis Whip is also pretty similar to the Exile Blades, Kratos' main weapon. The sword, hammer, and spear from the first two games were more original than this. Three of Kratos' weapons are blades attached to the end of chains that he can swing around and kill stuff with. The only reason I actually pull them out is to solve certain puzzles, or maybe to use their special attack. This is just such a low point on the creativity scale for this game series.
So Kratos goes back to the Labyrinth and with his new weapon he can now enter it properly. Here we get to read the mad ramblings of another architect. This time it's Daedalus the father of Icarus. Daedalus builds the Labyrinth after Zeus promises to bring his son back. Perhaps I should tell him that Icarus wasn't dead. He was very much alive until he met Kratos in God of War II. This also makes me wonder how much time passes between God of War and God of War II. Daedalus worked on this Labyrinth for over 4,500 days. That's at least 12 years! And everything in the series points to this Labyrinth not being built until after Kratos had opened Pandora's box.
Shortly thereafter Kratos encounters Hera again. She's angry because everything is dying. She does mock Kratos and tells him that he'll die from old age trying to solve this Labyrinth. I get a feeling that she's going to die very soon.
And that's where I'm at. Should be pretty strong with God of War III from here on out. I might end up playing some more Marvel vs Capcom 3 though. I do like unlocking characters for the model viewer.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Marvel vs Capcom 3 - Whoa!
I picked up a copy of Maverl vs Capcom 3 yesterday and popped it in. First I played some vs matches against my wife. That was some great fun. The game is fast, furious, and very frantic. It was pretty easy to lose sight of characters with all of the action going on. I've never been very good at fighting games but I absolutely enjoy them. Marvel vs Capcom 3 is no different, I can put it in, beat some guys up for a while and call it a day.
I can't help but criticize some of the character choices (X-23 has really grown on though) and some of the noticeable missing characters. I know that the game was built from the ground up using 3D character models instead of sprites so there's not going to be 50+ characters, but where is Mega Man and Venom? Heck I'd take about any Mega Man at this point. Zero is a pretty sweet character who I've always liked but he just doesn't fill that gaping Blue Bomber hole.
After my wife finally called it quits (I was dominating until she found Dante and his overly awesome moveset) I played some single player arcade. My main goal was to unlock character endings and models for various characters. Things went well has I unlocked Dante, Ryu, Felicia, Zero, and Tron Bonne? I was actually going for X-23 in that round, but Tron was the only surviving member of my team so apparently I got to see her ending. I felt a little confused by this, I thought the first character you chose would be your "main" while the other two just tagged along. Turns out that's not the case, I need to figure out exactly how this works.
And what is up with the final battle? Why do some games insist that the last battle completely break the flow of the game? Yes Galactus is a menacing figure in the Marvel universe. But I can't fight him the way I fight every other character. He's just this large pink/purple thing that stands partially off the right side of the screen. Every attack he hits you with takes away 1/3 of your life bar. Worse, I kept thinking he was a God of War boss so I kept trying to use the God of War controls to beat him. But if I press L1 to block I actually end up swapping characters and normally taking mass amounts of damage. Why can't I just fight a smaller Galactus who has 3 health bars or something? DON'T CHANGE THE FLOW OF THE GAME DURING THE LAST FIGHT!!!! THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!!!
The unlockables are ok. I like the character model viewer, I just wish I could make the models do attack moves instead of just standing there. Flipping through their color schemes is fun, I really like Zero's homages to Mega Man and Axel from the Mega Man X series. I wonder how the DLC costumes will fit into the viewer?
No one's ending has really been that great so watching them again is kinda blah-zay. I do hope the endings are some sort of sneak peek for future DLC characters. Getting Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, Mega Man Volnutt would be pretty sweet. Getting Dazz
The art is pretty much stuff that you've scene, same with the opening movies, still love the Captain America one with the helicopter.
I got the Special Edition and I have to say I'm underwhelmed. For $10 extra bucks you get a comic/artbook, 2 free DLC characters and access to Marvel Digital Comics. The comic is only 12 pages so it doesn't have time to properly set up anything. After the comic, is an art book. If you've followed the game at all then you've already seen all the pictures that are offered. I was hoping for a bigger book with some more character art. Then there is a small fanart section. There are some very talented people out there. On the back of the book is my code for my free Jill and Shuma-Gorath, but they aren't available for another month. Lame. And I get a free month of Marvel digital comics.
I guess I'll have to wait for my DLC characters, but I really, really wanted a better art book. I was looking forward to concept art and development art. But the book is so small that it's a pretty big let down. At least the main game is fun. I look forward to future character announcements (Ghost Rider please!). But I won't be buying any costumes until there's a cheaper combo pack available.
Edit: Just snuck in a game at work, sweet!
I can't help but criticize some of the character choices (X-23 has really grown on though) and some of the noticeable missing characters. I know that the game was built from the ground up using 3D character models instead of sprites so there's not going to be 50+ characters, but where is Mega Man and Venom? Heck I'd take about any Mega Man at this point. Zero is a pretty sweet character who I've always liked but he just doesn't fill that gaping Blue Bomber hole.
After my wife finally called it quits (I was dominating until she found Dante and his overly awesome moveset) I played some single player arcade. My main goal was to unlock character endings and models for various characters. Things went well has I unlocked Dante, Ryu, Felicia, Zero, and Tron Bonne? I was actually going for X-23 in that round, but Tron was the only surviving member of my team so apparently I got to see her ending. I felt a little confused by this, I thought the first character you chose would be your "main" while the other two just tagged along. Turns out that's not the case, I need to figure out exactly how this works.
And what is up with the final battle? Why do some games insist that the last battle completely break the flow of the game? Yes Galactus is a menacing figure in the Marvel universe. But I can't fight him the way I fight every other character. He's just this large pink/purple thing that stands partially off the right side of the screen. Every attack he hits you with takes away 1/3 of your life bar. Worse, I kept thinking he was a God of War boss so I kept trying to use the God of War controls to beat him. But if I press L1 to block I actually end up swapping characters and normally taking mass amounts of damage. Why can't I just fight a smaller Galactus who has 3 health bars or something? DON'T CHANGE THE FLOW OF THE GAME DURING THE LAST FIGHT!!!! THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!!!
The unlockables are ok. I like the character model viewer, I just wish I could make the models do attack moves instead of just standing there. Flipping through their color schemes is fun, I really like Zero's homages to Mega Man and Axel from the Mega Man X series. I wonder how the DLC costumes will fit into the viewer?
No one's ending has really been that great so watching them again is kinda blah-zay. I do hope the endings are some sort of sneak peek for future DLC characters. Getting Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, Mega Man Volnutt would be pretty sweet. Getting Dazz
The art is pretty much stuff that you've scene, same with the opening movies, still love the Captain America one with the helicopter.
I got the Special Edition and I have to say I'm underwhelmed. For $10 extra bucks you get a comic/artbook, 2 free DLC characters and access to Marvel Digital Comics. The comic is only 12 pages so it doesn't have time to properly set up anything. After the comic, is an art book. If you've followed the game at all then you've already seen all the pictures that are offered. I was hoping for a bigger book with some more character art. Then there is a small fanart section. There are some very talented people out there. On the back of the book is my code for my free Jill and Shuma-Gorath, but they aren't available for another month. Lame. And I get a free month of Marvel digital comics.
I guess I'll have to wait for my DLC characters, but I really, really wanted a better art book. I was looking forward to concept art and development art. But the book is so small that it's a pretty big let down. At least the main game is fun. I look forward to future character announcements (Ghost Rider please!). But I won't be buying any costumes until there's a cheaper combo pack available.
Edit: Just snuck in a game at work, sweet!
Monday, February 14, 2011
God of War III - First Time For Everything
I never really mention how I'm doing on collectibles. I don't normally think they're worth talking about but I suddenly feel inclined. You see, for the first time ever in all of the God of War games, my magic bar was bigger than my health bar. It completely creeped me out. My health bar is always the bigger bar, then the magic bar might catch up later. But God of War III bucked that trend. It was short lived though, since the very next collectible I got was a third Gorgon's eye so the two bars were equal again, but the damage was already done. I am genuinely bothered by this.
So standing in the Flame room on the bottom floor is where we last left Kratos. It's up a spiral staircase, do some other things and we reach another cutscene. Here we are introduced to Hera, the wife of Zeus. It suddenly makes sense why Zeus is always cheating, she is not easy to look at. The fact that she's a lush doesn't help either. And the two are brother and sister! Kratos and Hera actually seemed to be getting along, Hera seems to like the idea of Kratos killing her husband. If I remember my mythology, Hera was very tired of Zeus' constant cheating. That's probably what aged her so quickly and pushed her to the drink. I know I don't want to be married to a cheater.
Hera calls in Hercules to fight. Now I've seen quite a few versions of Hercules over my life time (Disney's, Kevin Sorbo, Hercules Unchained) and this has to be one of the ugliest renditions of Hercules I have ever seen. Hercules actually bothers calling Kratos "brother". Sadly, all Hercules can do is whine that Zeus loved Kratos more, blah, blah, blah. Can someone send in Kevin Sorbo please? This Hercules is whining to much it's starting to annoy me. It seems Hercules is intent on killing Kratos and taking over as God of War. Battle start.
HOLY CRAP! I just looked up Kevin Sorbo on imdb, and Kevin Sorbo VOICED Hercules in this game. WTF?! So I guess they need to send in the Disney Hercules instead.....*sigh*
Fighting Hercules is fun. First he'll sends all of these undead guys at Kratos and then he'll try for a cheap shot here and there while Kratos is distracted, all the while bragging about how great he is. The fight progresses in natural stages. Hit Hercules enough times and he'll charge Kratos, once Kratos over powers him, Kratos will slam Hercules into a wall of spikes and rip off some armor. Eventually Kratos steals Hercules' weapon, his Nemean Gauntlets and this what Kratos will use to finish the fight. Once Kratos has the Gauntlets the battle almost becomes a long interactive cinematic. Sure, you still need to hit Hercules, but it's really easy to survive his attacks. Eventually Hercules lifts up the entire center of the arena, which Kratos climbs and uses the Gauntlets to knock the arena back down and on top of Hercules. Kratos then pounds Hercules' face into hamburger, fight over. Oh right, the two fall a couple of stories into some water.
I really like the gauntlets. They're more unique then the Claws of Hades and they actually feel useful. Almost immediately Kratos has to use them to break the shields of some enemies. This is how multiple weapons should be treated. You don't have to use them, but they clearly make certain situations easier. This actually encourages weapon swapping. The Gauntlets special is a "ground pound" attack (the Nemean Roar), so far it might just be that crowd-clearer I was looking for.
I played a little further and found some topless girl locked in a cage. This is a pseudo escort mission. I never actually saw any enemies attack this girl (except during a cutscene). Kratos has to escort her past some dogs and some living statues (Gauntlets prove their worth right here) until Kratos gets her back to this wheel that controls some gates. Kratos opens the gates and then attaches the girl to the wheel so he can get through. What a great use for a topless girl, this also makes me realize that I probably missed the sex mini-game since that normally happens in the first level.
Kratos then gets to talk to the little blue flame girl who is finally confirmed as Pandora (like there was any doubt). Apparently she is in some kind of labyrinth (dance magic!) and she needs Kratos to save her. Pandora is snatched away and Zeus tells Kratos to stop what he's doing. I of course didn't stop. I made my way across some platform into what I assume is the start of the labyrinth and then I saved.
There better be a minotaur at the end of this labyrinth or I'm going to be very disappointed. Or else it could be the castle of the goblin king! "You have no power over me!" Kratos should so say that line when he kills the (hopefully) minotaur.
So standing in the Flame room on the bottom floor is where we last left Kratos. It's up a spiral staircase, do some other things and we reach another cutscene. Here we are introduced to Hera, the wife of Zeus. It suddenly makes sense why Zeus is always cheating, she is not easy to look at. The fact that she's a lush doesn't help either. And the two are brother and sister! Kratos and Hera actually seemed to be getting along, Hera seems to like the idea of Kratos killing her husband. If I remember my mythology, Hera was very tired of Zeus' constant cheating. That's probably what aged her so quickly and pushed her to the drink. I know I don't want to be married to a cheater.
Hera calls in Hercules to fight. Now I've seen quite a few versions of Hercules over my life time (Disney's, Kevin Sorbo, Hercules Unchained) and this has to be one of the ugliest renditions of Hercules I have ever seen. Hercules actually bothers calling Kratos "brother". Sadly, all Hercules can do is whine that Zeus loved Kratos more, blah, blah, blah. Can someone send in Kevin Sorbo please? This Hercules is whining to much it's starting to annoy me. It seems Hercules is intent on killing Kratos and taking over as God of War. Battle start.
HOLY CRAP! I just looked up Kevin Sorbo on imdb, and Kevin Sorbo VOICED Hercules in this game. WTF?! So I guess they need to send in the Disney Hercules instead.....*sigh*
Fighting Hercules is fun. First he'll sends all of these undead guys at Kratos and then he'll try for a cheap shot here and there while Kratos is distracted, all the while bragging about how great he is. The fight progresses in natural stages. Hit Hercules enough times and he'll charge Kratos, once Kratos over powers him, Kratos will slam Hercules into a wall of spikes and rip off some armor. Eventually Kratos steals Hercules' weapon, his Nemean Gauntlets and this what Kratos will use to finish the fight. Once Kratos has the Gauntlets the battle almost becomes a long interactive cinematic. Sure, you still need to hit Hercules, but it's really easy to survive his attacks. Eventually Hercules lifts up the entire center of the arena, which Kratos climbs and uses the Gauntlets to knock the arena back down and on top of Hercules. Kratos then pounds Hercules' face into hamburger, fight over. Oh right, the two fall a couple of stories into some water.
I really like the gauntlets. They're more unique then the Claws of Hades and they actually feel useful. Almost immediately Kratos has to use them to break the shields of some enemies. This is how multiple weapons should be treated. You don't have to use them, but they clearly make certain situations easier. This actually encourages weapon swapping. The Gauntlets special is a "ground pound" attack (the Nemean Roar), so far it might just be that crowd-clearer I was looking for.
I played a little further and found some topless girl locked in a cage. This is a pseudo escort mission. I never actually saw any enemies attack this girl (except during a cutscene). Kratos has to escort her past some dogs and some living statues (Gauntlets prove their worth right here) until Kratos gets her back to this wheel that controls some gates. Kratos opens the gates and then attaches the girl to the wheel so he can get through. What a great use for a topless girl, this also makes me realize that I probably missed the sex mini-game since that normally happens in the first level.
Kratos then gets to talk to the little blue flame girl who is finally confirmed as Pandora (like there was any doubt). Apparently she is in some kind of labyrinth (dance magic!) and she needs Kratos to save her. Pandora is snatched away and Zeus tells Kratos to stop what he's doing. I of course didn't stop. I made my way across some platform into what I assume is the start of the labyrinth and then I saved.
There better be a minotaur at the end of this labyrinth or I'm going to be very disappointed. Or else it could be the castle of the goblin king! "You have no power over me!" Kratos should so say that line when he kills the (hopefully) minotaur.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
God of War III - Warrior of Rock
So I'm back to God of War III: The Manly Adventures of Kratos. When we last left our angry Spartan he had just found the Flame of Olympus. Inside the Flame is Pandora's Box and Kratos needs the original Pandora to open it so he can kill Zeus.
Kratos is standing in the Flame room and there's a tutorial practically screaming at me to use Helios' head. This has become a common problem in games. I don't need an endless stream of tutorials telling me how to solve a puzzle. Just drop a hint and leave me alone. If I can double check the hint, fine, but don't blatantly tell me what to do. What's that point then of even having the puzzle? Tutorials are nice when I get a new item or power, or if I have to use a power in a unique way for the first time. But don't tell give me a tutorial for an item's basic use after I've already used it numerous times. The head of Helios can reveal hidden objects, just look for the God Dust or whatever it's called, it's pretty easy to spot. If you don't know that about the Head by now then you deserve to be stuck!
So I use the Head to reveal three paintings and they actually seem to give clues to a puzzle. At this point Hermes shows up and the showdown begins. The real fight against Hermes is this really awesome chase scene. Kratos chases Hermes all along Olympus (I assume Kratos is still in Olympus) while the city is slowly falling apart. This means while Kratos is running along a bridge it just might collapse from under him. It really is a fun, well thought out chase. It's hampered by a few moments where I wish I could control the camera, but I actually wish for camera control on a regular basis. The entire time Hermes is taunting Kratos about how slow he is, and that he's a mortal. This makes crushing Hermes all the more satisfying. The chase comes to a head while Hermes is standing on a statue, Kratos launches a boulder at it via catapult catching Hermes off guard. The statue goes down and Hermes is badly wounded.
At this point you actually fight Hermes. Hermes is to weak to run away, but he does try some hit and run maneuvers on Kratos. To call this a fight is almost insulting. Hermes is pathetically weak and he staggers easily, dropping health orbs. I did love that when Hermes is down he still takes time to insult Kratos. Hermes actually tries to make Kratos feel bad about everything he's ever done in his life. Kratos just cuts off Hermes' legs and takes his boots (shin guards?) for himself. This is such a grand Kratos moment you just have to appreciate it.
So Kratos now has "super speed". Really you just point Kratos at a part of a wall that has glowing footprints on it and press L2+X and Kratos will run across/up/over that section of wall. While I initially praised the use of buttons in this game I'm finding my lack of magic attacks frustrating. Where's my Poseidon's Rage or Cronos' Rage that I can spam on enemies for massive hits? All of my magic attacks have seemed pretty pathetic so far. Yes I can use the Head to "attack" and the Boots also have dash attack, but I find the attacks pretty pathetic so I don't even bother with them unless forced, same goes for the bow.
With the boots I make my way to the upper-floor of the Flame room and eventually find a musical based rhythm puzzle. It involves the Muses so music makes sense. It's just funny to see Kratos play a giant harp/piano thing in time to button presses. It really made me think of Rock Band and that just made me laugh more. The puzzle wasn't that hard, but the chuckle made it all worth while, you even had to play chords by pressing two buttons at the same time.
I then took a generic elevator ride where enemies spawn on the way down. The only reason I mention the ride is because I actually had a brutal kill fail here. You have dead guys with shields spawn and eventually a Gorgon would spawn (the Gorgons are all fat in this game). Now I'm used to God of War games forcing enemies into certain camera views so Kratos could brutally kill them. This didn't happen when I was trying to kill a Gorgon. The stupid Gorgon ended halfway up the wall before the game freaked out and just stopped the kill. I actually had no idea that could happen. Maybe I should try to reproduce it and right a bug report for the guys at Santa Monica studios, not that they'll fix it at this point. But it could be fun.
Currently sitting back in the lower-floor of the Flame room, preparing to go up a spiral staircase. We'll see what happens.
Kratos is standing in the Flame room and there's a tutorial practically screaming at me to use Helios' head. This has become a common problem in games. I don't need an endless stream of tutorials telling me how to solve a puzzle. Just drop a hint and leave me alone. If I can double check the hint, fine, but don't blatantly tell me what to do. What's that point then of even having the puzzle? Tutorials are nice when I get a new item or power, or if I have to use a power in a unique way for the first time. But don't tell give me a tutorial for an item's basic use after I've already used it numerous times. The head of Helios can reveal hidden objects, just look for the God Dust or whatever it's called, it's pretty easy to spot. If you don't know that about the Head by now then you deserve to be stuck!
So I use the Head to reveal three paintings and they actually seem to give clues to a puzzle. At this point Hermes shows up and the showdown begins. The real fight against Hermes is this really awesome chase scene. Kratos chases Hermes all along Olympus (I assume Kratos is still in Olympus) while the city is slowly falling apart. This means while Kratos is running along a bridge it just might collapse from under him. It really is a fun, well thought out chase. It's hampered by a few moments where I wish I could control the camera, but I actually wish for camera control on a regular basis. The entire time Hermes is taunting Kratos about how slow he is, and that he's a mortal. This makes crushing Hermes all the more satisfying. The chase comes to a head while Hermes is standing on a statue, Kratos launches a boulder at it via catapult catching Hermes off guard. The statue goes down and Hermes is badly wounded.
At this point you actually fight Hermes. Hermes is to weak to run away, but he does try some hit and run maneuvers on Kratos. To call this a fight is almost insulting. Hermes is pathetically weak and he staggers easily, dropping health orbs. I did love that when Hermes is down he still takes time to insult Kratos. Hermes actually tries to make Kratos feel bad about everything he's ever done in his life. Kratos just cuts off Hermes' legs and takes his boots (shin guards?) for himself. This is such a grand Kratos moment you just have to appreciate it.
So Kratos now has "super speed". Really you just point Kratos at a part of a wall that has glowing footprints on it and press L2+X and Kratos will run across/up/over that section of wall. While I initially praised the use of buttons in this game I'm finding my lack of magic attacks frustrating. Where's my Poseidon's Rage or Cronos' Rage that I can spam on enemies for massive hits? All of my magic attacks have seemed pretty pathetic so far. Yes I can use the Head to "attack" and the Boots also have dash attack, but I find the attacks pretty pathetic so I don't even bother with them unless forced, same goes for the bow.
With the boots I make my way to the upper-floor of the Flame room and eventually find a musical based rhythm puzzle. It involves the Muses so music makes sense. It's just funny to see Kratos play a giant harp/piano thing in time to button presses. It really made me think of Rock Band and that just made me laugh more. The puzzle wasn't that hard, but the chuckle made it all worth while, you even had to play chords by pressing two buttons at the same time.
I then took a generic elevator ride where enemies spawn on the way down. The only reason I mention the ride is because I actually had a brutal kill fail here. You have dead guys with shields spawn and eventually a Gorgon would spawn (the Gorgons are all fat in this game). Now I'm used to God of War games forcing enemies into certain camera views so Kratos could brutally kill them. This didn't happen when I was trying to kill a Gorgon. The stupid Gorgon ended halfway up the wall before the game freaked out and just stopped the kill. I actually had no idea that could happen. Maybe I should try to reproduce it and right a bug report for the guys at Santa Monica studios, not that they'll fix it at this point. But it could be fun.
Currently sitting back in the lower-floor of the Flame room, preparing to go up a spiral staircase. We'll see what happens.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
PSN - The Last Guy and Faery
So I've been downloading demos from the Playstation Network (PSN). I'm actually involved in testing some rewards program that Playstation has and I want to at least reach the Select level before the beta comes to an end in April. I thought the first tier would be easy to reach, but this has proven untrue. The rewards programs has quests that you can complete for bonus points so I've been doing the "Download Five Demos and Play Them" quest (which you can do three times). Recently I downloaded two games "The Last Guy" and "Faery: something about Avalon". Let's start with The Last Guy.
This is obviously a quirky Japanese title that was quickly ported and brought over to the U.S. It shows in the games execution. The game is about "zombies". Apparently "zombies" have taken over the planet and only one person (you) can lead the survivors to safety. Why the survivors can't lead themselves to safety is beyond me. I also can't figure out why only one guy can run around and find all of these people. Why can't a crack commando team be sent in? The game is pretty enough, it seems to make use of a real world map and slaps some graphics over it. Your guy wanders around finding people inside building or just standing in the road and leads them to a safe spot. If a "zombie" spots you it will chase you and hopefully eat some of the people that are following you. It's all simple gameplay, but it's hard to follow. Your guy is small and it's easy to lose sight of him. The people you rescue are smaller. But the "zombies" are at least a decent size so they can be seen. And I call them "zombies" because I don't consider a giant Malboro-esque plant that looks like it was ripped out of a Final Fantasy game to be a "zombie".
Thankfully the demo only had one level which was easy to beat. There's then a trailer that played, but neither the trailer or the demo influenced me to buy the game. And while I don't consider this blog to be about game reviews I will tell you to stay away from this one. I think the game should have about tricking people into thinking you would lead them safety and in the end you actually lead the people to the "zombies". That sounds like more fun.
I then tried out the game Faery: Legend of Avalon or Rescue of Avalon or the Ravages of Avalon, I tend to forget. The generic title though should give you a heads up that this will be a generic game. A generic RPG of all things too. There's a wasted character creator where you can select your characters attributes for their face. This is always dangerous, especially since I created a female fairy who looked like her face had been punched in but she had the horrible birth defect of giant mouse ears. So I called her Mouse, she was an odd blue/purple color with sea-foam green hair.
Once in game things got worse. First I was confronted by two smaller fairies who had nicer wings then my character. That actually annoyed me. Then I actually got lost on my way to my first objective. What a great way to start off. I like how while my character is in conversation her head kinda jerks around randomly like she's having a micro seizure. And now I have to talk about the flying. Fairies don't walk, they fly. But the character model has almost zero animation when the character flies. It's like a statue is just zooming through the air, it is horrifying to look at. Take some time to animate the character!
So I finally meet Oberon. Oberon is ugly, I have to say that I prefer the look of Oberon from the old Gargoyles cartoon. That will always be my Oberon. Here we're introduced the moral choice system. Or maybe it's just the bad conversation system. Apparently if I say mean things people will love you a little less. So I said mean things to Oberon at every turn. While Oberon no longer loves me as much as he used too, he still sends me on some quest to fix some magic portals. But first I need to find some companions.
I found...... you know what? I didn't care who I found. All I know is that he was being attacked by goblins and he was going to introduce me to combat. I think I'll point out that his character model looks like I could've made it in the character create menu. Not a lot of thought seems to have gone in to your companions then. So I help this guy with the goblins. The combat is basic, basic RPG menu based gameplay. You select attack from a menu and your character attacks. Not exactly original. Once combat was over my patience with this game ran out. I just couldn't bring myself to continue. So I turned off the game, went to the Playstation Store and downloaded demos for Hoard and Tetris. Expect to hear about them at some point in the future. I'll also get back to God of War III.
Should I be concerned that when I was taking items from a chest in Faery it asked me to "Validate" instead of just saying "OK"?
This is obviously a quirky Japanese title that was quickly ported and brought over to the U.S. It shows in the games execution. The game is about "zombies". Apparently "zombies" have taken over the planet and only one person (you) can lead the survivors to safety. Why the survivors can't lead themselves to safety is beyond me. I also can't figure out why only one guy can run around and find all of these people. Why can't a crack commando team be sent in? The game is pretty enough, it seems to make use of a real world map and slaps some graphics over it. Your guy wanders around finding people inside building or just standing in the road and leads them to a safe spot. If a "zombie" spots you it will chase you and hopefully eat some of the people that are following you. It's all simple gameplay, but it's hard to follow. Your guy is small and it's easy to lose sight of him. The people you rescue are smaller. But the "zombies" are at least a decent size so they can be seen. And I call them "zombies" because I don't consider a giant Malboro-esque plant that looks like it was ripped out of a Final Fantasy game to be a "zombie".
Thankfully the demo only had one level which was easy to beat. There's then a trailer that played, but neither the trailer or the demo influenced me to buy the game. And while I don't consider this blog to be about game reviews I will tell you to stay away from this one. I think the game should have about tricking people into thinking you would lead them safety and in the end you actually lead the people to the "zombies". That sounds like more fun.
I then tried out the game Faery: Legend of Avalon or Rescue of Avalon or the Ravages of Avalon, I tend to forget. The generic title though should give you a heads up that this will be a generic game. A generic RPG of all things too. There's a wasted character creator where you can select your characters attributes for their face. This is always dangerous, especially since I created a female fairy who looked like her face had been punched in but she had the horrible birth defect of giant mouse ears. So I called her Mouse, she was an odd blue/purple color with sea-foam green hair.
Once in game things got worse. First I was confronted by two smaller fairies who had nicer wings then my character. That actually annoyed me. Then I actually got lost on my way to my first objective. What a great way to start off. I like how while my character is in conversation her head kinda jerks around randomly like she's having a micro seizure. And now I have to talk about the flying. Fairies don't walk, they fly. But the character model has almost zero animation when the character flies. It's like a statue is just zooming through the air, it is horrifying to look at. Take some time to animate the character!
So I finally meet Oberon. Oberon is ugly, I have to say that I prefer the look of Oberon from the old Gargoyles cartoon. That will always be my Oberon. Here we're introduced the moral choice system. Or maybe it's just the bad conversation system. Apparently if I say mean things people will love you a little less. So I said mean things to Oberon at every turn. While Oberon no longer loves me as much as he used too, he still sends me on some quest to fix some magic portals. But first I need to find some companions.
I found...... you know what? I didn't care who I found. All I know is that he was being attacked by goblins and he was going to introduce me to combat. I think I'll point out that his character model looks like I could've made it in the character create menu. Not a lot of thought seems to have gone in to your companions then. So I help this guy with the goblins. The combat is basic, basic RPG menu based gameplay. You select attack from a menu and your character attacks. Not exactly original. Once combat was over my patience with this game ran out. I just couldn't bring myself to continue. So I turned off the game, went to the Playstation Store and downloaded demos for Hoard and Tetris. Expect to hear about them at some point in the future. I'll also get back to God of War III.
Should I be concerned that when I was taking items from a chest in Faery it asked me to "Validate" instead of just saying "OK"?
Thursday, February 10, 2011
God of War III - The Big Chain
To begin, I'm going to mention some of the control scheme changes that occurred between God of War II and God of War III. In the last two games the d-pad selected what magic Kratos would use. It was then activated by pressing the L2 button. Pretty straight forward. God of War III mixes things up a bit. The d-pad actually selects the weapon that Kratos is using. Each weapon appears to have a special attack attached to it. When Kratos uses the Blades of Exile you press R2 and a small group of Spartans appear with their shields blocking every which direction and then they stab with their spears. It's a good group clearing move, even if it does look like a giant bug with spikes poking out. The weapon Kratos got from Hades, the Claws of Hades, has a special attack where a soul is summoned. It's a neat maneuver for the fact that you can choose what soul is summoned and you can earn more souls to use with the attack. Gotta catch 'em all!
There are still special abilities that occur by pressing the L2 button, but the abilities themselves are mapped to the face buttons. So if I want to use the Bow of Apollo I just press L2 and then I press the Square button. Helios' head is L2 plus the Triangle button. This actually makes things easier and gives more options for attack variety. I really have to applaud the dev team for this, it really opens things up. I'm not a fan of the UI however. I find reading Kratos' health/magic bars to be hard. When Kratos loses health it just doesn't really look like it so I get confused if I need to open a health chest of not and by now I know not to open a chest if I don't have to since I'll probably be back through the area at some point..
Now back to my actual play session. Last we left off Kratos had just ripped off Helios' head. This leads to a session of dark tunnels where the head is necessary to light the way. I should mention that Helios' head also reveals hidden locations. These are fairly simple to find as long as you look for the God Dust that is floating around the location. The dark tunnels are simple, there's not many enemies running around so you should never actually have to fight blind. Your weapons can also light up the area some.
At the end of the tunnels is the little blue flame girl (probably Pandora). She still wants Kratos' help and she says that she "trusts him"? Is this girl stupid? Kratos seems to think so, he's at least smart enough to tell her she shouldn't trust him.
Then comes the BIG CHAIN. It's actually called the Chain of Balance and it's actually a flying sequence. Kratos uses the Icarus Wings to fly up this truly MASSIVE chain. It requires Kratos to dodge and maneuver his way around. There's falling debris, walls are in the way and MY CONTROLS ARE INVERTED?! I am not playing a flying game, don't screw with my controls! Thankfully the controls can be changed in the option menu. At the end of the flying sequence there are these giant boxes and Kratos gets to ride on them as they move. The second set of boxes is more fun than the first. Enemies actually spawn on the second set and when Minotaurs spawn they'll try to break the chain holding the box.
At the end of the boxes is an encounter with Hermes, just a conversation I'm afraid, not a battle. Hermes taunts Kratos just like you would expect from someone with a lot of speed. Speedy people like to insult their opponents. I'm sure Kratos will slow him down soon enough and a fight will happen, eventually. But first Kratos needs to climb this really long chain. And it's a a long climb, so long that the screen actually blacks out twice to give the impression that time has passed. I think this chain is actually longer then the circumference of the Earth!
When Kratos reaches the top he finds the Flame of Olympus. Well that wasn't to hard too find. Inside the Flame is Pandora's Box Athena appears and retcon occurs! Athena explains that when Kratos used the box he only tapped a small portion of the power that is in there. The box contains all of the evils that were created when the God defeated the Titans in the Great War (which never actually happened since Kratos zapped all of the Titans to the present). Apparently the child Pandora can get the box out of the Flame so Kratos can use it to defeat Zeus. Also the box was named after Pandora, so that makes Pandora over 1,000 years old and she's still a child. I saved at this point.
Next time: Kratos probably needs to find Pandora and hopefully kill Hermes.
There are still special abilities that occur by pressing the L2 button, but the abilities themselves are mapped to the face buttons. So if I want to use the Bow of Apollo I just press L2 and then I press the Square button. Helios' head is L2 plus the Triangle button. This actually makes things easier and gives more options for attack variety. I really have to applaud the dev team for this, it really opens things up. I'm not a fan of the UI however. I find reading Kratos' health/magic bars to be hard. When Kratos loses health it just doesn't really look like it so I get confused if I need to open a health chest of not and by now I know not to open a chest if I don't have to since I'll probably be back through the area at some point..
Now back to my actual play session. Last we left off Kratos had just ripped off Helios' head. This leads to a session of dark tunnels where the head is necessary to light the way. I should mention that Helios' head also reveals hidden locations. These are fairly simple to find as long as you look for the God Dust that is floating around the location. The dark tunnels are simple, there's not many enemies running around so you should never actually have to fight blind. Your weapons can also light up the area some.
At the end of the tunnels is the little blue flame girl (probably Pandora). She still wants Kratos' help and she says that she "trusts him"? Is this girl stupid? Kratos seems to think so, he's at least smart enough to tell her she shouldn't trust him.
Then comes the BIG CHAIN. It's actually called the Chain of Balance and it's actually a flying sequence. Kratos uses the Icarus Wings to fly up this truly MASSIVE chain. It requires Kratos to dodge and maneuver his way around. There's falling debris, walls are in the way and MY CONTROLS ARE INVERTED?! I am not playing a flying game, don't screw with my controls! Thankfully the controls can be changed in the option menu. At the end of the flying sequence there are these giant boxes and Kratos gets to ride on them as they move. The second set of boxes is more fun than the first. Enemies actually spawn on the second set and when Minotaurs spawn they'll try to break the chain holding the box.
At the end of the boxes is an encounter with Hermes, just a conversation I'm afraid, not a battle. Hermes taunts Kratos just like you would expect from someone with a lot of speed. Speedy people like to insult their opponents. I'm sure Kratos will slow him down soon enough and a fight will happen, eventually. But first Kratos needs to climb this really long chain. And it's a a long climb, so long that the screen actually blacks out twice to give the impression that time has passed. I think this chain is actually longer then the circumference of the Earth!
When Kratos reaches the top he finds the Flame of Olympus. Well that wasn't to hard too find. Inside the Flame is Pandora's Box Athena appears and retcon occurs! Athena explains that when Kratos used the box he only tapped a small portion of the power that is in there. The box contains all of the evils that were created when the God defeated the Titans in the Great War (which never actually happened since Kratos zapped all of the Titans to the present). Apparently the child Pandora can get the box out of the Flame so Kratos can use it to defeat Zeus. Also the box was named after Pandora, so that makes Pandora over 1,000 years old and she's still a child. I saved at this point.
Next time: Kratos probably needs to find Pandora and hopefully kill Hermes.
God of War III - Leaving Hades
Wandering through Hades isn't that complicated. Thankfully it's pretty straight forward since I wanted to get Hades out of the way quickly. Sure Hades was a great platforming area in the first game and it was a pretty short area in the second game, but it just feels over used. I wanted to get on to new territory. Thankfully there's some great Kratos moments in here. Especially when Kratos randomly burns some guy alive and steals his bow. I don't quite get Kratos' motivation behind this. The guy offered Kratos his bow anyways if Kratos would just free him. Kratos says nothing about it, but in the end he just ups and kills the guy by using a Cerberus to burn him. Random. The bow is Kratos' second "magic", if you hold the attack button long enough it the bow will shoot a flaming arrow, this is used in a lot of puzzle solving.
The game has also changed how collectibles work. In the first 2 games Kratos needed 6 eyes or 6 feathers to get an upgrade. Now you only need 3 and there are minotaur horns thrown into the mix. The upgrade appears to be smaller this time round though. I guess they want to allow Kratos to upgrade on a more regular basis. I really have no opinion on this, both of these mechanics work. The newer version just tends to reward the player a little more regularly.
Running around Hades there is quite a bit of name dropping going on. The developers seem to love to randomly throwing Greek stories into the mix and mash them into a barely recognizable form so they fit the God of War story. The worst culprit here is Pandora. You meet her father, Hephaestus and he mentions that his daughter Pandora is still alive. I assume she's the little blue flame girl that Kratos encounters during the level. But the first game dealt with Pandora's box. Somehow they're going to have to reconcile Pandora being here and Pandora's box already being opened by the wrong person. Especially since Pandora's box was suppose to unleash all of the world's suffering, not cause a mortal to grow really tall.
Then there's Persephone, the wife of Hades who apparently Kratos killed in the Chains of Olympus PSP game. I've never played the PSP game so I didn't know this but it seemed like important information. But Hades (the God) is a real dick, especially since he involved his own wife's corpse in the puzzle that allows Kratos to reach him. Not a new trick, the Architect of Pandora's Temple did the same thing in the first game.
The boss battle against Hades himself is actually pretty simple. Hades uses a weapon eerily similar to Kratos' own and in the end Kratos nabs the weapon for himself. The best part of the fight for me was when a half destroyed Hades pops out of the River Styx and Kratos uses Hades own weapon against him. This was a pretty fun challenge, especially with all of the swinging back and forth around the destroyed arena. Kratos eventually rips Hades soul out of his body and the God of the Underworld dies (just to note, he also doesn't explode). Hades' death means that the souls of the dead are no longer trapped in Hades (the place) and they seem to be streaming into the world of the living.
Kratos eventually tells Hephaestus that he won't look for his kid and Kratos leaves Hades. We now end of in Olympia where Kratos encounters Gaia. I love this part. Kratos helped Gaia and in return Gaia screwed him over, so in typical Kratos fashion he returns the favor. Gaia begs for his help, instead Kratos cuts off her hand and sends her plummeting off a cliff. Very satisfying.
Olympia continues the trend of being a straight forward place but you encounter the stupid mechanic of using Harpies to get across chasms. There's a Centaur battle (lame) and a Chimera battle (easy, but the Chimera's look cool). The highlight so far has been the encounter with Helios. Helios is the guy who rides his flaming chariot and that causes the sun to move across the sky. Kratos apparently helped Helios in the Chains of Olympus PSP game (*sigh*, I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of information). Helios tries to trick Kratos under the guise of friendship. Kratos returns the favor by ripping off Helios' head! Good stuff. Helios' head is used to reveal hidden passage ways and it also works like flashlight in dark areas. Sounds like a godd use of a head to me.
And that's where I'm at. Still wandering around Olympia. Oh, I forgot to mention the Minotaurs. First, very sweet looking, major props to the art team. Second, Minotaurs no longer randomly spin along the ground during their brutal kill! Sure they still have a fixed camera angle kill, but Kratos now gets to wrestle them into the proper position. It works, it's not immersion breaking and I really like it.
Next time: More of Olympia.
The game has also changed how collectibles work. In the first 2 games Kratos needed 6 eyes or 6 feathers to get an upgrade. Now you only need 3 and there are minotaur horns thrown into the mix. The upgrade appears to be smaller this time round though. I guess they want to allow Kratos to upgrade on a more regular basis. I really have no opinion on this, both of these mechanics work. The newer version just tends to reward the player a little more regularly.
Running around Hades there is quite a bit of name dropping going on. The developers seem to love to randomly throwing Greek stories into the mix and mash them into a barely recognizable form so they fit the God of War story. The worst culprit here is Pandora. You meet her father, Hephaestus and he mentions that his daughter Pandora is still alive. I assume she's the little blue flame girl that Kratos encounters during the level. But the first game dealt with Pandora's box. Somehow they're going to have to reconcile Pandora being here and Pandora's box already being opened by the wrong person. Especially since Pandora's box was suppose to unleash all of the world's suffering, not cause a mortal to grow really tall.
Then there's Persephone, the wife of Hades who apparently Kratos killed in the Chains of Olympus PSP game. I've never played the PSP game so I didn't know this but it seemed like important information. But Hades (the God) is a real dick, especially since he involved his own wife's corpse in the puzzle that allows Kratos to reach him. Not a new trick, the Architect of Pandora's Temple did the same thing in the first game.
The boss battle against Hades himself is actually pretty simple. Hades uses a weapon eerily similar to Kratos' own and in the end Kratos nabs the weapon for himself. The best part of the fight for me was when a half destroyed Hades pops out of the River Styx and Kratos uses Hades own weapon against him. This was a pretty fun challenge, especially with all of the swinging back and forth around the destroyed arena. Kratos eventually rips Hades soul out of his body and the God of the Underworld dies (just to note, he also doesn't explode). Hades' death means that the souls of the dead are no longer trapped in Hades (the place) and they seem to be streaming into the world of the living.
Kratos eventually tells Hephaestus that he won't look for his kid and Kratos leaves Hades. We now end of in Olympia where Kratos encounters Gaia. I love this part. Kratos helped Gaia and in return Gaia screwed him over, so in typical Kratos fashion he returns the favor. Gaia begs for his help, instead Kratos cuts off her hand and sends her plummeting off a cliff. Very satisfying.
Olympia continues the trend of being a straight forward place but you encounter the stupid mechanic of using Harpies to get across chasms. There's a Centaur battle (lame) and a Chimera battle (easy, but the Chimera's look cool). The highlight so far has been the encounter with Helios. Helios is the guy who rides his flaming chariot and that causes the sun to move across the sky. Kratos apparently helped Helios in the Chains of Olympus PSP game (*sigh*, I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of information). Helios tries to trick Kratos under the guise of friendship. Kratos returns the favor by ripping off Helios' head! Good stuff. Helios' head is used to reveal hidden passage ways and it also works like flashlight in dark areas. Sounds like a godd use of a head to me.
And that's where I'm at. Still wandering around Olympia. Oh, I forgot to mention the Minotaurs. First, very sweet looking, major props to the art team. Second, Minotaurs no longer randomly spin along the ground during their brutal kill! Sure they still have a fixed camera angle kill, but Kratos now gets to wrestle them into the proper position. It works, it's not immersion breaking and I really like it.
Next time: More of Olympia.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
God of War III - Overly Epic Beginning
God of War III is the conclusion to Kratos' story for revenge. The game was released March 2010 for the PS3.
When we last left Kratos he and a bunch of Titans were scaling Mt. Olympus on a quest to destroy the Gods and get Kratos his long sought revenge. The whole first level is insanely epic. It's great fun climbing around on Gaia, beating enemies, and fighting giant horse/spider/tentacle thingies. Seriously, the horse things are grand and the they look just fantastic. This whole level looks fantastic, it's easy to just stop and stare at the scenery. You really need to watch the Titans as they climb Olympus or as they're hit by these tentacle horses. Grand, fun, but not without a few annoyances. The opening has Zeus talking with the various Gods of Olympus. I have no idea who any of these guys are. I took a guess on who Poseidon was only when he jumped into the sea, so it's hard to have any feelings towards them other then "eventual boss character".
Kratos spends most of the level trying to free Gaia from the tentacles. Along the way you can find the body of Ares hanging around. Makes me wonder why Ares' body didn't explode like Athena's did? It's kinda creepy that Ares was put on ice though.
The boss of the level is Poseidon. Poseidon has locked himself in giant water person with some odd rock armor and I think he's riding a bunch of tentacle horses. My TV is not a widescreen TV and my PS3 should be properly set up for that, but there were times when things would happen on the side of the screen that I was missing. The battle with Poseidon has one of those instances. I have to knock two horses off of Gaia's head, but I can't fully see the horse on the right side of the screen. Made hitting it more complicated then it should be. Poseidon's not hard, but he's fun. And the QTE where Kratos slaughters him is horrifyingly shown from Poseidon's first person perspective. If you've never played this game before, this scene alone is worth it. I was highly impressed with how it was handled and I truly felt for Poseidon all the while cheering Kratos on.
Now this leads to another gripe. The button prompts for the QTEs have been moved. They now appear on the portion of the screen that relates to their position on the controller. Thus triangle is at the top of the screen, square is on the left, etc. But the icons are very small and easy to miss. Quite a few times I missed a prompt because I didn't see the prompt until it was too late. This will be quite the learning curve. At least the R1 button has the same functionality as the last game. When they changed R2 for R1 between the first and second game it threw me off for the first few levels.
After Poseidon's death Kratos confronts Zeus. This confrontation goes badly for Kratos, he and Gaia both get knocked off of Olympus. Gaia grabs hold of Olympus and Kratos grabs onto to Gaia, but Kratos can't hold on. Gaia finally tells Kratos the truth, that he was a pawn in her game and that he's not important to this fight. Gaia let's Kratos fall and Kratos falls back into Hades for the THIRD TIME! At least Kratos is smart enough to declare that Hades has never held him.Once in Hades Kratos trips and loses all of his power. Seriously, the souls of the dead suck it out of him, but he might as well just trip and have all of his powers fall into the sewers. At least they don't pull a stunt where Kratos keeps all his powers but he can only use them when his boyfriend gives him permission. That would just be a stupid gameplay mechanic.
In Hades Kratos encounters a dead Athena. Athena claims that her death has taken her to a higher plain of existence. This makes me question even more what happened with Ares when he died. Athena gives Kratos the Blades of Exile and Kratos needs to start buffing himself all over again. That's where I currently stand.
The first level is awesome, I don't know if the rest of the game can live up to it. But throwing Kratos back into Hades reeks of a lack of originality. I assume Kratos will be killing Gods in this game so I guess this will get Hades himself out of the way pretty early, but couldn't they have found some other way? Maybe Kratos could have discovered a back door to Mt. Olympus through Hades and so he storms Hades (without dying) to make use of the door. It also appears that Kratos has a guide once again in the form of Athena. I was kind of hoping Kratos would be on his own the whole game, which would increase the feeling of his exile. Instead the game follows the pattern of the first two. Oh well, I'm sure it will still be a fun ride.
Next time: Working my way out of Hades......again.
When we last left Kratos he and a bunch of Titans were scaling Mt. Olympus on a quest to destroy the Gods and get Kratos his long sought revenge. The whole first level is insanely epic. It's great fun climbing around on Gaia, beating enemies, and fighting giant horse/spider/tentacle thingies. Seriously, the horse things are grand and the they look just fantastic. This whole level looks fantastic, it's easy to just stop and stare at the scenery. You really need to watch the Titans as they climb Olympus or as they're hit by these tentacle horses. Grand, fun, but not without a few annoyances. The opening has Zeus talking with the various Gods of Olympus. I have no idea who any of these guys are. I took a guess on who Poseidon was only when he jumped into the sea, so it's hard to have any feelings towards them other then "eventual boss character".
Kratos spends most of the level trying to free Gaia from the tentacles. Along the way you can find the body of Ares hanging around. Makes me wonder why Ares' body didn't explode like Athena's did? It's kinda creepy that Ares was put on ice though.
The boss of the level is Poseidon. Poseidon has locked himself in giant water person with some odd rock armor and I think he's riding a bunch of tentacle horses. My TV is not a widescreen TV and my PS3 should be properly set up for that, but there were times when things would happen on the side of the screen that I was missing. The battle with Poseidon has one of those instances. I have to knock two horses off of Gaia's head, but I can't fully see the horse on the right side of the screen. Made hitting it more complicated then it should be. Poseidon's not hard, but he's fun. And the QTE where Kratos slaughters him is horrifyingly shown from Poseidon's first person perspective. If you've never played this game before, this scene alone is worth it. I was highly impressed with how it was handled and I truly felt for Poseidon all the while cheering Kratos on.
Now this leads to another gripe. The button prompts for the QTEs have been moved. They now appear on the portion of the screen that relates to their position on the controller. Thus triangle is at the top of the screen, square is on the left, etc. But the icons are very small and easy to miss. Quite a few times I missed a prompt because I didn't see the prompt until it was too late. This will be quite the learning curve. At least the R1 button has the same functionality as the last game. When they changed R2 for R1 between the first and second game it threw me off for the first few levels.
After Poseidon's death Kratos confronts Zeus. This confrontation goes badly for Kratos, he and Gaia both get knocked off of Olympus. Gaia grabs hold of Olympus and Kratos grabs onto to Gaia, but Kratos can't hold on. Gaia finally tells Kratos the truth, that he was a pawn in her game and that he's not important to this fight. Gaia let's Kratos fall and Kratos falls back into Hades for the THIRD TIME! At least Kratos is smart enough to declare that Hades has never held him.Once in Hades Kratos trips and loses all of his power. Seriously, the souls of the dead suck it out of him, but he might as well just trip and have all of his powers fall into the sewers. At least they don't pull a stunt where Kratos keeps all his powers but he can only use them when his boyfriend gives him permission. That would just be a stupid gameplay mechanic.
In Hades Kratos encounters a dead Athena. Athena claims that her death has taken her to a higher plain of existence. This makes me question even more what happened with Ares when he died. Athena gives Kratos the Blades of Exile and Kratos needs to start buffing himself all over again. That's where I currently stand.
The first level is awesome, I don't know if the rest of the game can live up to it. But throwing Kratos back into Hades reeks of a lack of originality. I assume Kratos will be killing Gods in this game so I guess this will get Hades himself out of the way pretty early, but couldn't they have found some other way? Maybe Kratos could have discovered a back door to Mt. Olympus through Hades and so he storms Hades (without dying) to make use of the door. It also appears that Kratos has a guide once again in the form of Athena. I was kind of hoping Kratos would be on his own the whole game, which would increase the feeling of his exile. Instead the game follows the pattern of the first two. Oh well, I'm sure it will still be a fun ride.
Next time: Working my way out of Hades......again.
God of War II - The Cliffhanger Ending
There's Kratos and Zeus ready to square off and I'm annoyed at the fight right out of the gate. Kratos is holding the Blade of Olympus. Kratos will actually use this sword for most of the fight. That's right, you'll use a weapon that you've barely touched the entire game during the final fight. Please don't tell me that the third game does the same thing! I know how to use Athena's Blades, that's all that I want to use. Let Kratos pull the sword out during the QTEs or something. DON'T FORCE THIS STUPID WEAPON ON ME!!!
Sadly my cries fall on deaf ears and I have no choice but to use the sword. Zeus and Kratos fly to some battle arena in the sky and the fight starts. Zeus grows to giant size so he can try to flatten Kratos. He also summons Sirens to help. The Sirens are actually the start Zeus' downfall. Whenever a Siren is killed by a QTE it lets out a scream, the scream damages Zeus and it refills Kratos' magic! This means Kratos can use Cronos' Rage to quickly stagger the Sirens and brutal kill them all he wants. After enough Sirens are killed and Kratos wacks Zeus enough in the aftermath Kratos finally gets a chance to stab Zeus with the sword and drain some of Zeus' god powers. At least it makes sense why the sword is in play.
Zeus is now normal size and round two starts. Zeus' attacks hurt, but they are well telegraphed. Zeus' lightning bolt is great because there is a perfect sound cue for when to block so Kratos can send it back at Zeus and get some health orbs in the process. Eventually Zeus steals the sword. This actually makes me happy, I get to use Athena's Blades again. Beating Zeus is a slow process, it basically requires a lot of hit a run tatics. Zeus can be hit by Cronos' Rage, but Zeus doesn't drop a lot of magic orbs so it's easy to run out. Kratos eventually gets the sword back from Zeus and the whole thing happens again. After Kratos gets the sword back a second time the fight comes to an "end"
Zeus grows big again and starts this barrage of lightning that can only be blocked by smashing the Circle button. Now for me, this last part is very uncharacteristic of Kratos. Kratos has a lot of pride, he doesn't hide, he doesn't beg. But suddenly Kratos surrenders. He gives Zeus the sword and tells Zeus to end it. I didn't see this coming and I can't actually see Kratos doing it. It just feels wrong.
It's all a big double cross on Kratos' part though. I guess I can attribute it to Kratos' single-mindedness. He will do anything to get his revenge. If you press the buttons right for the QTE (first try!) Kratos takes Zeus to town. Zeus would die right here and now but Athena interferes. In the process of trying to protect her father Zeus, Kratos kills Athena. Kratos actually seems upset about it. Athena reveals that Zeus actually is Kratos' father (show of hands for everyone who saw that coming!). Zeus is very well known for sleeping with mortals and siring offspring. This also means the Kratos just killed his sister. Go figure.
After the scene Kratos actually has to go back to the Threads of Fate again. Kratos needs to pull his thread all the way back to the war between the Titans and the Gods. Odd since you wouldn't think that Kratos' thread would go back that far. The real problem is that once the thread is set, you still have to beat the stupid timer to the mirror. You're once again given 30 seconds to make it. The game is over! Just let it end! When Kratos arrives in the past he encounters Gaia who says that the Titans have been expecting Kratos. Kratos zaps all of the Titans to the present. The final scene is the Titans scaling Mt. Olympus with Kratos in tow, still looking for his revenge.
To be continued and all of that.
Final Thoughts:
God of War II is obviously part of an unintended trilogy. Like most trilogies nowadays the first movie ends just fine, but the studio wants more, because the first one did so well, so a sequel is made. But the job of the sequel is actually to prepare everyone for the third part where the monstrous conclusion will be seen. Normally this takes a big crap all over the story (see The Matrix Trilogy and The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy for examples). That's to bad since God of War II is a really great game. A self contained story would have been nicer. Sure have an overall arc, but ending on a cliffhanger is silly.
Kratos is still a fun character. The graphics are drop-dead gorgeous, especially for a PS2 game. The best part is that backtracking wasn't really a problem in this game. Yes it happens, but the designers found ways for it to be more intersting. Normally an alternate path would open up. This would save on time and boredom. Kratos' adjusted moveset was for the best. He has some great attacks, but I wish there was some way to stop his long combos. I don't know how many times I was attacking and I couldn't stop so I ended up taking hits.
I must admit that I'm nervous about the next games beginning. This one ended with the Titans climbing Mt. Olympus. I assume that's where the next game will start. It looks like it will be epic, but how will the rest of the game match up to what I would guess to be a fantastic first level?
Next time: God of War III - Son of God of War!
Sadly my cries fall on deaf ears and I have no choice but to use the sword. Zeus and Kratos fly to some battle arena in the sky and the fight starts. Zeus grows to giant size so he can try to flatten Kratos. He also summons Sirens to help. The Sirens are actually the start Zeus' downfall. Whenever a Siren is killed by a QTE it lets out a scream, the scream damages Zeus and it refills Kratos' magic! This means Kratos can use Cronos' Rage to quickly stagger the Sirens and brutal kill them all he wants. After enough Sirens are killed and Kratos wacks Zeus enough in the aftermath Kratos finally gets a chance to stab Zeus with the sword and drain some of Zeus' god powers. At least it makes sense why the sword is in play.
Zeus is now normal size and round two starts. Zeus' attacks hurt, but they are well telegraphed. Zeus' lightning bolt is great because there is a perfect sound cue for when to block so Kratos can send it back at Zeus and get some health orbs in the process. Eventually Zeus steals the sword. This actually makes me happy, I get to use Athena's Blades again. Beating Zeus is a slow process, it basically requires a lot of hit a run tatics. Zeus can be hit by Cronos' Rage, but Zeus doesn't drop a lot of magic orbs so it's easy to run out. Kratos eventually gets the sword back from Zeus and the whole thing happens again. After Kratos gets the sword back a second time the fight comes to an "end"
Zeus grows big again and starts this barrage of lightning that can only be blocked by smashing the Circle button. Now for me, this last part is very uncharacteristic of Kratos. Kratos has a lot of pride, he doesn't hide, he doesn't beg. But suddenly Kratos surrenders. He gives Zeus the sword and tells Zeus to end it. I didn't see this coming and I can't actually see Kratos doing it. It just feels wrong.
It's all a big double cross on Kratos' part though. I guess I can attribute it to Kratos' single-mindedness. He will do anything to get his revenge. If you press the buttons right for the QTE (first try!) Kratos takes Zeus to town. Zeus would die right here and now but Athena interferes. In the process of trying to protect her father Zeus, Kratos kills Athena. Kratos actually seems upset about it. Athena reveals that Zeus actually is Kratos' father (show of hands for everyone who saw that coming!). Zeus is very well known for sleeping with mortals and siring offspring. This also means the Kratos just killed his sister. Go figure.
After the scene Kratos actually has to go back to the Threads of Fate again. Kratos needs to pull his thread all the way back to the war between the Titans and the Gods. Odd since you wouldn't think that Kratos' thread would go back that far. The real problem is that once the thread is set, you still have to beat the stupid timer to the mirror. You're once again given 30 seconds to make it. The game is over! Just let it end! When Kratos arrives in the past he encounters Gaia who says that the Titans have been expecting Kratos. Kratos zaps all of the Titans to the present. The final scene is the Titans scaling Mt. Olympus with Kratos in tow, still looking for his revenge.
To be continued and all of that.
Final Thoughts:
God of War II is obviously part of an unintended trilogy. Like most trilogies nowadays the first movie ends just fine, but the studio wants more, because the first one did so well, so a sequel is made. But the job of the sequel is actually to prepare everyone for the third part where the monstrous conclusion will be seen. Normally this takes a big crap all over the story (see The Matrix Trilogy and The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy for examples). That's to bad since God of War II is a really great game. A self contained story would have been nicer. Sure have an overall arc, but ending on a cliffhanger is silly.
Kratos is still a fun character. The graphics are drop-dead gorgeous, especially for a PS2 game. The best part is that backtracking wasn't really a problem in this game. Yes it happens, but the designers found ways for it to be more intersting. Normally an alternate path would open up. This would save on time and boredom. Kratos' adjusted moveset was for the best. He has some great attacks, but I wish there was some way to stop his long combos. I don't know how many times I was attacking and I couldn't stop so I ended up taking hits.
I must admit that I'm nervous about the next games beginning. This one ended with the Titans climbing Mt. Olympus. I assume that's where the next game will start. It looks like it will be epic, but how will the rest of the game match up to what I would guess to be a fantastic first level?
Next time: God of War III - Son of God of War!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
God of War II - Boss Battle Extravaganza
I had no idea how close I was to the end of the game when I entered the Temple of Fates. I also had no idea how many boss battle there would be or how long each of them would take. The hardest part was actually figuring out how to properly fight them. God of War has been great with their "platforming" or "thinking" style bosses and the end of the game has them in mass. Let's discuss shall we.
First off, upon entering the Temple there's the weird bell puzzle. I actually got stuck on this for a little while, but only because I didn't realize there was a handle that Kratos needed to turn. I got both bells to ring at the same time and I found the switch in the water, beyond that I was confused. I didn't notice the platform directly beneath the Fate Statue that Kratos could stand on. I found it by accident and from there solving the puzzle and breaking the giant face was easy. I was completely expecting the giant face to talk to me. I'm kinda sad that it didn't.
Shortly after begins a long round of boss battles. First of is Lahkesis, the Sister of Fate with the implant. Lahkesis makes mention that Kratos was expected but that he can't change his fate. Kratos decides to ignore the Sister and the fight begins. Lahkesis is a fun fight, but not overly difficult. I found most of her attacks to be easily blockable, dodgeable or returnable (via the golden fleece). They mixed it up a little when Lahkesis begins flying during the fight and Kratos has to use grapple points to reach her. Not a hard fight to figure out and fairly satisfying.
Then the second Sister, Atropos, shows up ( I could swear there were three Sisters in the Greek mythology). Atropos takes Kratos through a mirror-portal to the past, to the fight were Kratos killed Ares. Atropos plans to break the Blade of the Gods (the sword that Kratos used to defeat Ares), thus altering time and allowing Ares to kill Kratos. This battle was fairly boring. The battle takes place on the sword so there's not a ton of room to move, but since the battle is so simple you won't have to worry. Cronos' Rage and Typhon's Bane make short work of Atropos. Kratos makes it back through the mirror, but Atropos becomes "trapped".
I say "trapped" because Kratos now has to fight Lahkesis and Atropos together. Lahkesis charges the mirrors so Atropos can at least get her top half through. Lahkesis needs to go down first, but this didn't quite dawn on me at first. I kept knocking Lahkesis down and I noticed her head would start glowing green. I just figured that she was now invincible and I couldn't hurt her. No, this is actually a sign that Kratos can slow down time and beat the snot out of Atropos while she's half-popped through a mirror.
After beating on Atropos I noticed that the mirror she had been in was broken so I figured it couldn't be used anymore. I was wrong, broken mirrors eventually heal unless Kratos completely smashes them. Once I realized this the fight came to a quick conclusion. Kratos shoves both Sisters through the final mirror and shatters it trapping the two Sisters in the past. So you would think that the Sisters would just be alive in the past. That they would find Kratos and still kill him? This doesn't seem like a conclusion to their story. They're not dead, technically they could just come running right back into the room and be mad that Kratos trapped them in the past. Or maybe they could have teamed up with themselves and made the boss fight even harder. They're still alive, they have options.
Kratos continues through the Temple, in the distance you can eventually see what looks like a giant clound monster with boobs. It talks to Kraots but I found this thing really hard to understand, but I got the impression that this cloud creature is what spins the Threads of Fate. There's a gauntlet of enemies that Kratos has to plow through first. They're not hard fights especially since Kratos' magic is easily refilled. This allows for liberal use of Cronos' Rage. The hardest I had was against a group of Gorgons and Sirens, but that was only because the Gorgon's would stone Kratos and the Sirens would shatter him. That gets defined more as cheap then hard.
Eventually I encountered the giant cloud monster, which isn't a cloud at all. It's named Clotho and I think I counted 10 tits on the thing. It's a very rotund Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man type thing. I assume this is the third sister. It's obviously female, but I see no family resemblance. Overall Clotho isn't hard. Her attacks don't cause much damage and she loves to broadcast them. What makes Clotho annoying is the puzzle solving that's involved. There's a lot of dodging arms and pinning them in traps. Pushing objects, pulling levers all the way up the scaffolding. At this point it's tedious work. It's pretty obvious that I'm near the end of the game and all I want to do is reach the final boss not this fat stupid thing.
When I finally reached Clotho's head that's when the real fight begins but the same rules apply. I have to figure out a puzzle and that's how Kratos really beats her. There's some lever that needs to be moved to the correct position for a pully to bring up a pendulum and the penulum then needs to be placed inside Clotho's head. This fight can go really fast if you know what you're doing. The problem was that I wasn't looking for a lever and I certainly wasn't looking for a climbable wall so I could destroy an obstacle that was blocking the lever. For me, this fight seemed to take forever.
Anyways fat thing goes down and it's off to the final switch. Actually throwing the switch only brings up these threads of fate. One of them is Kratos' and it needs to be found so Kratos can go back in time. The threads are back where Kratos fought Clotho. So I had to backtrack, find the right thread ( I really hope this is random for every playthrough), rush back to where the final switch is at (there's a 30 second timer), and jump through a mirror. This means that if you run out of time you have to backtrack to the threads and do it all over again.
Kratos appears at the moment that Zeus stabbed him with the Blade of Olympus. Just to note, Zeus accuses the Sister of Fate of helping Kratos. Kratos states that the Sisters are dead, destroyed, no more, or something along those lines. I guess that takes care of any time paradoxes.
Next time: Kratos vs Zeus and final thoughts.
First off, upon entering the Temple there's the weird bell puzzle. I actually got stuck on this for a little while, but only because I didn't realize there was a handle that Kratos needed to turn. I got both bells to ring at the same time and I found the switch in the water, beyond that I was confused. I didn't notice the platform directly beneath the Fate Statue that Kratos could stand on. I found it by accident and from there solving the puzzle and breaking the giant face was easy. I was completely expecting the giant face to talk to me. I'm kinda sad that it didn't.
Shortly after begins a long round of boss battles. First of is Lahkesis, the Sister of Fate with the implant. Lahkesis makes mention that Kratos was expected but that he can't change his fate. Kratos decides to ignore the Sister and the fight begins. Lahkesis is a fun fight, but not overly difficult. I found most of her attacks to be easily blockable, dodgeable or returnable (via the golden fleece). They mixed it up a little when Lahkesis begins flying during the fight and Kratos has to use grapple points to reach her. Not a hard fight to figure out and fairly satisfying.
Then the second Sister, Atropos, shows up ( I could swear there were three Sisters in the Greek mythology). Atropos takes Kratos through a mirror-portal to the past, to the fight were Kratos killed Ares. Atropos plans to break the Blade of the Gods (the sword that Kratos used to defeat Ares), thus altering time and allowing Ares to kill Kratos. This battle was fairly boring. The battle takes place on the sword so there's not a ton of room to move, but since the battle is so simple you won't have to worry. Cronos' Rage and Typhon's Bane make short work of Atropos. Kratos makes it back through the mirror, but Atropos becomes "trapped".
I say "trapped" because Kratos now has to fight Lahkesis and Atropos together. Lahkesis charges the mirrors so Atropos can at least get her top half through. Lahkesis needs to go down first, but this didn't quite dawn on me at first. I kept knocking Lahkesis down and I noticed her head would start glowing green. I just figured that she was now invincible and I couldn't hurt her. No, this is actually a sign that Kratos can slow down time and beat the snot out of Atropos while she's half-popped through a mirror.
After beating on Atropos I noticed that the mirror she had been in was broken so I figured it couldn't be used anymore. I was wrong, broken mirrors eventually heal unless Kratos completely smashes them. Once I realized this the fight came to a quick conclusion. Kratos shoves both Sisters through the final mirror and shatters it trapping the two Sisters in the past. So you would think that the Sisters would just be alive in the past. That they would find Kratos and still kill him? This doesn't seem like a conclusion to their story. They're not dead, technically they could just come running right back into the room and be mad that Kratos trapped them in the past. Or maybe they could have teamed up with themselves and made the boss fight even harder. They're still alive, they have options.
Kratos continues through the Temple, in the distance you can eventually see what looks like a giant clound monster with boobs. It talks to Kraots but I found this thing really hard to understand, but I got the impression that this cloud creature is what spins the Threads of Fate. There's a gauntlet of enemies that Kratos has to plow through first. They're not hard fights especially since Kratos' magic is easily refilled. This allows for liberal use of Cronos' Rage. The hardest I had was against a group of Gorgons and Sirens, but that was only because the Gorgon's would stone Kratos and the Sirens would shatter him. That gets defined more as cheap then hard.
Eventually I encountered the giant cloud monster, which isn't a cloud at all. It's named Clotho and I think I counted 10 tits on the thing. It's a very rotund Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man type thing. I assume this is the third sister. It's obviously female, but I see no family resemblance. Overall Clotho isn't hard. Her attacks don't cause much damage and she loves to broadcast them. What makes Clotho annoying is the puzzle solving that's involved. There's a lot of dodging arms and pinning them in traps. Pushing objects, pulling levers all the way up the scaffolding. At this point it's tedious work. It's pretty obvious that I'm near the end of the game and all I want to do is reach the final boss not this fat stupid thing.
When I finally reached Clotho's head that's when the real fight begins but the same rules apply. I have to figure out a puzzle and that's how Kratos really beats her. There's some lever that needs to be moved to the correct position for a pully to bring up a pendulum and the penulum then needs to be placed inside Clotho's head. This fight can go really fast if you know what you're doing. The problem was that I wasn't looking for a lever and I certainly wasn't looking for a climbable wall so I could destroy an obstacle that was blocking the lever. For me, this fight seemed to take forever.
Anyways fat thing goes down and it's off to the final switch. Actually throwing the switch only brings up these threads of fate. One of them is Kratos' and it needs to be found so Kratos can go back in time. The threads are back where Kratos fought Clotho. So I had to backtrack, find the right thread ( I really hope this is random for every playthrough), rush back to where the final switch is at (there's a 30 second timer), and jump through a mirror. This means that if you run out of time you have to backtrack to the threads and do it all over again.
Kratos appears at the moment that Zeus stabbed him with the Blade of Olympus. Just to note, Zeus accuses the Sister of Fate of helping Kratos. Kratos states that the Sisters are dead, destroyed, no more, or something along those lines. I guess that takes care of any time paradoxes.
Next time: Kratos vs Zeus and final thoughts.
Monday, February 7, 2011
God of War II - Release the Kraken!
The Kraken seems to be a popular monster recently. But we'll get to the Kraken fight later. First we get to deal with the inconsistencies of the characters. Namely the Sisters of Fate. Last time Kratos had just sacrificed a Translator to open part of the Temple of Fates. Kratos was congratulated for this task and it would seem that he is encouraged to continue. Shortly into the next area Kratos will encounter two walls of spikes that will slowly move towards each other. You must kill all of the enemies that appear before the walls smash into each other. When the walls start moving you can hear one of the Sisters declaring that Kratos will never reach their temple. This is at least in line with the giant talking statue from earlier but it directly conflicts with the Sister congratulating Kratos for killing the Translator.
But the Sisters really like their death-by-spikes traps. There was the aforementioned smashing walls, you will encounter a similar trap where a ceiling of spikes will slowly lower while you have to kill everything and open a door before it reaches you. Then there is a floor trap where you have to slow down time, open a door, and get across the room before time runs out and spikes pop out of the floor. While lacking in originality, it's still fun and nicely challenging.
But let's go back and break things down a little bit more. After using the Ram's Horn Kratos will eventually reach this ice room. It's a simple puzzle involving light and melting the ice. I found it funny that when I melted the ice that trapped the bird statue epic music started playing. It sounded like I was in battle, I was expecting enemies to appear but I wasn't being attacked. Well, it turns out that there were two minotaurs frozen in the ice and since I melted all of the ice I finally got to fight them. But they're minotaurs, not exactly a tough fight.
The end of this area involved a fight with old fashioned Cerberus. I hate these things and this fight reaffirmed why. These Cerberus would spit out little Cerberus who would then evolve into big Cerberus. I was very grateful for my Wrath form. Made the fight a lot easier but I still had to kill 6 large Cerberus.
Eventually Kratos comes across another Translator. This is a fun, albeit simple, puzzle. The Translator throws himself off the ledge, but there's a time portal that will take Kratos back to the moment the Translator begins running towards the ledge. With a Statue of the Fates Kratos can slow down time, grab the Translator before he jumps, make the Translator read the nearby book and then Kratos can kill the Translator...*ahem*, I mean "sacrafice" the Translator. Turns out that's why the Translators are there, to be sacrificed. What a horrible job.
The Sister of Fate with the implant returns, congratulates Kratos and encourages him some more. WHAT THE HELL...? Do they want Kratos to reach the temple or not? Can't the Sisters of Fate just cause Kratos' fate to be that he never reaches the temple? Bah whatever, let's just go to the Underground.
The Underground has some odd Phoenix puzzle you have to unlock. The hardest part of this area would be what I call the Flame Wall puzzle. There a giant Phoenix statue on the back of the wall in this room and it's shooting a wall of flame along the entire length of the room. Impossible to avoid, unless you have something to block the flames with. And that's where I got confused. Apparently you're supposed to push some statue into the room and use that to block the flames. For me, the statue didn't stand out so I didn't notice it. I kept trying to figure out how to beat the puzzle and I kept dying. Once I found the stupid statue the puzzle is actually easy to beat. The statue gives Kratos a wide area to play in so fighting the enemies wasn't that hard.
Eventually Kratos releases a Phoenix who is only partially released apparently. The Phoenix is being held high in the air by lave and it appears the lava is keeping it trapped. To fully free the Phoenix Kratos must blow a golden horn. It's a simple puzzle and extremly silly in its execution, but it's probably best not to question it. When the Phoenix is free it kindly knocks some pillars off of their pedestals.
The next puzzle is how to raise the pedastals, but it's not hard so I'm going to skip right to the boss fight. This is pretty cool, Kratos and his unkown assailant fight on a 2D plane in front of a big glass window. Makes me think about Kratos in the upcoming Mortal Kombat reboot. What makes the fight hard is that the Man loves to break Kratos' combos. The Man suffers very little knockback so he won't give Kratos a lot of breathing room. I used my Wrath on him and that ended the fight pretty quickly. Kratos and the Man smash out of the window and the man is revealed to be the Spartan that Kratos talked to after Kratos climbed out of Hades. The Spartan reveals that Sparta has been destroyed by Zeus. Kratos mourns the loss of his city.
Kratos cries out to Zeus to come and fight him directly, but instead a really ugly Kraken shows up. The Kraken wraps it's tentacles around the pedastals and a "not fight" begins. I call it a "not fight" because at the start all Kratos will do is yell at Zeus, he won't attack the Kraken. It's funny to see, but I really wanted to fight. Eventually the Kraken picks Kratos up in a tentacle and prepares to crush him. Cue life saving cutscene.
In the scene Kratos sees his wife who is obviously being played by Gaia. Gaia gives Kratos more strength for his Wrath ability and tells Kratos to fight. Since Kratos assumes it's his wife Kratos finds the courage to overcome his grief and turn it into hate, rage, desire for revenge, or whatever Kratos needs at this point.
The actual Kraken fight begins in earnest now. The Kraken fight is part battle, part platforming action and fairly confusing but lots on fun once you realize what you're doing. I figured out the first part because I had played with the switch before and using bodies as weights has been used a lot during the game. You have to get the Kraken to move his right (your left) tentacle by attacking it. This causes the tentacle to move, you then need to place the body of the Spartan on the plate beneath the tentacle opening a steam vent. With the vent open Kratos can reach the Kraken's face. Eventually the Kraken will block the vent by shoving his tentacle into the vent. This fight actually made me think of the Hydra from the first game (hated that fight, but it was fairly imaginative). I got confused because I didn't realize I was suppose to climb the tentacle. It took me 10 -15 minutes to finally figure this out. Once you do Kratos easily chops off the tentacle. Then you have to do a similar pattern to the other tentacle. The difference is that this tentacle becomes stuck in a wall and not in the ground. You have to reach it from the bottom and climb along it that way. I had a really hard time grabbing a hold of the bottom of the tentacle. But once you do you slice off that tentacle and now Kratos has to deal with the tentacles around the pedestals. Kratos must cause both tentacles to slip at the exact same time. I found this tricky because when I finally got the second tentacle to slip the first one would find it's grip again, but I kept at it and threw in some Wrath just for kicks. Once the Kraken slips on both sides Kratos can pull a level and end the fight by shoving an extending bridge into the Kraken's mouth. Holy crap that fight was fantastic. Once I figured out what to do I had a lot of fun, but that Kraken seems to eager to heal Kratos. It drops health orbs on a regular basis so I was never concerned about dying. But killing the thing was very satisfiying.
With the Kraken dead Kratos can finally reach the Phoenix. And instead of asking the noble bird for a ride to the Temple of Fates, Kratos beats the bird into submission. Sweet! I like Kratos' style of not talking it out. He'll just beat you until you admit that he's right and then he'll probably kill you. He seems to kill everyone he meets.
So that's where I sit. Just inside the Temple of Fates. A place where the Sisters of Fates said I would never reach, at least one of them said that. Another one seemed to be encouraging me to reach it. I don't know what the third one thinks. There are three Sisters right?
Next time: The Temple of Fates. You really should have seen that one coming.
But the Sisters really like their death-by-spikes traps. There was the aforementioned smashing walls, you will encounter a similar trap where a ceiling of spikes will slowly lower while you have to kill everything and open a door before it reaches you. Then there is a floor trap where you have to slow down time, open a door, and get across the room before time runs out and spikes pop out of the floor. While lacking in originality, it's still fun and nicely challenging.
But let's go back and break things down a little bit more. After using the Ram's Horn Kratos will eventually reach this ice room. It's a simple puzzle involving light and melting the ice. I found it funny that when I melted the ice that trapped the bird statue epic music started playing. It sounded like I was in battle, I was expecting enemies to appear but I wasn't being attacked. Well, it turns out that there were two minotaurs frozen in the ice and since I melted all of the ice I finally got to fight them. But they're minotaurs, not exactly a tough fight.
The end of this area involved a fight with old fashioned Cerberus. I hate these things and this fight reaffirmed why. These Cerberus would spit out little Cerberus who would then evolve into big Cerberus. I was very grateful for my Wrath form. Made the fight a lot easier but I still had to kill 6 large Cerberus.
Eventually Kratos comes across another Translator. This is a fun, albeit simple, puzzle. The Translator throws himself off the ledge, but there's a time portal that will take Kratos back to the moment the Translator begins running towards the ledge. With a Statue of the Fates Kratos can slow down time, grab the Translator before he jumps, make the Translator read the nearby book and then Kratos can kill the Translator...*ahem*, I mean "sacrafice" the Translator. Turns out that's why the Translators are there, to be sacrificed. What a horrible job.
The Sister of Fate with the implant returns, congratulates Kratos and encourages him some more. WHAT THE HELL...? Do they want Kratos to reach the temple or not? Can't the Sisters of Fate just cause Kratos' fate to be that he never reaches the temple? Bah whatever, let's just go to the Underground.
The Underground has some odd Phoenix puzzle you have to unlock. The hardest part of this area would be what I call the Flame Wall puzzle. There a giant Phoenix statue on the back of the wall in this room and it's shooting a wall of flame along the entire length of the room. Impossible to avoid, unless you have something to block the flames with. And that's where I got confused. Apparently you're supposed to push some statue into the room and use that to block the flames. For me, the statue didn't stand out so I didn't notice it. I kept trying to figure out how to beat the puzzle and I kept dying. Once I found the stupid statue the puzzle is actually easy to beat. The statue gives Kratos a wide area to play in so fighting the enemies wasn't that hard.
Eventually Kratos releases a Phoenix who is only partially released apparently. The Phoenix is being held high in the air by lave and it appears the lava is keeping it trapped. To fully free the Phoenix Kratos must blow a golden horn. It's a simple puzzle and extremly silly in its execution, but it's probably best not to question it. When the Phoenix is free it kindly knocks some pillars off of their pedestals.
The next puzzle is how to raise the pedastals, but it's not hard so I'm going to skip right to the boss fight. This is pretty cool, Kratos and his unkown assailant fight on a 2D plane in front of a big glass window. Makes me think about Kratos in the upcoming Mortal Kombat reboot. What makes the fight hard is that the Man loves to break Kratos' combos. The Man suffers very little knockback so he won't give Kratos a lot of breathing room. I used my Wrath on him and that ended the fight pretty quickly. Kratos and the Man smash out of the window and the man is revealed to be the Spartan that Kratos talked to after Kratos climbed out of Hades. The Spartan reveals that Sparta has been destroyed by Zeus. Kratos mourns the loss of his city.
Kratos cries out to Zeus to come and fight him directly, but instead a really ugly Kraken shows up. The Kraken wraps it's tentacles around the pedastals and a "not fight" begins. I call it a "not fight" because at the start all Kratos will do is yell at Zeus, he won't attack the Kraken. It's funny to see, but I really wanted to fight. Eventually the Kraken picks Kratos up in a tentacle and prepares to crush him. Cue life saving cutscene.
In the scene Kratos sees his wife who is obviously being played by Gaia. Gaia gives Kratos more strength for his Wrath ability and tells Kratos to fight. Since Kratos assumes it's his wife Kratos finds the courage to overcome his grief and turn it into hate, rage, desire for revenge, or whatever Kratos needs at this point.
The actual Kraken fight begins in earnest now. The Kraken fight is part battle, part platforming action and fairly confusing but lots on fun once you realize what you're doing. I figured out the first part because I had played with the switch before and using bodies as weights has been used a lot during the game. You have to get the Kraken to move his right (your left) tentacle by attacking it. This causes the tentacle to move, you then need to place the body of the Spartan on the plate beneath the tentacle opening a steam vent. With the vent open Kratos can reach the Kraken's face. Eventually the Kraken will block the vent by shoving his tentacle into the vent. This fight actually made me think of the Hydra from the first game (hated that fight, but it was fairly imaginative). I got confused because I didn't realize I was suppose to climb the tentacle. It took me 10 -15 minutes to finally figure this out. Once you do Kratos easily chops off the tentacle. Then you have to do a similar pattern to the other tentacle. The difference is that this tentacle becomes stuck in a wall and not in the ground. You have to reach it from the bottom and climb along it that way. I had a really hard time grabbing a hold of the bottom of the tentacle. But once you do you slice off that tentacle and now Kratos has to deal with the tentacles around the pedestals. Kratos must cause both tentacles to slip at the exact same time. I found this tricky because when I finally got the second tentacle to slip the first one would find it's grip again, but I kept at it and threw in some Wrath just for kicks. Once the Kraken slips on both sides Kratos can pull a level and end the fight by shoving an extending bridge into the Kraken's mouth. Holy crap that fight was fantastic. Once I figured out what to do I had a lot of fun, but that Kraken seems to eager to heal Kratos. It drops health orbs on a regular basis so I was never concerned about dying. But killing the thing was very satisfiying.
With the Kraken dead Kratos can finally reach the Phoenix. And instead of asking the noble bird for a ride to the Temple of Fates, Kratos beats the bird into submission. Sweet! I like Kratos' style of not talking it out. He'll just beat you until you admit that he's right and then he'll probably kill you. He seems to kill everyone he meets.
So that's where I sit. Just inside the Temple of Fates. A place where the Sisters of Fates said I would never reach, at least one of them said that. Another one seemed to be encouraging me to reach it. I don't know what the third one thinks. There are three Sisters right?
Next time: The Temple of Fates. You really should have seen that one coming.
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