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.