Sleepy Gamer

I know the Net is already saturated with God of War III info, but I thought that I should share my 2 cents.  Being a huge fan of the God of War franchise myself, you can probably take my opinion with a grain of salt.  But when you have tight controls, beautiful graphics, and the hi-def boobies … who isn’t a fan of that?  Show me a game with all those qualities that didn’t make your top 10 list.  Garret and I waited well over an hour just to play this game at E3, so was it worth the wait?  Hell yeah it was.

Story
If you’ve completed part 2 of the series, you must have wanted to kill yourself after witnessing that disappointing cliffhanger.  Seeing Kratos leading the Titans to Mount Olympus for the climactic battle with the Gods sure was exhilarating.  Until you were abruptly left with: “The end begins…”  It might as well have said, “Please reserve God of War 3 at your local Gamestop”.  Unfortunately, this 20 minute demo doesn’t reveal anything new about the story either.  As soon as you press the Start button, you’re immediately thrown into the heat of the battle with no where to go, but forward.  You only see the fire Titan in the background throwing fireballs and wrecking havock in the city below.  But other than that, the entire demo doesn’t explain where your other Titan buddies went.

Gameplay
Like it’s predecessors, the game feels very much like the former entries in the series.  That’s definitely not a bad thing.  Why fix something that wasn’t broken?  You have your trusty “Blades of Chaos” as your primary weapon which handles the same way that you remember them.  New to the series though is the Cestus which are essentially huge stone gloves shaped like a lion’s head.  They handle the same as the Gauntlets introduced in the PSP adaption of God of War.  Only this time, there are 2 of them and you can use it for both melee and range attacks.  The Cestus is particularly good for breaking down enemy with shields, or even take down big baddies like the Cyclops. 

Speaking of the Cyclops, you can now mount on one to clear out any grunts standing in your path.  To control the Cyclops, you’ll need to continually dig your blades into its back and cause it enough pain for it to deliriously swat anything in its way.  It’s quite interesting to see how each enemy reacts to you.  If you shoot a flaming arrow at an enemy, it will hysterically run around and catch other baddies on fire as well.  In addition, enemies are a lot smarter and will strategically attack in squads.  You can actually pick out the leader as they direct and their cronies to take you out.

Graphics
Although the first 2 games really pushed the PS2 to the limit, this entry may be no different for the PS3.  Judging from these screenshots, you can already see how phenomenal this game looks.  Everything from the lighting effects, character models, even the walls and floors were highly detailed and remained true to the series.  In my opinion, the in-game graphics looked as good, if not better, than the CG cutscenes from the first 2 games. There clearly has been no attention to detail left unturned.  Keep in mind that all of the eye candy was executed without the use of any load screens.  Each levels were seamlessly loaded without ever taking the player out of the experience.

Did I mention that this game is violent?  It may appear even more so with the move to hi-def.  In the previous games, the blood and gore were represented as sprays of mist that sprinkled onto the ground.  Now, with the power of the PS3, blood gushes out of your enemies like an erupting fountain.  The blood is thick, yet it still attains its liquid properties as it is splattered onto the floor.  At first, there’s a sense of disgust, but then comes the smile of satisfaction.  The God of War developers sure have come up with extremely creative ways to desecrate your victims.  Imagine getting your horns getting torn out of your skull just to get immediately impaled with it.  That has to be up there with someone cutting off your hand only to bitch slap you with it.
 

Impressions
Like I said before, it was well worth the hour wait in line to have a chance to play this game.  You owe it to yourself as a PS3 owner to buy this game.  Even if you haven’t played the first 2 entries, the addictive gameplay aspect alone should warrant its purchase.  Plus, part 3 is not due for release until March 2010 which gives you plenty of time to finish part 1 and 2 in the series.  You can actually get them both on Ebay for $10 each, so you’ve ran out of excuses.  Although this is supposed to be the last game in the trilogy, I’m sure Sony will find some way to make 10 more games based on this franchise.  Let’s just hope this series doesn’t get old like Guitar Hero.