The Good: Great production value Larger than life battles Brutal and Gory Insanely fun start to finish Graphics king

The Bad: No scene selection option It ended

I’ve never been this excited about reviewing a game before and, to be frank, I wasn’t that excited about reviewing God of War III before I played it. I never really boarded the God of War III hype train – sure, I was looking forward to playing it and all, it just never really got me. With the abundance of button mashing hack n’ slash games out on the market today I could have easily waited a lot longer for God of War III – but now that I’ve had the chance to play through it I take my words back – God of War III cannot come soon enough!

The game begins where it’s prequel ended; Kratos climbing up Mount Olympus, slaughtering undead beasties, demons, and even innocents (if they get in his way). The plot is quite simple this time around; vengeance! You know what they say, the simple things in life are often the best, well in this case it’s true. Kratos is literally hell-bent to end his father’s wrath once and for all – for those of you just tuning in to the series his father just so happens to be the Alpha and the Omega, Zeus. Kratos will stop at nothing to have his vengeance, he will bring the whole of Olympia if he has to.

We’re off to one epic prologue; you fighting beasties, beasties fighting the Titans, and the Titans fighting the Gods. Though, to begin with, your only goal is to lay waste to the hordes of badies that come running at you, you can certainly feel the war in all it’s glory and you will be overwhelmed by it most of the time. With such an intense beginning one would think that the game would have a hard time keeping that tempo throughout the game, but that’s not the case at all; there’s never a dull moment in God of War III.

I dare say that the graphics of God of War III out-do anything that the PlayStation 3 has to offer today; and yes, that includes Uncharted 2. Though it may be hard to notice at times, because of the dark and doomy ambiance, the game is a visual masterpiece that does not suffer from any technical short-comings; never a bad texture, jagged edge, or a tear in the screen – it’s solid, smooth, and as sharp as the blades Kratos himself uses. Any developer that manages to deliver such flawless graphics in such an extremely epic game deserves a cookie.

The gameplay alone holds God of War III’s crushing weight. Combat is never boring and upgrades are fun to unlock and worthy of your efforts. Kratos can ‘unlock’ five different kinds of melee weapons, and three different kinds of ‘miscellaneous’ weapons. Each weapon provides a unique and enjoyable gameplay experience. Most weapons also have their very own finishing moves, and these finishing moves also change depending on the enemy you are slaying. Your survival, and progress , depends on different coloured orbs. Red orbs are used as the currency to upgrade, or ‘power-up’, your weapons. The green orbs replenish your health. Blue orbs regenerate your mana, and white orbs power up one of your special weapons.

The difficulty is fairly balanced yet still very challenging. You have three difficulty settings to choose from straight off the bat; Spartan (Easy), God (Normal), and Titan (Hard) – once you’ve beaten the game you can unlock the Chaos difficulty (Very Hard). I played it through on the normal setting and still had one hell of a time trying to get through the game – so, I can just imagine how hard I would get my arse kicked in Chaos. I know, all you hardcore God of War fans are probably laughing at me, and it’s okay, I deserve it – I am not worth! I am not worthy!

God of War III also promises a lot of replay value. First, and foremost, the game is just so incredibly fun that you will want to play it again, and again, and again, and again. The boss fights are the most epic moments in history of gaming, period! Each fight is so different, and the experience so unique; playing through the game I think I am left fully satisfied as a gamer – there are elements from all the greatest games used, not only in boss fights but, throughout the entire game – I could write up a ten page essay if I gave you all the details, but I wont ruin the surprise and will let you experience them for yourself. Oh, and back to boss fights; as Gametíví said late last month “Epic – understatement of the year” — they are larger than life itself and will most likely leave you in a state of awe.

The thing I loved most about the game is Kratos and how darn brutal he is. The things he does to his foes will make even you feel sorry for them. If they had a ‘show mercy’ button I would not think twice about using it – shees, Kratos, you bring the pain like it’s never been brought – but then again, Kratos wasn’t the God of War for no reason at all. I am willing put money on this: I have no doubt that when you witness some of the stuff Kratos does you will shout one of the following phrases out at the top of your lungs; a) Hell Yes, Kratos! b) Oh, my [explicit deleted] God! –  Kratos is so hardcore that he makes King Leonidas look like Chris Crocker (Leeeaave Zuuues Alloooone), and the rest of the 300 look like the cast from Rent. God of War III is so brutal that it makes the entire Mortal Kombat series seem like kindergarten, and Dante’s Inferno seem like Blues Clues — you get the idea.

However, with all this being said there is ONE thing that the game is lacking; a chapter selection option. I would love to be able to go straight back to some of God of War III’s epic moments as soon as I’ve beaten the game, and soon as I realised that I needed to make individual saves for me to be able to go back to a certain part of the game I cried a little, inside – good thing there were topless big breasted Olympian women there to comfort me (I’m lookin’ at you, Aphrodite) – and, oh yes, they jiggle (suck it, Heavy Rain)!

God of War III is perfect for what it is and king of it’s gameplay genre: the slasher. If you don’t own a PlayStation 3 you should go out now and buy one, you will need it to play God of War III — and if you don’t you can barely call yourself a gamer and should be ashamed of yourself – God of War III is more than likely to be chosen Game of the Year, and is the game everyone needs to own – enough said.

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