By any standard you go by; God of War 3 is a phenomenal action experience that rounds off Kratos's adventures in style.
God of War 3 takes the "direct sequel" business to a whole new level, picking up right from where God of War 2's promising cliffhanger left off. Kratos stands on the back of the Earth Titan Gaia proclaiming to be the harbinger of Olympus' destruction, the God of War games have always opened with an exercise in raw spectacle and God of War 3 trumps its predecessors opening moments in every respect. After presenting the tremendous scope of the situation the camera zooms in onto Kratos on the back of Gaia, and by that time your jaw will be making a spirited attempt to reach the floor. The scale is literally mind-blowing, Gaia rocks and trembles as she scales Mount Olympus and you are right in the middle of it all. God of War 3 never fails to make the world seem colossal and Kratos feel small by comparison. The technical wizardry on display here trumps even the most advanced of PC titles as not once does the framerate falter, the screen tear or the game crash under the sheer enormity of God of War 3.
Once you've finished gawping at huge scenery and finally get down to examining God of War 3 in detail the astonishment at Santa Monica's ability to make a game look good doesn't let up. The world is gorgeously designed with fantastical details, featuring stunning artistic design throughout and the fixed camera angles always manage to highlight the artistic flair of the game even during combat. God of War 2 set a bar for artistic integrity and design and God of War 3 smashes it with its combination of mythos-inspired architecture and the dramatic flair of the level of artistic license that only games can get away with.
This stunning backdrop is complemented by Santa Monica's evident mastery of the PS3 hardware, as the last game eked previously unseen levels of detail from old hardware, so God of War 3 brings it technical fidelity to amazing levels. You can see pores, veins and muscles flexing and tensing on Kratos' body, a Gorgon's body coils and undulates as she moves, steam puffs from the minotaur's nostrils as you present you blade to its protesting maw and the boob physics have been given a disturbing amount of attention.
The world itself is lavishly detailed, highlighted with strong lighting and deft camera work makes sure you see every inch of it, the game knows how good it looks and it never fails to point you at an incredible vista or locale and say "Yes, it does look f***ing awesome see?" God of War 3 displays the true potential of the PS3 like no other game before or since and one could wax lyrical for hours about the fact that a game running on 6 year old hardware is probably the best looking game on any platform to date.
Rounding off the visual alchemy of Santa Monica's bespoke PS3 engine are production values that reach the high standards set by the series thus far. The musical score is both varied and grandiose with an emphasis on bombastic brass, soaring choir vocals and dramatic string sections. Everything from the cutscenes to the voice-acting has the same degree of flair and confidence, Santa Monica have even implemented stylish and phenomenally well-done graphic-novel cutscenes to frame the frequent launches into full exposition by the superb cast of voice-actors.
Though the mix of accents can be jarring as the traditional british accents of Corey Burton as Zeus, the ubiquitous Malcolm McDowell as Daedalus and Susan Blakeslee as Gaia are set against American cadences from TC Carson's Kratos and Rip Torn's stunning rendition of Hephaestus, the voice-talent is nevertheless superb and the game even does a Perseus on us and gets Kevin Sorbo to reprise his role as the voice of Hercules.
The story itself does feel a tad contrived at times, the goal being "kill Zeus" at the start of the game obviously wouldn't carry a 10 hour experience so Santa Monica have added liberal daubs of sentiment that seems crowbar-ed into what was meant to be a simple revenge tale and arbitrary obstacles that force you to go somewhere else to get something to progress the story. Though the end to Kratos' story is satisfying it does feel like you had to wade through an awful lot of menial and very gamey story-driven objectives in order to get there. The narrative isn't helped by Kratos who has progressed from badass anti-hero to bloodthirsty madman which means the only reason you'll want to see the end is to witness the way Kratos deals with his final attempt at vengeance and luckily that attempt is damn fun to watch playing itself out.
This doesn't help the games structure either as you're constantly revisiting old areas for a moment while you go through a previously locked door to open up a whole new locale which is a bit weird and disjointed compared to the epic journeys the last games had going for them. The game lacks a sense of momentum in its pacing as its set in one location, there's never a sense that a great undertaking is going on, you're just sorting stuff out before the final confrontation and this lack of inertia will be extremely noticeable to series veterans and makes the game seem slow frequently throughout the game's run time.
Where GoW3 falls down in presentation is the writing. The last game kept the storytelling simple, details were filled in by visual cues in the environment and the moments of exposition were short and spread out. Here characters frequently dive into protracted explanations of story events in an attempt to make everything seem so very interconnected. It's well implemented but the script itself doesn't have the same kick that Corey Barlog who directed and wrote last game lent to the lines of God of War 2. Expect no "I AM WHAT THE GODS MADE ME" moments here, it's not bad but it's not memorable either.
What is memorable and always has been for the series is the joyously accessible action gameplay. Previous games had an even split of combat, puzzle-solving and platforming (sometimes all three at once) but God of War 3 places heavy emphasis on the hack n slashery that the series has become notorious for. Though the pace and flow of the combat has been increased significantly the mechanics and orchestration remain the same. The game introduces you to new enemies and elements then chucks you in at the deep end, demands that you swim and you'll have a huge amount of bloody fun figuring out how. God of War 3 favours outright aggression and actively rewards you for having fun with the mechanics, something that makes the game worth multiple replays for the sheer enjoyment value of its combat.
Though the series has never been known for its evolution, Santa Monica has made some significant changes to the combat system and how you can form your own method of play. Key to this is three surprisingly fun secondary weapons that are just as feasible as the iconic chain blades for completing the game's myriad challenges with depending on how you want to play, they add some variety to the gameplay that previous games have lacked and they're all riotously good to experiment with.
It all boils down to the sense that in God of War 3 the series' gameplay has been honed and fine- tuned to a razor sharp edge, it's the culmination of 5 years of development over 3 games and all the best combat-related elements have been picked and chosen to make this the best playing game of the three.
Sadly the "puzzle" sections are neither as grandiose or intelligent as they were back in the previous games. Most of the door-opening puzzles require Neanderthalic levels of intelligence without the refreshing common sense solutions of previous God of Wars and "real" puzzles are few and far between. Even when you get a proper puzzle room the game will disappoint, one is a blatant ripoff of Portal and another is a rhythm mini-game that is so mind-bogglingly stupid and contrived that you wonder what the hell Santa Monica was thinking when they put it in, only one puzzle lives up to the high standards of the series and it does make up for some of GoW3 puzzle-based blunders. The platforming sections are nothing special until you start climbing and killing very big things and they at least showcase the aforementioned gorgeous vistas
With only the combat being the main focus, God of War 3 is best played on Titan (Hard) difficulty to get as much mileage as possible out of the game. Anything below that is far too easy for a God of War veteran which is odd considering how many times God of War 2 on normal kicked my arse. Suffice to say Kratos' last adventure can be as easy or as masochistic as you want it to be but it's a shame that the default difficulty of Spartan (normal) only presents a challenge in the final hours of the game.
Luckily God of War 3 delivers on what the series does best, namely brutality and boss battles. The bosses here are frequent, challenging, multi-stage affairs with shockingly brutal deaths of those foolish enough to stand in the way of Kratos. The battles with those privileged few of Olympus are the absolute highlights of the game as they frequently incorporate the best of Santa Monica's scale-based stylings with a focus on stylish action sequences powered by QTEs. There are moments that surpass the regions of bad taste into depths of almost unimaginable nausea-inducing violence in these battles and the game makes sure the bosses you encounter die horrible deaths
The violence here transcends the "ultra" classification into a whole new realm of almost exploitation-level gore and slaughter as Kratos dispatches his foes with gory finesse. The technical limitations of the PS2 haunt Kratos' quest for brutality towards mythological creatures no more and so now you can witness the God of War formula in all its gut-spilling, blood showering and bone breaking next-generation detail. God of War 3 should be played after a week of Little Big Planet or another similar cute platformer for the sheer shock value of the horrors that Kratos will perpetrate. You know that line that games aren't really supposed to cross? Well God of War 3 crosses it several times over and revels in every eyeball ripping, neck snapping and throat stabbing moment of it with each piece of bodily debris rendered in indecent and loving detail. The violence has to be seen to be believed and if you're not disgusted, shocked and whooping with warped sadistic glee as Kratos rams a Chimera's horn into its own eye then this is not the game for you.
It may not be perfect in every detail but God of War 3 delivers where it matters, ending the series tale well enough while providing PS3 owners with feast of shockingly brutal and enjoyable gameplay, raucously fun boss fights and production values, both visual and auditory, that set a new high standard for videogame entertainment. Though it loses some of what made the last game the legend that it now is, God of War 3 is a stunning action game which every PS3 owner should have in their library