God of War III Review "Excellent"

God of War III came out last week, and with that release came a lot of anticipation. This is the final game in the God of War trilogy, and the game surely did not disappoint. [This review will not contain any spoilers]. I do not have much experience with the God of War series, let alone beat em' up titles. How did this game stack up to my standards of a game? God of War III is one of the best games I have played, despite minor short comings. Let's start with the good sides of the game.


Graphics (10/10) A+
The graphics are epic. I was playing this on a 1080p television of course, but every detail of the game makes it look real. You can see the pores on Kratos's skin. His weapons are ultra realistic, and the gods and titans look REAL. The voice acting was also done exceptionally well. They pulled all the stops out in the graphics department- I cannot complain. The graphics are almost perfect.


User Interface (10/10) A+
The game is easy to navigate through the menus. The game provides helpful hints, especially at times where they told you how to do something before, and just as a reminder, it will remind you on screen so that you won't have to pause and check the moves list. That was very thoughtful of development. The item level up system was clear and well designed, as well as improvements for Kratos (health, magic and item power upgrades).


Controls (9.25/10) A-

The controls are easy to learn, and through much of the game you can go through hacking and slashing. On higher difficulties, you should learn some of the combos. There are a LOT of moves to learn in this game in between all of the weapons and items. Sometimes I switched weapons when I didn't want to, or my depth perception was off when attempting to glide. As well, sometimes I couldn't glide. These minor discrepancies didn't keep me from enjoying the game, though.


Difficulty (9.25/10) A-

This game can be difficult on the harder difficulties- and for hardcore gamers this is what we need in a good video game. It was slightly challenging on the easiest difficulty setting, allowing players a second walkthrough that is more of a challenge. I died A LOT playing this game.


Gameplay (9/10) A

Characters in the game move fluidly- the combat felt intuitive and was highly enjoyable. My only complaint with gameplay are a few minor technical glitches I found during one or two boss fights, and then again traveling to the Realm of Hades (where I got stuck and had to reset the game). You can work around these shortcomings, and when you do, they don't detract from the gameplay experience. I could sense that the development team put a lot of work into this title, and I'm not going to harp on about minor issues. The puzzles were well designed, clever, witty, and I loved them. No bugs there, either. The cinematics and combat scenes... I just can't comment on the awesomeness.


Story (8.5/10) B

In my opinion this is where the game suffers the most. As a first time player of the series, I felt the pace of the story was slow in the beginning, and I felt that I didn't know enough to be able to tell what was going on. Near the middle of the game the story really picks up. This game's outline is as follows: slow, faster, and fastest. I completed the game in about 8 hours (and that was diddle-dawdling around), and I expected the game to be a bit longer. At the same time, I havn't explored my second playthrough.


Overall: 93% Excellent Game

This game, in my opinion is a reason to purchase a PS3 system. This game was carefully designed with the gamer in mind. Devs also implemented extra features and harder difficulty levels for those of us that are hardcore. I enjoyed this game, and I will probably play it through a few times more.