As we fought a giant scorpion in God of War III, we couldn't help but remember PS3's first software demonstration, when a similar crab-like foe in Genji: Days of the Blade did "massive damage" to Sony's reputation. If it was THIS that Sony had shown back in 2006, the massive damage would have been to people's wallets as PS3 took over the world.
God of War III is PS3's balls-out blockbuster. And these are some giant set of balls. In fact, we've had to consciously limit our uses of the words 'giant', 'huge', 'massive' and the like in this review because that's what absolutely everything in GoW III is - spectacularly huge. There are enormous chasms, buildings, statues and all manner of enormous beasts. We're talking huge to point of truly awe-inspiring.
The Titans are at the top of the big-list; gi-freaking-normous creatures that could pick up the colossi from Shadow of the Colossus and use them as toothpicks. Seeing the sheer size of these guys conjures up one white wee-wee-inducing thought: This is what a Shadow of the Colossus game on PS3 could be like.
It takes more than a few stabs to the head to take them down too, but as videogaming's lead mentalist, Kratos finds all manner of savage ways to kill his enemies - even those that have nose hairs bigger than him.
The torso of one of these beasts plays host to the first breath-taking moments of the game, picking up right where GoW II left off with Kratos scaling Mount Olympus on the back of the Titan Gaia. The boss fight in the opening moments of GoW III are seriously some of the most incredible we've experienced in games.
You do battle with a water-formed horse. You guessed it - he's ENORMOUS, and he's ripping his way through Gaia. You batter it in the face before swinging spectacularly through the air, slicing chunks out of your foe in the usual GoW-style QTE fashion, landing the final satisfying blow as Kratos screams with rage.
We've seriously never seen videogame visuals so incredible. It's shocking. This is what you've been waiting for, PS3 fans. This is the one you console-war-ranting forum guys can bring up every time. The demo doesn't even come CLOSE to doing the game justice in the visual department, and we don't know what Sony was thinking with some of the god-awful pre-launch screenshots. You've just got to see it in video (right below, chaps).
God of War 3
Gameplay footage
3:18Exclusive: The spectacular opening scenes
God of War 3
Gameplay footage
3:18Exclusive: The spectacular opening scenes
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As you'll have worked out from the demo though, if you've played GoW II the gameplay here is pretty much cut-and-paste stuff; Button-mashing sections are interspersed with spectacular QTE action scenes that usually end with the death of a large critter.
All parts of the gameplay are pretty much identical - you have your standard blades to start with, and gain new weapons as you go - including the awesome Nemean Cestus fists you saw in earlier screenshots (a really awesome weapon) we add. These weapons can then be upgraded with the red orbs you gather, giving you new moves and combos.
You swing weapons around with the Square and Triangle buttons for normal and heavy attacks respectively. Grab moves are on Circle and blocking is executed with L1. However many attacks can't be deflected, in which case a flick of the right analogue stick rolls Kratos out of the way.
Carefully timing your blocks, rolls and attacks are crucial to survival which, as before, adds a hugely strategic element to a game that (especially with the now quadrupled enemy count) looks like thoughtless carnage.
As early screens revealed, you can now take control of certain enemies, commanding large ogres to batter through groups of foes before ripping your temporary helper's eyeball out.
You also have new items like a bow that shoots fire arrows, a pair of boots that let you run up certain pre-defined walls and a head (that you obviously ripped screaming from its owner Helios' body) which shoots a bright light that stuns enemies and reveals secrets.
Despite the familiarity though, the controls can be clunky in places. Pressing L1 just as an enemy hits you parries the attack, following up with a tap of Square to counter. It's a move that requires acute timing. But the same combination of buttons, L1 and Square, also activates a spinning cyclone attack - a long-winded animation that can't be interrupted.
You get into the habit of tapping Square immediately after L1, but on the occasions when your parry fails - easily done in all the chaos - and you hit Square button you enter the cyclone spin that leaves you open for a second blow as you furiously hold block to put your guard up.
That's a problem with controlling Kratos in general - there are too many long and uninterruptible animations. When you hold block, you just want Kratos to block. But when you see an enemy draw back for an attack and you slam L1, Kratos is usually in the middle of some flamboyant spinny move that he MUST finish before he responds.
There are scenes when you're scampering along walls, hitting X to leap along faster, but again this animation is slow and clunky, making necessary changes in direction more difficult and often causing death.
Double jumps have a small window for success too; in an age when most games allow a second jump whenever you like - early for height, later for distance. This is a problem when all hell's breaking loose and you can barely track where you are, where you're going and what platform you need to jump to.
This is perhaps one thing Dante's Inferno has over GoW: it's more responsive. It doesn't matter what Dante is doing, when you press block he just blocks. When you want to roll he rolls. It's one minor difference that has a huge impact on fighting: that sense of immediacy and control.
Parries in Dante's are better too: Dante's deflections send sparks flying as you hear a loud 'CHING' sound, and the special counter-attack is a worthwhile reward - a slow-mo earth-pounding blow that batters enemies across the screen. Kratos's moves are comparatively limp.
At first we thought that, purely because of this, Dante might have just done the impossible and bested God of War. Fighting is, after all, what both games are all about. But God of War III's winning ticket is in it sheer awe-inspiring set pieces.
Outside of the occasional shit puzzle (including one particularly cringe worthy rhythm-action mini-game that has the PlayStation button icons actually drawn into the ancient Greek scenery), you are treated to a barrage of chaotic fight scenes and epic boss battles on a scale larger than any game we've ever played. It's genre defining - something that Dante's fails to be in any area.
And EA's game simply fails to nail Kratos' kill-first-think-later badass attitude. It's void of any form of tact, and has scenes of brutality that even we, as gamers numbed to virtual violence, find squeamish.
But that's what Kratos is about - he doesn't give a monkey's who you are or how big you are; get in his way and you're getting a blade in the eye. Kratos takes no prisoners with this one. There's not a great deal that's new here - it's essentially GoW II on crack, but this nevertheless sets the mark for all-out action brawlers with unrivalled brutality, gore and epic scope.
Wow some of these complaints are hilarious. If I remember correctly the cyclone attack requires you to hold l1 and square at he same time hence L1+square. If you cant co-ordinate that and L1 pause square then I would very much like to see you play ninja gaiden or any beat em up as it would be a great sight.
Sure the block thing can get weird but just look at some of those moves, can you really just stop them and block? In "limp" does he mean the animations are poor? No story details or anything on level design.
Why are these reviews so short and concentrate on things the reviewer is incompetent at? what's with the million dantes references? And how sad is tht HI IM fairy?
Wow some of these complaints are hilarious. If I remember correctly the cyclone attack requires you to hold l1 and square at he same time hence L1+square. If you cant co-ordinate that and L1 pause square then I would very much like to see you play ninja gaiden or any beat em up as it would be a great sight.
Sure the block thing can get weird but just look at some of those moves, can you really just stop them and block?
If you press square anytime after holding block(L1) you perform the cyclone move, you don't HAVE to press both together, hence the complaint that, when trying to perform a counter, if you don't get the timing just right you don't do the move you were trying to do.
Great score but, unfortunately it seems that some of the little niggles from the second game are still there.
I haven't played a GOW before, and the demo didn't show its full potential. SO I'm slightly worried but I know it'll be awesome. I love set-pieces and big bosses!
Luckily "Hi I'm" (a tw@t) comments have been deleted so now maybe we can discuss this game without a generic and crappy FPS being constantly name dropped.
Reviews (personally speaking) mean nothing to me and I was always gonna buy this anyway. I just hope something equally as immense will be released for the Xbox so my consoles are balanced out.
Luckily "Hi I'm" (a tw@t) comments have been deleted so now maybe we can discuss this game without a generic and crappy FPS being constantly name dropped.
Reviews (personally speaking) mean nothing to me and I was always gonna buy this anyway. I just hope something equally as immense will be released for the Xbox so my consoles are balanced out.
Splinter Cell maybe?
You're worse than him/her, so what if he mentioned Halo.
Guess what? Halo Halo Halo Halo Halo oh and Haaaaaalllllllllllooo.
Luckily "Hi I'm" (a tw@t) comments have been deleted so now maybe we can discuss this game without a generic and crappy FPS being constantly name dropped.
Reviews (personally speaking) mean nothing to me and I was always gonna buy this anyway. I just hope something equally as immense will be released for the Xbox so my consoles are balanced out.
Splinter Cell maybe?
You're worse than him/her, so what if he mentioned Halo.
Guess what? Halo Halo Halo Halo Halo oh and Haaaaaalllllllllllooo.
If you press square anytime after holding block(L1) you perform the cyclone move, you don't HAVE to press both together, hence the complaint that if you don't get the timing just right you don't do the move you were trying to do.
Great score but, unfortunately it seems that some of the little niggles from the second game are still there.
so they have changed the button config? That wasnt the case in the 1st two which I was going off of.
Luckily "Hi I'm" (a tw@t) comments have been deleted so now maybe we can discuss this game without a generic and crappy FPS being constantly name dropped.
Reviews (personally speaking) mean nothing to me and I was always gonna buy this anyway. I just hope something equally as immense will be released for the Xbox so my consoles are balanced out.
Splinter Cell maybe?
You're worse than him/her, so what if he mentioned Halo.
Sorry Marlonjb but you're an hypocrite, and I'm 6? Says the one starting on Hi IM for mentioning Halo Reach, also adding "a TW@T" after his/her name isn't exactly mature is it.
Now that's out of the way, I though you hold L1 and press Square? I'm sure you did in the demo, also, the controls in the demo are identical to GoWII.
Now that's out of the way, I though you hold L1 and press Square? I'm sure you did in the demo, also, the controls in the demo are identical to GoWII.
I'm surprised you even know how to spell that.
But yeah I'm a hypocrite because I wanted to discuss Gow 3 and not HR. The discussion got bogged down because of another retard and now you're just picking up the slack.
Anyway I cant be @rsed talking to some inbred loser. The 19th cant come quick enough.
Now that's out of the way, I though you hold L1 and press Square? I'm sure you did in the demo, also, the controls in the demo are identical to GoWII.
I'm surprised you even know how to spell that.
But yeah I'm a hypocrite because I wanted to discuss Gow 3 and not HR. The discussion got bogged down because of another retard and now you're just picking up the slack.
Anyway I cant be @rsed talking to some inbred loser. The 19th cant come quick enough.
As far as I remember, he only mentioned Halo Reach, you were the one who started on him/her.
You're a troll, all I've seen you do is pick on others.
Now that's out of the way, I though you hold L1 and press Square? I'm sure you did in the demo, also, the controls in the demo are identical to GoWII.
I'm surprised you even know how to spell that.
But yeah I'm a hypocrite because I wanted to discuss Gow 3 and not HR. The discussion got bogged down because of another retard and now you're just picking up the slack.
Anyway I cant be @rsed talking to some inbred loser. The 19th cant come quick enough.
That's it, prove to everyone you're a troll, I doubt mummy will let you play it, you're too young.
A troll? this coming from the douche who starts calling people hypocrites because they wanna talk about one game instead of another?
Well, with logic like that I'd hate to see your stupidity. Then again it manifests itself well in your writing.
Good luck in life dude you're obviously gonna need it.
I think its pretty obvious GoW3 would be getting 9's across the board, sure it might not be revolutionary but it sounds like a Fun, Fun Game. Which is the main reason that ive been playing Games all these years.
Now all I need to do is get a PS3 , in the meantime ill be having a go at this at my friends this weekend. Anyone know how long the Game should take to complete (roughly)?
Please, please, please can you take video game journalism a little more seriously than you currently do. You're reviews are possibly the worst written on the web, and that includes the random ramblings of fanboys on internet forums.
Outside of the occasional s**t puzzle
Is the above really something you'd expect from a professional reviewer? 's**t'?? Really? he couldn't think of an adjective other than 's**t'? ...Really?
also adding "a TW@T" after his/her name isn't exactly mature is it.
For the record "Hi I'm" is definitely a TW@T. You would know this if you've read any of his post. He talks about Halo: Reach in every single thread, no matter what the subject.
I've heard GoWIII takes 15-20 hours to complete.What I wanna know is, how the hell is your friend getting it early?
If you work, or have friends that wotk at Gamestop, you can get the game early.
My apologies, I've only seen HI IM mention Halo Reach once.
Still, Marlonjb seems to be a lot worse than him, what with all the unnecessary name calling.
Oh well only a week to go, I'll have FFXIII and Yakuza 3 to tie me over.
I'm sure that's false, either way I'd rather find out for myself, someone could say Kratos is reunited with his family, without seeing how he actually ends up being reunited with them for myself, it doesn't bother me as much.
Still what Focker has done is disgraceful, just because it was ruined for you (if it's true), doesn't mean you should ruin it for everyone.
Besides Kratos has died in the other 3 GoW, only to return again.
I wouldn't worry about some muppet on here trying to give away a spoiler to ruin the game claiming that Kratos dies. I'd be more suprised if he didn't as he hasn't let a little thing like death end his story in the past so am sure at some point he probably does, in fact i would be disappointed if he didn't. It's just gonna make him more p**ssed off!
People saying this game takes 15-20 hours to complete are wrong, it takes 10-12 hours, it's shorter than God of war 2. And a warning about spoilers. TThe amount of spoiler ridden posts from retards on games like Haeavy Rain, God of war 3, FFXIII has reaced epic levels on most gaming sites. It seems gamers are becoming more retarded by the day, so do yourself a favour and avoid forums on games you are about to play.
9.2/10...so the same as FF XIII, not sure if thats a good thing or not. Well at the very least, it sounds freaking awesome with great scores across the board!
As for the little flame war, well I think anyone who disses the other console for no reason is a tw@t. I have seen that guy before bring up Halo Reach for no apparent reason and if you defend him, well your a tw@t to. And yes that goes to SVD and his nemesis Dorian...im a PS3 fanboy but you dont see me just insulting the 360. I have nothing to prove to any of you strangers and you should feel the same.
Besides, we should be celbrating...THE NINTENDO DS ADVERT IS GONE!!!!
Just remember that whole Luther King speech but instead of peace between races, try to think of it with peace between xbox gamers and ps3 gamers...I HAVE A DREAM.
good to see the ps3 going strength to strength while the 360's limitations are getting increasingly exposed.
Another dig at the 360 lol you sad little man who would want this on the 360 when Dantes did a much better job HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
9.2/10...so the same as FF XIII, not sure if thats a good thing or not. Well at the very least, it sounds freaking awesome with great scores across the board!
As for the little flame war, well I think anyone who disses the other console for no reason is a tw@t. I have seen that guy before bring up Halo Reach for no apparent reason and if you defend him, well your a tw@t to. And yes that goes to SVD and his nemesis Dorian...im a PS3 fanboy but you dont see me just insulting the 360. I have nothing to prove to any of you strangers and you should feel the same.
Besides, we should be celbrating...THE NINTENDO DS ADVERT IS GONE!!!!
Just remember that whole Luther King speech but instead of peace between races, try to think of it with peace between xbox gamers and ps3 gamers...I HAVE A DREAM.
That had to be the most annoying advert I've come across.
good to see the ps3 going strength to strength while the 360's limitations are getting increasingly exposed.
Another dig at the 360 lol you sad little man who would want this on the 360 when Dantes did a much better job HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
LMAO. You are f**king kidding right? Dante's was cack after you got over the initial demon's in Hell thing. Play God Of War and you'll see that it is a rich man compared to Dante's poor man.
good to see the ps3 going strength to strength while the 360's limitations are getting increasingly exposed.
Another dig at the 360 lol you sad little man who would want this on the 360 when Dantes did a much better job HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
good to see the ps3 going strength to strength while the 360's limitations are getting increasingly exposed.
Another dig at the 360 lol you sad little man who would want this on the 360 when Dantes did a much better job HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
balking in jealousy and denial right there.
i suppose you own dantes, yeah? ...
I do. It does a decent job too. God of War with a new setting. Combats even a little tighter in places too. God of War 3 will undoubtably be a fantastic game too.
However they are both pretty stale in comparison to Bayonetta.
However they are both pretty stale in comparison to Bayonetta.
I found Bayonetta to be one of the most overated games i have ever played. I really couldn't get into it at all. Buts it's all about opinions and i respect yours. For me God of War is on a whole other level completely.
As for svd why bother continuously baiting the 360 owners? Im sorry it's just sad and shows you really must have something missing in your life if thats how you get your kicks. You don't whind the majority up on here, we just pity you and your types as we go on about our daily lives leaving you to check every topic where someone has said something about a console you own ready for you to defend its honour, its weird,lol.
This is a public forum so esentailly we're all talking openly to whoever cares to read the comments. anyway...
I've played the demo of GOW3 and read reviews from several sites. The overall impressiojn i get is that its very pretty, has some great set peices, but doesn't actually bring anything new to the table.
At this juncture Bayonetta sounds like the best of the three. Once i've played and finished GOW3 in a few weeks my opinion may be different.
On a vaguely related subject, has anyone played the Dantes inferno forest DLC and Is it worth the £4?
At this juncture Bayonetta sounds like the best of the three. Once i've played and finished GOW3 in a few weeks my opinion may be different.
Agreed. Whilst i've no doubts that GOW3 will be amazing and i'll probably play it constantly until its finished (and then restart it right away)it's not really bringing anything new to the table gameplay wise. Bayonetta on the other hand brought some new idea's to the table and was completely bonkers at the same time. Infact i'd say its probably been the best game of its type since the original Devil May Cry.
Yeah it's on the PSN it's kinda really short. After a few practice run through's I did it next to ten minutes. Enemies are re skinned from the main game, you get a new costume and a new relic. the only sort of new content is the puzzles which are not that hard once you understand the trick.
good to see the ps3 going strength to strength while the 360's limitations are getting increasingly exposed.
Another dig at the 360 lol you sad little man who would want this on the 360 when Dantes did a much better job HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
balking in jealousy and denial right there.
i suppose you own dantes, yeah? ...
It was a joke you plonker hence the many Ha's after it Just to set the record straight i prefer GowIII(from what ive played in the demo)
Nice one, good job I passed up on it then, I wanted it as it's suppossdly a prequel level.
Back to GoWIII, I've heard it looks better than Uncharted 2 and I've also heard it takes 2 360's hooked up to play GoWIII's title screen. I remember when they said MGS4 was too powerful to play on a 360, probably just more famboy talk.
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, in the meantime ill be having a go at this at my friends this weekend. Anyone know how long the Game should take to complete (roughly)?
. For some reason I thought it was out on Friday, put it down to old age 
