God of War III Catch-All

Reviews are hitting the net today.

Lots of reviews. Ars Technica, Joystiq, and one of my favorite sites Gametrailers (I like visuals)

All of the reviews mention over the top violence. I think I will avoid it. I think Ars Technica said it best for me

The goal of all this violence? It's not "saving the world for democracy" or rescuing a fair maiden or a lost child; it's sheer vengeful nihilism. While this attitude fits the setting and is there to tell a very specific story, it will turn off some gamers. Let that be a warning... or possibly an invitation.

I hope we get to kill more characters from Clash of the Titans. hmmm might be all dead except. No wait there are at least two I'm sure are alive since I send screen shots.

There are a lot of pics on GAF of people who already have the game. Grrrrrrrr.

GOW1's Kratos killed my PS3 yesternight, literally. I had just beaten Ares and was fending off my evil selves from my wife and child but I think all the Kratos' on screen was just overwhelming, and my poor porcelain white princess blew a fuse. If plans go accordingly it should be operational by the weekend, but alas I have no chance to finish I and II before III comes out.

Despite a personal media blackout, I have read that the game is running in 720p, and varies between 30-60fps depending on scene complexity. I also read that game developers were calling the finished product much better than the E3 demo released on the PSN. I for one cannot f*cking wait to play this game--I just wish I had a movie theater to play it in.

Damn, GT and IGN reviews make me want to go out and buy PS3 just to play this game.

Also, Kratos for some reason makes me think of our own Chiggie.

Am I the only one who snickers every time a Clash of the Titans trailer comes on? Ooooooo, watch out Zeus, it's the Avatar guy!

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Damn, GT and IGN reviews make me want to go out and buy PS3 just to play this game.

Same here, too bad I can't find one anywhere. Once I do I'll likely get the collection and play through them all - they look amazing.

Is the game in 720p? I thought I had read somewhere that this was going to be one of the rarities running in 1080p.

Or I could have just made that up from wishful thinking. Seems more likely...

Dyni wrote:

Is the game in 720p? I thought I had read somewhere that this was going to be one of the rarities running in 1080p.

Or I could have just made that up from wishful thinking. Seems more likely...

It was most likely Sony PR over promising as usual. The developers probably had little to do with the 1080p promise.

http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/201...

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Am I the only one who snickers every time a Clash of the Titans trailer comes on?

The first time I saw this trailer, I was absolutely sure it was announcing a God of War movie.

On GameHounds (one of my newly-acquired favorite gaming podcasts), when they have a news item about a particularly stupid decision/person they have a sound clip they play:

"Release the Kraken!"

Dyni wrote:

Is the game in 720p? I thought I had read somewhere that this was going to be one of the rarities running in 1080p.

Or I could have just made that up from wishful thinking. Seems more likely...

Ah, thanks. Well at least I know I didn't just pull that out of my ass!

Today the Gods of Olympus will die.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Today the Gods of Olympus will die.

I've forgiven my job for a lot of things. I may not be able to forgive making me feel uncomfortable asking for time off today. I'm 1 asshat e-mail away from pulling my boss' eyes out.

I'm only past the opening level but wow. If you liked the first 2 you're gonna love this.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Today the Gods of Olympus will die.

Today, the Gods of Olympus will have to wait for me to get home from the late shift at work.

Gods of Olympus are waiting for my GF to get home. She took a liking to Dante's Inferno and hates watching FF13. Turns out she's a fan of the hack-and-slash type games. Figures she has to be working late tonight!

UGH... Be warned... The hard setting is exactly that HARD. Boss fights are unforgiving on this setting... Be prepared for lots of restarts... "Do you want to set to easy" be damned!!!

Played to the first save point.
I died before the first save point by a cute seahorse. I'm a little rusty it seems. Second go went much better but I'm still randomly pressing buttons instead of getting a good feel for what I'm doing. The Gods are putting up a good fight. Kratos might be fighting alone if this keeps up. I'm not exactly sure if any of the titans were taken out or if they will get back up and start the climb again. I'm sure Kratos can handles things alone if need be.

If you haven't played the first two you might want to read up on what happen in the last two games. The intro has images from the first two games but they won't make any sense to you if you haven't played them. I'm surprise they didn't give more of a overview but I have only been playing for 20 minutes or so. They haven't even raped me of my powers yet.

Make sure to read all the books so you don't miss anything.

well I restarted on normal. If you choose hard there is no way to back it down to normal. You get the option to set it to easy if you continue to die but then it locks in at easy for the entire game. I wish they had made a design decision to allow difficulty level changes on the fly...

So be warned.... Hard isn't bad except for the boss fights and then it's damn near impossible...

Spoiler:

The boss Hades had me trying for 30 minutes on hard before restarting the game on normal

The Gods of Olympus are a little out of my price range, since I'm saving for PAX.

JC - I started the game on normal and would say it's still quite challenging. I just got to the point after killing your spoiler boss and decided to take a break. There's so much going on it's almost a visual overload! Not that it's a bad thing but I might go back to FF13 for a couple hours to calm me down. WOW the game is amazing so far. I definitely am enjoying it more than the first two.

Wow... I think my mouth has been open for most of my playtime so far. I absolutely love the new weapons. I almost exclusively used the chain blades in the first 2 games because the extra weapons just didn't cut it. Both of the new weapons I've gotten in GoW III are equally useful to the main blades, and it's a breeze to switch weapons mid combo now.

Does anyone else enjoy the raw brutality in this game more than they probably should? Some of these beat-downs are insanely gory, and I have a gigantic smile plastered across my face during every one of them so far.

So can we get some of those so-called "spoilers" going already? Basically, how does the whole story end?

Having tons of fun so far. I'm glad I went with Hard; it was satisfying beating the second god in that difficulty. I do have some spoiler questions about the second weapon.

Spoiler:

There are apparently nine or so different summons for the claws. What are they for? It feels like they all function pretty similarly (at least true for the first three). I wonder what encounters down the line can offer such specific challenge that I will feel compelled to choose one over the others. I'm all for flexibility, but this is a little overwhelming.

The fact that there aren't more posts in this thread must be indicitive of the low PS3 usage by goojerdom. I'm surprised that a game of this calibre isn't attracting more notice.

This is a good game. A great game. Maybe some of the ambivalence is that this game is not in the least surprising. Think to yourself what God of War would be like in HD with no technological limitations and this game is that. It delivers in multiple ways but perhaps its greatest achievement is actually living up to its hype.

When I played Bayonetta earlier this year I thought to myself that it may eclipse God of War but now that I've played God of War 3 I realize just how fluid and satisfying the combat is. Bayonetta is a great game with incredible boss fights and GOW3 makes it look pedestrian in comparison.

It's not a situation of form over substance, either. THis game plays with such buttery smoothness the only brawler I can really compare it to is Ninja Gaiden. Thankfully it isn't difficult in the same way as Ninja Gaiden. Oh, don't get me wrong, GOW definately has difficult parts and I haven't quite completed it yet so it may get rough towards the end but I can deal with GOW difficulty. There are no cheap deaths, really. If you die its because you didn't fight well enough and after a few tries you'll realize that you should have waited to kill the medusa until the minotaur appears so you can turn him to stone. It's a mixture of strategy in the order you fight enemies and pure hack 'n slashery so tightly honed you never feel like Kratos isn't under your control.

The QTE's are, in my estimation, toned down a bit in this game. There are just as many of them but the window they give you to hit the buttons seems greater than in previous games. I had some trouble in the earlier games with some of the punishing QTEs but playing GOW3 on normal I am successful 90% of the time.

Combat is more varied and you have a greater arsenal in this game. The brutality that Kratos fights with can't really be described. This is probably the goriest game I have ever played. It's also a bit mysogynistic which is really my only criticism of the game.

I have a feeling that this game will win a sh*tload of GOTY awards and it will do it off the strength of its gameplay not brand recognition. It's a bit early to say things like this but I'll say it. GOW3 is like taking a glimpse into the NEXT generation of games. It is the brawler of the future and we're destined for 3 more years of GOW clones as other people try to figure out how to produce the sort of experience that GOW3 offers.

In short, GOW3 is the best brawler I have ever played gameplay-wise and is one of the most technically polished and aesthetically awe inspiring games of this generation.

Think to yourself what God of War would be like in HD with no technological limitations and this game is that.

Actually, as far as technological limitations go, the reviewers all say that GoW3 runs in 720p resolution, not 1080. Myself, I don't have a PS3 to see it for myself, but I am ready to concede the point that this resolution issue is unimportant.

I can't wait to get my hands on GoW3, but due to budgetary constraints I'm waiting for a friend to finish it so I can borrow his.

Awww. I just read about the Hercules costume and I'm a little disappointed (firstly because they didn't call him Heracles. They didn't call Ares Mars so what's the deal with the Roman Herc?)

This was just my wishful thinking but I always wanted Kratos to fight Heracles, but instead of the usual "Kratos kills everything" fight, it would be awesome for it to showcase the indomitable character of Heracles. A multi-stage fight in which Kratos does things like drop buildings on him and push him off cliffs only to have him bound back cheering Kratos on for his excellent efforts. To have the fight finally end with Heracles thanking Kratos for a great workout with a hearty handshake. Then Kratos stabs him in the gut, which Heracles laughs off and merrily tosses Kratos into the next stage, chuckling afterward about that dumb-ass Kratos as The Legendary Journey continues. Voiced by Kevin Sorbo, of course.

So, write your congressman. I'll buy a PS3 to play that.