Tonight I have finished God of War III. This is a game that I'm a bit conflicted about. Obviously it was good enough that I played through it, but in some ways it was unfulfilling. The violence was gratifying and excessive at the same time. At the end I was almost venting rage beating Zeus, and at the same time I have to give props for a game that can turn you into the raging maniac that is the lead character.
In the end, you feel the need to take out your aggression on the character that put you through this whole ordeal.
This game I'll probably keep. I make no promises if I'll play it again. I'd probably be interested in the HD collection of 1 and 2, but as of right now, there's no immediate need to rush.
Looking back, I think this reaction was almost virtually assured. I wish I had thought to warn you before you got to this one.
ReplyDeleteImagine if Return of the Jedi was your first episode of Star Wars. "Luke Skywalker's so emotionless all the time because he's an unbeatable wizard,but then he ends up having to be saved by his father at the end, which is weak. Also, starting out as a blind guy and ending up the leader of the B team on teddy bear moon is a waste of Harrison Ford. But I guess I can see why people like this series: the lasers and space battles are really cool."
Kratos, to me, started out fighting skeletons and a hydra; you first saw him on the back of a Titan climbing Olympus. He started out as a merciless but mortal killer of men, a savage warrior, but not the destroyer of a pantheon. The violence started with what we called extreme at the time -- but then, impossibly, got pushed further, over the course of two long games, into what you were asked to accept as a baseline. GoW3 starts you in reality already so heightened that I'm sure character arc cannot be the main focus.
High expectations are usually a recipe for disappointment, but I bet the game is better at meeting mine than at satisfying someone who has none. I hoped that it would be a worthy entry and a satisfying conclusion, and those are actually quite lofty aspirations, but the team trying to live up to that is working within a context without which the game is (given that starting point) still quite epic, but undoubtedly a much narrower experience.