I recently played through the first two hd remakes on the PS3 as well and they were astounding games. Especially the 2nd which very amazingly displays some huge vistas. I just kept wondering to myself how on earth could the PS2 pull this stuff off. From the giant 4 horses that were a gift to the Sisters of Fate to walking around and jumping on Atlas's back the game was huge.
GoW 3 was only bigger and better. The graphics are hands down some of the best I've ever seen. I think that Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 are some of the best looking games out today, but pale in comparison to this game. I do agree with Salad that where the game doesn't look as good it really shows because of the super resolution of Kratos and the maps.
It was nice to see GoW 3 really nail down the best magic/weapon system as well. It was nice to finally have a weapon like the Nemean Gauntlets that weren't an afterthought to the Blades of Exile.
A couple of complaints are the "quick weapon change" which is done by using L1 and X. L1 is block and I spam the hell out of that button and a lot of times when I'm trying to do a spin attack and bolt the hell out of there I would accidentally change weapons! It happened at the worst times with bosses and when severely outnumbered. I wish I could say it wasn't the cause of a good many deaths, but it was.
Also, by the time I was to Zeus I didn't feel like fighting him 14 different times like GoW1 and GoW2. I understand that it's the end of the game and all, but man...it would just be nice to get to the end of a GoW game and only have to fight a boss once or twice. I think the fight with BIG Ares in GoW1 is by far my least favorite battle.
Finally, why the hell do the gods in the game keep gloating at me and saying I'm stupid and retarded and won't succeed when I keep killing them all? That got annoying. I kept saying to myself, "I've killed everyone and have half killed you and you're still mocking me?!"
I talked to Salad a few days ago about the absolute brutality of the game that was shockingly portrayed at times. I found myself cringing more than once. Manly the first time I gutted a centaur, beat Poseidon to a bloody mess and especially when I cut off Hermes legs. About Hermes I was shocked to see GoW 3, of all the games I've ever played, actually make me feel pity for someone. After you cut off his first leg he's crawling away and he yells, "Please leave me alone!" I don't know what it was about the way he said it, but I felt immense pity for this asshole that was just mocking me 10 minutes earlier. I was like...maybe he's suffered enough....but not for Kratos. Even though the game was very brutal it never made me roll my eyes. It never seemed forced like some games *cough* Splinter Cell swearing and Black Ops everything *cough*. It always seemed totally in line with the character of Kratos. He's going to kill everything and he's going to do it in style.
In the end I guess I was surprised how much I ended up caring for Kratos. For the first 4 hours of the first game I hated the guy. He's just an asshole with a chip on his shoulder the size of South Africa, but that's just not the case. After the first game and the beginning of the 2nd I really came to want to kill the gods as well. They lied to him in the first game and then screwed him over in the 2nd (he was being a douche, but they still screwed him big time). The gods had it coming in my mind. Sure Kratos may have destroyed the world in the process, but they still had it coming.....so did the titans.
Bottom line was this series owned my face and GoW 3 is my new standard for action. It wasn't just fluff, smoke and mirrors it was a great game that really gave me a run for my money on Titan mode and I haven't been that pissed at a game since the fight with Alma 1 in NGB on Master Ninja difficulty.
Sorry if this was a mess. I just woke up.
With me, my biggest cringe moment was when the QTE kicked in to gouge out Poseidon's eyes. I think when quick time events first started, they were trying to find ways to break the 4th wall for the player, a almost subtle foreshadowing of motion gaming done right. They really nailed it with that fight. The pressure on my thumbs as I pushed in the sticks... man.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big fan of anti-heros. Revenge is never the best sort of motivation for a character. Films glorify revenge, but in real life, revenge feels hollow and empty, and even the shallowest of gamer will resound in this if they look for it. It sounds odd to look at a game like GOW for it's moral implications, especially when the intense violence is it's frontman, I think the morality of games' messages gets overlooked when we talk about appropriateness in games.
Sorry to use your well-written (if not a little bit sleepy) post as a springboard into a philosophical discussion, but Kratos is a solid example. When I finish waking up, I may write a post about it myself.
I second what Amateria said. Though I do enjoy a good revenge tail, I enjoy it in fiction. It definitely happens differently in real life. A great example is a former boss that no one enjoyed. The boss was moved out of our office and when it came time for them to be layed off for budget cuts, I didn't feel joy or get excited, even though they treated me pretty bad. I almost felt sorry they had to go look for work in this economy.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I've heard so many good things about GoW. Maybe I should pull out the PS2...
Should revenge then, be enjoyed as commonly as it is, in fiction?
ReplyDeleteWe all like to pretend that storytelling isn't real, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't effect us in real ways. How many people out there *know* Peter Pan, and were there fighting captain hook? How many *saw* Frodo drop the ring into the fires of Mt. Doom? How many *rescued* the princess from king koopa's clutches?
*These* are active verbs... People know these stories almost better than people in real life sometimes, I would be surprised to find out that it didn't/doesn't effect them in a real way.
My high horse tied up now... God of War is awesome. Play it, for a good actiony time. Just don't go looking to Kratos for any advice... ever.