God Of War 3

One of the most popular and critically acclaimed series comes to a climatic end as Kratos continues on his path to kill Zeus ...

Each God Of War has always been a benchmark of gaming since it's first release in 2005 and with it's unique hack'n'slash gameplay mixed with button-press timing, it has paved the way for other titles to try and copy the format but alas they have never been able to fully capture God Of War's sheer ingenuity and originality.

For those who don't know, you play Kratos,a Spartan, who after offering his soul to Aries for victory was tricked into killing his own family and became a servant to the Gods of Olympus. But since then, he has rebelled and taken it upon himself to get revenge by killing Zeus and anyone who stands in his way.

This game was created by Sony and therefore is a PS3 only title. It also means that they have been able to push the console to it's limit and it looks stunning. Graphics are lush, the gameplay is smooth and it looks and plays like a dream. As always, God Of War remains epic - the huge backdrops, the incredible enemies, the amazing score and a story that doesn't let up.

As you travel your way up to Zeus through all kinds of scenarios, you benefit from a great array of weapons. If you've played a God Of War before, you'll be used to many of these already but you do get some cool little extras like wings to fly (or rather glide), the Head of Helios - literally a head ripped off someone that exudes light, and more. The fighting doesn't ever grate, even though it's essentially the same thing, and the puzzles are original and satisfying. The voice acting is inspiring and the entire experience makes for an outstanding game.

But then, I wouldn't say it was perfect. For one, even though it does summarise it's history as it goes along in quite a cool animation style, you do seem to have to have a knowledge of sorts of the first two games, but then this would be expected at the end of any trilogy. Also, there is some rather annoying aspects of the game that I found infuriating. Firstly, the 'flying' scenarios that occur are enough to make me throw the controller at the screen. Why they added this is a mystery, it goes back to 80's gaming where up, down, left, right and memorising the sequence as you die each time doesn't make for a satisfying experience. It wouldn't be so bad if you could potentially do it after a couple of go's, but by the end of the game, they get so ridiculous that you feel like relying on chance would be a better idea. There was also a sequence inside a cube where you had to hang onto a flying thing otherwise you get impaled on a spike. However, it all got a bit hectic and you had to wait to the last minute to do it successfully three times in a row, or you'd have to go back to the beginning which made for a lot of retries.

Apart from these few problems it makes for a terrific game and one that ends the series well. However, I couldn't help but feel I'd done all this before and it wasn't quite as varied as I would have liked. You cannot fault it for it's looks, style, story and gameplay but I just felt that as epic as it was, it would be the same thing but in a different backdrop and as varied as the weapons and enemies are, it is ultimately a hack'n'slash that compared to the more contemporary games coming out these days, feels slightly outdated. This might be a controversial statement, but it is by far the best of it's kind and perhaps the best-looking games on the PS3, but I can't get blinded by it's beauty as, at it's core, it's the same game as it was back in 2005.

Rating: 8/10