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

Dante's Inferno

Visceral Games unleash Hell on Earth. But is it a piece of gaming heaven or should it be damned forever? The Wild Bore goes to Hell to find out.

Visceral Games, once called EA Redwood Shores, products are getting increasingly popular. Since starting out on the luke warm 007: Everything Or Nothing game on PS2, they suddenly burst out 3 years later with the highly anticipated Godfather game. It got mixed reviews but was generally well received as a parallel storyline to the first film and personally, I quite enjoyed it. After The Simpsons game (which wasn't too bad, but not great either) and an unsuccessful Godfather II game, Visceral got back on track with the release of the amazing Dead Space game. Since then, The Sims 3 (whatever) came out but their original content again made a mark, which is Dante's Inferno.

Loosely based on the first part of the Divine Comedy where Dante travels to Hell, Dante who is a Christian during the Crusades rather than an Italian poet, has sinned quite a bit while he's been fighting and his missus is paying the price for it as she is trapped in Hell with Satan. Basically, you go through the 9 Levels of Hell to get her back with a completely useless old blue ghost guy 'helping' you, or just annoying you.

One thing will come up immediately as you begin playing, it's completely ripped off God of War, which is probably why they were quick to get it in before God of War 3 was released a couple of weeks ago. Press buttons at the correct time to launch devastating moves, tap buttons to get doors open and so on and so forth. But the problem is when stealing a successful formula, you need to make it better and quite frankly this hasn't.

The gameplay is very smooth with upgradeable abilities, moves and what not, but it is very much of the same thing again ... and again. Which is fine if, like me, you like a bit of hack and slash, but near the end where you go through 9 different stages of just killing enemies with certain parameters (in the air, no magic etc.) you almost want to kill yourself with irritation. But the fighting is quite fun, so luckily it works. Other irritating things come up, such as puzzles that aren't quite 100% clear on what you have to do, and at one point it took me 15 minutes to find out that by jumping off a falling lift into a dark space, I'd survive rather than plummet to my death. Again. And again. Over and over. These minor irritations do add up.

You also don't really get the sense of Hell's geography, which might sound stupid, but I want to know how this is all laid out. You seem to wander through one level into the next and I'd feel more satisfied if it was thought about a lot more. There are some good points though, the graphics are pretty damn impressive. The CG cut-scenes look incredible, probably some of the best I've seen maybe, and the general concept art I thought was quite good, but seeing as it's Hell, it felt sometimes way too cartoony and obvious. Though trying to avoid being shat on in the Gluttony level was quite unique. Also taking advantage of the huge beasts is quite fun, but a little boring about the 4th time you do it, and when you're destroying a city it's so slow that you start pushing other buttons to see if you can hurry it up. You can't.

So graphics are pretty good, gameplay is good, the sound is great but what about the story? Seeing as it's based on what some people call the beginning of Italian literature as we know it, surely it cannot fail. Well, it kind of does. I enjoyed the story of seeing your sins, meeting your friends and parents trapped in Hell and the little anime sequences of his past (as if he cannot take his past mistakes as 'real') but I wanted something a bit darker and it still seemed a little like the inside of the cave in Disney's Aladdin rather than a true dark, sinister ugly Hell. It's what you would think a video game set in Hell would look like, so there's nothing that might really surprise you. The whole collecting souls and damning or saving them soon goes from a novelty to a chore and after a while you realise you're wasting time constantly doing it when you'd rather finish killing the enemies.

It's a good 7 or 8 hours worth of gameplay, so if you really wanted to you could bash it out in a day, or a weekend and there's enough to last but it won't be something you'll remember for ages. There's downloadable content, different difficulties etc. but you must have to have loved it if you want to come back to it. It worked as a good filler to quench the thirst of everyone who was waiting for God of War 3, well now that it's here, I'd say go do that instead and if you want a bit more, come see Dante in Hell. It won't rock your boat over, but it might cause some waves.

Rating: 6/10

Heavy Rain

A game that was set to revolutionise the Playstation 3 by suggesting the word 'gaming' has gone out the window to make way for what the producers call 'interactive drama' - but does it work?

This is a bold step forward for a game to take. It has based itself purely on the God Of War mode of playing by tapping buttons at the right time but taken it one step further. You, in essence, are using the controller like an extra limb that acts as a conduit into the virtual world. Moving the controller by swiping it to one side could perhaps act as a punch, tilt it slowly to take a drink, shake it to free yourself from a choke, use it as a steering wheel as you drive through the rain at 100MPH or just simply scramble some eggs. Does this method of gameplay work? In theory, yes. I enjoyed throwing the controller about, pushing buttons at the right time, trying to keep hold of some in sequence to keep the action going, but it's biggest drawing point is also it's biggest flaw...

As much as I enjoyed the more menial tasks of opening a fridge and making sure my kid goes to bed in time, it sometimes got a bit annoying and I was getting so used to pushing the buttons a certain way that it started to lose it's edge. It just got a bit too easy. There were also times, where pivotal scenes would come up with certain different options of using your control for different results, and I was slightly confused as to what they meant - one of which caused an accidental death. In the game of course. But these were minor flaws to an innovative way of drawing you into the action - and it was the action that kept me staying there.

It's about 8 or 9 hours of gameplay in total, but I would be hooked for long periods at a time which always makes it feel shorter. It's also divided up nicely in short chapters that keeps the narrative going forward and it's the narrative that is really where this game stands up. It feels like a great crime thriller novel put onto a screen in a way that the film industry could not do. The story of the Origami Killer is a great one, full of twists and turns, and chock-a-block with action. You take control of mainly one of four characters - an old film noir style private eye, an FBI drug addict, a sexy young reporter and a father who has lost his way. Straight from the off, you are already emotionally involved with these characters, they all have problems and the setting of a dark, constantly raining environment reflects the tone of the whole piece. It is about the darker side of human psychology and how we have to deal with the problems of the past to face the future. Deeeeeeeeep. However, there are still things that don't add up. Why was the father (Ethan) waking up in the rain after a blackout? I can only reason/hope that I need to play it again to find out ...

The general story is the Origami Killer preys on small children and drowns them in the rain. But there's something darker afoot as the father's all seem to either disappear or keep silent ... Moving from action to emotion to thrills, chills and spills the game flows naturally into a deep, multi-layered tale that keeps every aspect of the audience happy. It's dark subject matter also brings up the question of what you would do in such a situation - you can easily walk away from certain scenarios, but it will affect the outcome of the game and it's this aspect that will keep me coming back to Heavy Rain now that I have finished it. However, there is one major flaw with this impressive set-up - and that is that you don't seem to die. Seeing as the perspective shifts, you sometimes find it difficult to invest too much into one character. The only person you relate to the most is the father, mainly because he gets most of the fun stuff. But the problem is that, if you know whatever happens you won't 'lose' as such, it takes out the jeopardy of playing the game. It got to the point where I was thinking, I could potentially do anything and the story will go on regardless, which means that the sheer terror your characters go through doesn't come across as much as it should. Which is a shame, because at some points I felt like I was in Silent Hill - alone, a bit scared and not sure what would come at me at any second. The movement and camera angles work, but can be frustrating at times, you find yourself walking like a retard (no offence) following the direction of your head, which is just weird. You can also forget that you can change the camera angles, which means sometimes you're standing around wondering what to do next, until you see an icon in the corner of your eye that you need to change angle to see. Apart from that, the cinematic quality of the game is amazing - the 24-esque multi-window control pieces reminds me of Metal Gear Solid 4 and the general feel of the game is very smooth regardless of it's few flaws. The directing is incredible with great camerwork and some incredible set pieces that really do make the game.

You can tell an absolutely huge amount of work has gone into this from the great (British) casting to the graphics through to the writing. Everything works wonders and for it's sheer originality, it has set a benchmark for others to stand up to. Gaming might sound childish, but interactive drama is definitely for the grown-ups. The future of gaming starts here - get on board!

Rating: 9/10