First impressions: God of War 3

Time for another First Impressions blog, this time about my initial hands-on time with Sony's PlayStation 3 exclusive, God of War 3, which I started playing last night.

So far I've played for about an hour and a quarter (I didn't start playing until after 11pm so called it quits about 12.15am) but the game so far has taken me up to the top of Mt Olympus and to the depths of Hades. Expect a First Impressions of THQ's post-apocalyptic Russian survival horror, Metro 2033, which has a strong Stalker (a PC game) feel to it soon.

I've decided that when I mention parts that could be potential spoilers, I'll flag them with SPOILER and end it with END SPOILER. In fact, if you don't want to spoil your experience of God of War 3 (if you plan to play it) then maybe you should stop reading about ... now.

God of War 3 starts big. How big? How about "climbing-up-the-arm-of-earth-titan-Gaia-as-she-scales-Mt-Olympus" big?

GOW3 starts just after God of War 2 finished and opens with Kratos working his way up Gaia's tree-like body, assaulted by skeletal soldiers summoned, I guess, by king of the gods Zeus himself. Around Kratos and Gaia, other titans are working their way up Mt Olympus.

The first thing that struck me about this opening level of GOW3 was the sheer scale of things: at times Kratos appears almost pin-like on the huge limbs and body of the titan and I've heard that the size of this segment alone dwarfs some of the entire levels in GOW2.

For anyone who has played any of the previous God of War games, you'll feel right at home with GOW3. It feels like a GOW game and it plays like a GOW game, except its much more visually impressive and grandiose scale.  Let's face it, Sony Santa Monica were hardly going to dramatically change the things about GOW that have made it a success. Yes, there have been subtle changes to combat and Kratos has some new moves (he can now use foes as a battering ram), but at its heart it has the things that made GOW the success that it is.

In this opening sequence, you see glimpses of Zeus atop Mt Olympus and a handful of the other gods that Kratos will square off against in GOW3.

SPOILER The first of which is Poseidon, god of the sea, and his watery horses that Kratos has to battle during his ascent. Something that I thought was a neat touch in the closing moments of that battle with Poseidon was that the in-game camera changes to a first-person view - from the eyes of Poseidon, so you see Kratos dealing the finishing blows. It made the combat that much more personal and brutal. Kratos will also take on gods Helios, Hermes and Hephaestus. END SPOILER

Graphically, GOW3 is, as you'd expect, much more vibrant and vivid than it was on the PS2 - but then GOW2 on that system was no slouch graphically. Kratos is much more detailed and has smoother animations, and the environments have great lighting and atmosphere. Some of the finishing moves are vicously brutal.

Talking of finishing moves, back are the Quick Time Events that made an appearance in the other God of War games (you know, the glowing, rotating circle that appears above an enemy's head signifying that you can perform a killing move), and thanks to the PS3's graphical grunt, they are a lot more visceral and gory than in the PS2 iterations of GOW. I'm anticipating that the bloodletting will only get more gruesome as Kratos ventures further in his mission of revenge against the gods.

I won't give away what happens in the end of this opening sequence but soon enough Kratos finds himself in Hades, having to fight his way back to Mt Olympus. I'm currently in Hades and have come across one of the first environmental puzzles that will help me get a new weapon.

As I said before, this is still unmistakably God of War: you still open chests to collect orbs that replenish your health and magic, and you still use your blades to climb walls and ceilings. In the early stages of the game Kratos is armed with the aforementioned wrist-attached blades, and as in the first games there are environmental puzzles that you'll have to solve, and levers to pull to open doors and drop platforms. Sony isn't going to dramatically change a winning formula, are they?

All things going well (translation: when all the family is tucked up in warm beds), I'll try and play some more God of War 3 tonight.

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