Hands On: God Of War 3

If you were to describe God of War 3 in one word, it would have to be stunning. I’ve played a lot of games over the course of my life, yet I have played very few that end up being as good as the trailer. God of War 3 is one of those games. It’s simply beautiful.

Once again you take on the role of Kratos, the ex-Spartan warrior, as he seeks revenge against the Gods who have betrayed him. The adventure will take you from the heights of Mt. Olympus to the dark depths of hell, and from what I’ve seen so far, you will enjoy every second of it.

The team behind God of War 3 has built a completely new game engine from the ground up, and it shows. Not that the previous God of War titles looked bad, but man does this one look good! The animations are smooth, the colors bold. This has got to be one of the most beautiful games yet to be seen on the PS3.

I was able to play roughly 20 minutes of the game, a level which took me through multiple battles against Spartans, before putting me face to face with a Chimera mini boss, and finally facing off with the God Helios. The fighting is gruesome and gory. You can make Kratos pick up Spartans and rip them in two, use enemies as battering rams or just beat them to a pulp with the Blades of Chaos. There is plenty of blood and gore which is very evident in boss battles. After defeating the Chimera, a cinematic showed Kratos ripping one of its horns off and stabbing it through its head. The he proceeds to gut it open like a fish, its intestines spilling out onto the floor. Yet that doesn’t compare to the battle against Helios, where Kratos rips off his head (later using it as a lantern in the game to uncover secret areas). The look on Helio’s face is disturbing yet awesome! Pure eye candy!

Fans of the series will be pleased to hear it feels just like the previous titles. The controls and animations feel familiar and comfortable. All Kratos’ new moves are easy to pull off. One difference you will notice is in the quick time button event prompts. Instead of being at the center of the screen they have been moved out to the sides (triangle button appears at top of screen, circle to the right). Sony tells us this was done for two reasons. One, gamers complained that having the prompts appear in the middle of the screen hides some of the action. The other reason is to make it easier to know which button you should be pushing. When the triangle appears at the top of the screen you instinctively know which button to press on your controller, even if you forget for a split second in the heat of battle where the triangle is on the controller. It works well. Although I’ll admit on a couple of occasions I was starring so intensely at the action and the beautiful cinematics that I didn’t even realize a quick time button event was even occurring.

From my time spent with the game I can say God of War 3 feels epic in every way. This is sure to become a system seller for the Playstation 3. The only bad part, the fact we’ll have to wait until next year to get our hands on the final version.

 Check out the newly unveiled trailer from E3.