God of War III: The House Review

Of course, God of War III is the final chapter in the hugely successful God of War series, and never has a conclusion to any trilogy come with such force and gravitas. Never before has a game left me physically exhausted after completing it. The adrenaline rush of gutting open centaurs and decapitating chimeras is just so intense it's practically face-melting. After the final credits, you just sit there in front of your TV in a daze, your hands sweaty and shaking and white-knuckled. I shit you not, there is absolutely no way to mentally prepare yourself for such an explosive ride through the Hellenistic world. It simply does not exist.

Because honestly, how do cope with an opening sequence that begins like this:

"Before the age of twilight set upon the gods, a legend rose to claim his place among them. And even though Kratos sat upon the throne as the new god of war, he was haunted by visions of his family he himself murdered. But the hands of Death could not defeat him. The Sisters of Fate could not control him. And on this day, the man, the legend, Kratos, will have his revenge."

The answer? You don't.

You just accept it. You just accept that this game is going to kick your ass. You just accept that your world and how you view it is going to be forever changed by how epically Kratos of Sparta, the aforementioned, newly-throned God of War, is going to exact his vengeance upon the gods of Mount Olympus.

And. There. Is. Nothing. You. Can. Do. To. Stop. It.

But let's backtrack for a moment, before I go any further into the no-holds-barred world of Kratos. That word I mentioned earlier, epic. I think I need to clarify what I mean by that.

If every aspect of God of War III--the gameplay, the plot, the graphics, the settings, the characters--could be described using only one word, that word would be epic. And I'm not talking about the kind of epic that acne-ridden World of Warcraft junkies use to describe their 75th level Druid or whatever the hell, or the kind of epic that LARPers use to describe their "swords" made out of cut-up yoga mats and cardboard, oh no, not that kind of epic at all.

I'm talking about the kind of epic that Homer had in mind when he was writing the Odyssey, the kind of epic that Frank Miller had in mind when he was writing 300. That kind of epic. The kind of epic that concerns itself not with the trivialities of "Hey guys, I think there might be a girl on this server," or "Hey guys, if you add food coloring to water and keep it in a test tube, it looks like a potion," but the kind of epic that concerns itself with manly men doing manly things, with only the manly sweat of their manly backs and the manly strength of their manly, manly hands.

Because that's what this game is really about. It's about big, manly, epic things. It's about epic gods and their epic domains, epic settings and their epic monsters, epic heroes and their epic quests for vengeance. It's about an epic man named Kratos, a Spartan warrior, and his epic decision that he has had enough.

Enough lies.
Enough death.
Enough treachery.

Enough of Hades
Enough of Poseidon.
Enough of Zeus.

Enough.
Enough.
ENOUGH.

And unfortunately for the gods of Olympus, Kratos is not the kind of man who talks out his problems. Oh no, he missed that after school special. Kratos, instead, destroys his problems. In fact, by the end of God of War III, Kratos nearly wipes out the entire Greek pantheon:

Hephaestus? Impaled on his own enormous anvil.
Hera? Kratos snapped her neck.
Helios? Decapitated and used for a flashlight.
Poseidon? Beaten to death.
Hermes? Ripped limb from limb.
Aphrodite? Nailed. (In the Kratosian sense.)
Hercules? Face-Fisted.
Hades? Kratos tore out his soul.
And Zeus? Imapled on his own Titan-slaying, super-sword.

Kratos is unstoppable. All throughout the game, he just destroys and murders and kills and decimates and murders and slays and murders and decimates. With the Blades of Exile that you get in this installment, the upgraded Blades of Athena from God of War II, you could actually call Kratos a living meatgrinder. There's certainly enough blood splatter effects to call him that.

Kratos, the Meatgrinder.

Like Mentos, the Freshmaker, but infinitely more brutal than a roll of mints.

You may not believe this now, as the seasoned video gamer you most likely are, but there will be moments in this game where you will think to yourself, "Hey...Kratos? Man, I think they get it. You're pissed. You just poked out a legless Hermes' eyes with your thumbs. I THINK THEY GET IT." But the game just keeps going. It's unbelievable. The sheer carnage is just mind-boggling.

Each time you slay a god in one of the many, many boss battles throughout this title, you think, "There's no way in hell the developers can beat that. I just ripped off Helios' head with my bare hands and now use it for a secret-revealing flashlight. There's just no way."

Well, you would be wrong, because this game is the game that does not know when to quit. This is the game that your mother warned you about. This is the game that erects a giant middle-finger to the ESRB and then blows it up with a bazillion megatons of TNT. Right when you think there's a break in the action, right when you think the game has given you room to breathe, flaming minotaurs suddenly erupt from the walls and it's a fight to the death.

But that's when you remember you have an arsenal of certified god-killing weapons at your disposal. Weapons like your Blades of Exile, your Nemesis Whip, your Nemean Cestus, and your Claws of Hades, all of which are conveniently upgradable with the cashing in of the spilled blood of your enemies.

I swear, this game has one of the best combat systems I have ever seen on a third-person RPG. It takes the sublime art of button-mashing and turns the user into a godless, killing machine. The detail of the series' trademark finishing combos are taken to a whole new level of brutality. Kratos proves throughout the title that he can take hold of virtually any body part, rip it off, and then beat the former owner of that body part to death with it. You impale Minotaurs with their own horns, decapitate Medusas to petrify surrounding enemy hordes, and chain yourself to Chimeras and use their breath weapon to completely immolate flanking foes. You eviscerate Centaurs and walk through their guts, you climb up Cyclopes with your Blades of Exile and rip out their eyes, and you use your Nemean Cestus to bash through hordes of living onyx statues and turn them to dust.

Just watching this game is more of a workout than Wii Fit.

Oh, and did I mention that you kill Titans, too? Titans, as in, more than one? That's right. In God of War III, Kratos finishes what Zeus could not. Kratos was like, "Zeus? You're such a girl. A girly, girly, girl. Let me show you what it means to be a god." And so he did. He went to the underworld, for I believe the third or fourth time in the series, and kicked Chronos' ass. And Gaia, too. Gaia was like, "Hey Kratos, yeah, I've been using you and stuff to get to Zeus. I actually don't really care about you at all. No hard feelings, right?"

WRONG.

WRONG.
WRONG.
WRONG.

Kratos is nothing but hard feelings. And so he kicked her over the edge of Mount Olympus. That's when Zeus was like, "Uh, wow, did Kratos just pull a 300 on Gaia, the Earth Titan? I think he did. You know, I'm actually starting to get a little worried up here."

YOU SHOULD BE, ZEUS.

EVERYONE SHOULD BE WORRIED.

Because this game, God of War III, and everything about it--the settings, the plot, the characters, the graphics, the gameplay--is so gut-bustingly awesome it can barely contain itself. I shit you not, the sounds of battle coming from this game's cellophane-wrapped package are so loud you can practically hear it humming with the energy it's waiting to unless at your fingertips. This is not a game to be taken lightly. In many ways, it's not even a game. It's an undertaking, an undertaking that will fight you every step of the way. This game will challenge you. This game will fight you. This game will test you. This game will determine if you are a god, or just another mortal.

But you will succeed, have no doubt.

Because you are Kratos, the God of War.

(Overall Rating: 10 out of 10 Natural 20s, the highest score I can give.)