Third Review: God of War III

Alright, it’s been a while since I’ve written a review. Any gamer worth his/her salt knows that real life comes first (I’ll give you a cookie if you can tell me who said the original). Basically, I had school to catch up with. But y’all aren’t here for my excuses, right? You’re here for a review! Well, as I said earlier my review will be a somewhat older game. Not very old, just not that recent, dig? That game will be God of War III! Whoohoo

God of War III was released March 16^th, 2010 in North America solely for the Playstation 3. It’s the final chapter of revenge for our hero Kratos. Now for those who haven’t played the first two God of War games, I’ll give you a quick recap starting from the first God of War, I’m not going to go into detail about all the hand-held games and comics as they’re usually prequels – I’m focusing on the main installments. Anywho, Kratos pledges himself to Ares after nearly being killed in battle.
Ares commands Kratos to spread chaos in his name, eventually leading Kratos to kill his own family in a trick perpetrated by Ares. Kratos becomes sad, then pissed, and then a mixture of sad and pissed as he is plagued with visions of his family while in the mean time Ares pisses off the Gods of Olympus by ransacking other towns devoted to other gods. Zeus forbids the gods from fighting each other directly – however they can use agents to carry out their work. Athena chooses Kratos, and he embarks on a crazy journey which ends by fulfilling his revenge and the will of the gods – the death of Ares.

As a reward, Zeus proclaims Kratos the new God of War yet he doesn’t remove the visions Kratos has of his family. Kratos eventually loses his sanity due to the visions and seeks vengeance upon the gods. Yet Zeus tricks him by draining Kratos’ powers and storing them within the Blade of Olympus. Kratos embarks to see the Sisters of Fate in an attempt to get a do-over, but the Sisters proclaim that his fate cannot be undone. Pissed, Kratos takes matters into his own hands and kills the Sisters. He reworks his fate and steals the Blade of Olympus from Zeus, thus regaining his own power –and- the Blade of Olympus – which was the sword that ended the Great War and brought an end to the Titanomachy. Kratos then ascends Mount Olympus with help of the Titans who wish to see Olympus fall due to their defeat during the War. Kratos rides upon none other than Mather Nature herself, Gaia.

This is where God of War II ends and where God of War III begins. Now, let’s talk about the gameplay! The action is amazing, with combos being devastating to either a single boss or while in a group of enemies while not being very hard to pull off either.  You can feel every bit of juicy carnage as you slice the Blades of Exile through groups of foes, you can hear the screams of the enemy and the drops of blood splattering on the ground. Oh yeah, that’s another thing.
The gore factor is back in full force. In God of War I, you could rip an enemies’ arm off and beat him to death with it. In God of War II, you’re able to drown Perseus in a pool of water before slashing his throat open and then throwing his body into a wall which collapses and impales him on a hanging meat-spike thing. In God of War III, you’re swallowed by a Titan, slash your way through his innards and eviscerate him from the inside out, emerging drooping in sweet, sweet gore and entrails.

As usual in God of War, you don’t have just the signature Blades Kratos has chained to his forearms. He’s able to acquire different, equally-awesome weapons. The first weapon is the Claws of Hades, from which you can summon the lost souls of the Underworld to rend foes asunder. The next is the Nemean Cestus which is able to pound enemies into a bloody pulp. And the final weapon is the Nemesis Whip, a sort of chain sword that acts with lightning speed and actual lightning.

You’re aided with various items as well, such as the Bow of Apollo, The Blade of Olympus and other such items, though I won’t list them all (spoilers!).

In previous God of War games, you had to individually select your desired weapon with the D-Pad, which wasn’t taxing but it broke your current combo. In God of War III, you’re able to continue your combo with a quick button tap to switch weapons mid-combo, effectively carrying on the combo for devastating effect.

And it wouldn’t be a God of War game without button prompts! During boss fights, or the occasional tougher enemies like minotaurs, a button prompt will appear on the screen allowing you to further increase the carnage. However, failure to press the prompts will force you to redo the prompt (it’s not a steep penalty). In the previous God of War games, the button prompts would display directly in the middle of the screen and kind of block the action. However, in this game the buttons are displayed on the side corresponding of their layout on the controller. For example, X is on the lower part of the screen, Square is on the left part, O is on the right part and Triangle is on the upper part of the screen. This clears the middle section of the screen where the action takes place, further allowing you to enjoy in the carnage without being interrupted with a prompt.

One thing I am a little sad about however, is the lack of story the Blade of Olympus is given in this installment. In God of War II the story focus nearly entirely around it, while in God of War III it’s just a convenient item to use if you’re in the middle of a tight spot during a fight, or for a quick button prompt during a boss.

And another thing I didn't like, there aren't as many awesome costume options! In God of War I you had such awesome costumes such as the Cod of War, the Spud of War and Bubbles, where as in God of War III you only have Chaos Kratos! This is more nit-picky though than actual complaints though.

I freaking love this game. While there’s no multiplayer, the singleplayer has a lot to offer from the story, great voice acting, graphics and music not to mention all the brutality you can inflict on your foes as Kratos. I highly suggest if you haven’t played this series before, start with the first game. It has a rather intricate story and while you won’t be completely lost, you’ll definitely miss out on a good revenge plot.

But I highly recommend this game for people with a strong stomach. The sheer brutality of the moves and the visceral sounds it makes led me laughing with joy as my inner psychopath came out.

No Review Lately

Hey all, sorry there hasn't been a new review for a few weeks. I know what you all are thinking, "Two reviews in and he's already slacking off!" Well, that's partly true. Most of it is that I don't have any money to buy the games that have been recently released haha. So to maintain consistency, I'll review a few older games.
Don't worry, I'll return to reviewing new games soon. Just when I can get the money.

Second Review: Dragon Age II

My second review shall be Dragon Age II for the 360, released March 8^th 2011 in North America and March 11^th in Europe. While it’s available for the PS3, 360, MAC and PC, I’ll be focusing on the 360 version since that’s the only copy I have.

Dragon Age II isn’t a sequel. You won’t be hearing much of the Hero of Ferelden’s conquest of the Blight mostly due to the fact that you aren’t in Ferelden anymore. You play as Hawke, a refugee from the village of Lothering some of you may remember from Origins. You flee the village with your family to the city of Kirkwall in the Free Marches, which lies to the north of Ferelden across the Waking Sea. Get comfy here, as you’ll spend most of your time in the city of Kirkwall.

When you start out, you are just another refugee caught in the backlash of the Blight; an onslaught of warped creatures called the Darkspawn lead by a fearsome beast, the Archdemon. You won’t see much of the Blight however, as it is off in Ferelden and a few of your exploits to rise up in the city take place within that year the Hero of Ferelden conquers the Blight. BioWare had the cool idea to add a save importer, much like from Mass Effect 2. However it doesn’t add too terribly much, just a few minor cameos and conversation choices. I find it kind of neat though that my version of how the Hero of Ferelden stopped the Blight (my version of the Hero was a kickass Dwarven commoner who defended Ferelden with an iron fist). It just adds more to the immersion, but it doesn’t change the story very much which I admit is sort of disappointing.

Back to Kirkwall, however. Yes, you will spend most of your time there. Mostly in several separate districts. The most prominent being Lowtown where all of the refugees, poor people and elves live and Hightown, where all of the wealthy human nobles live. There are more areas, but I won’t list them as it would take up a good deal of this review.

The only other place you can go beyond Kirkwall is the Free Marches, but don’t let that get your hopes up. The few places you can go in the Free Marches are the Wounded Coast, the Deep Roads, the Bone Pit and Sundermount. There are other locations, however you need quests to unlock them and when you complete the quest they stay locked.

Dungeon crawling returns (what type of RPG would it be without it?) however don’t expect too much in variation from the different dungeons you’ll delve into. I would guess somewhere between 10 and 15 variations of dungeons, and while that might sound like a lot you -will- get tired of running through the exact same dungeon you did 2 levels ago, and you will get even more tired when you have to run through that same dungeon in 2 more levels.

What would dungeon crawling be without combat? The combat system has been revamped to feel more action-y and to have a flow rather than awkwardly position characters so they could slowly whittle away their enemy’s health down. Now instead of an auto-attack, you have to mash the A button for a basic attack. It tires your thumb out a bit but it feels much more engaging. In the lower levels it feels very repetitive as you only have one or two abilities/spells you can use, and you just keep pressing A until the cooldown is up. However it gets much better at later levels.

Rogues and Warriors now have a charge attack that is mixed in with the basic attack. So now instead of having to run to catch up to an enemy that’s only a few feet away, you can just press A and Warriors will either charge through the front line or Rogues will leap into the air and slash down on top of the poor fellow. Mages just sit back and twirl their staves around.

Don’t let that get you down, my fellow magic-users! Mages get cool abilities now too. They don’t just gently tap the air and watch as a ball of fire/ice/poison flies into the enemy’s face. When I say twirl, I mean twirl. It reminds me of a monk, twirling a staff around all badass-like as fireballs erupt from either end of the staff in a brilliant crackling that can only remind me of a laser sound. It gets addicting, watching your mage shoot out projectiles that you forget to use your other spells.

This new combat system is pretty cool, however in some cases I preferred the old combat system in Dragon Age: Origins. It’s a personal preference, but I like my RPGs fairly slow and tactical-like, something which DA:O delivered spectacularly. While it’s awesome to see your rogue slice and dice through a single enemy or warriors to hack up multiple enemies in an arc, or to see a mage rain down fire from the sky it just doesn’t seem like an RPG combat-wise. However, I’m a little old-fashioned when it comes to RPGs.

The story and characters is where this game truly shines, much like in Origins. You meet a myriad of characters, some of them whom you recruit into your party to help thwap thugs and slavers on the head. Each one has their own likes and dislikes. For instance, we have our adorable dwarf Varric and his crossbow Bianca, who is obviously involved in the criminal underworld. Add our honorable swordswoman Aveline who believes in law and order into the party and wackiness ensues. A friendship meter returns, but it’s much more defined. You can either become friends or rivals with your party member, and no matter which you choose you will have benefits. Unlike in Origins, where if you wanted stat bonuses you had to be liked by your party members, in DA2 if you are a rival with a party member they gain stats anyway, stats differing from friendship status though. Let’s look at an example, Varric. If you are friends with him, he will gain a +5% attack speed bonus and +5% dodge bonus. Now on the other hand, if you two are rivals he will gain a 5% to stealth when he takes damage. A Little something to keep you on your toes.

Romances returns! You can romance a few numbers of your party, but unlike in Origins any romance-able person is fair game regardless of gender. Did you like one of the characters as a man on your first playthrough, and like that same character as a woman on your second playthrough? Romance them again! However, no dwarf love, so don’t get your hopes up.

The story is long, just like in Origins, but it is not as epic seeing as how the whole world doesn’t rest on your shoulders. It can get rather dry in the middle too, but I assure you that it gets much better near the end (no spoilers!) so I can only insist upon playing through the boring parts.

All in all, Dragon Age 2 was very enjoyable. I’m a huge fan of the Dragon Age series, and while it wasn’t as good as Origins it wasn’t terrible. Hell, it was pretty damn fun. I’m definitely glad I sunk 30-ish hours into my first playthrough.

First Review: Homefront

     Alright. As y’all can probably tell, this is my first review, I’ll try to be gentle and not give away any spoilers.

     Homefront, released March 15^th 2011, developed by Kaos Studios and published by THQ is a rather solid shooter. It seems to take heavy inspiration in the way it handles from Call of Duty and the Battlefield series, but it doesn’t necessarily copy them. It more intertwines them in a nice ball of juicy goodness, from the way the guns and vehicles handle (Battlefield) to a perk and unlocking system for the multiplayer (Call of Duty).

     The execution of cinematic-like events is very well done as most, if not all of it were done in real-time looking through the eyes of the main character, Robert Jacobs. It accurately depicts the horrors of war and occupation in such ways as seeing the occupiers tearing family apart in the streets, herding people like cattle into internment and forced labor camps, and by basically treating the enemy like meat. There were some moments that were hard to swallow but I believed they were necessary to show the struggles of an occupied state. Some people won’t agree and like what is being shown, but to those I suggest just turning off the game or go into another room if one of your family members is playing it.

     

     The gunplay is tight, the controls feel similar to Call of Duty while the actual feel of the game is close to Battlefield, which I enjoy. You have your typical control setup, A is jump, X is reload, B is crouch, Y is change weapons, RB and LB throw frag and tactical grenades respectively, RT is shoot and LT is to aim down the sight. Click the left stick down and you sprint, click the right stick down and you plunge your knife into those unfortunate to be in the way with a nice juicy “thunk!” I enjoy the knifing more than I should.

    Nothing drastic is changed with the control scheme, which is fine. Why fix it if it’s not broken? The characters on the other hand, were bland and stereotypical. You have the guy who likes to swear a lot, the girl who doesn’t like to kill if she can help it, and an American-Korean guy who reminds me of Glenn from The Walking Dead (I like him). As I was rooting for the Resistance to whoop the GKR’s (Greater Korean Republic) ass, I could care less if the characters died (except for the Glenn-like dude).

     

     Aside from unlikeable characters, I found the single player mode rather enjoyable. The execution was phenomenal and the soundtrack was rather excellent, if juuust a little bit hokey in some places. It was short though, really short. I plowed through the game in about 6, 7 hours and I was taking my time. It got harder near the ending, but depending if you were in the groove of things or not you could clear the last level rather quickly (I wasn’t keep track of time, so let’s say around 45 minutes?) The individual chapters are long, having enough action to fill an extra chapter each, but there’s only a small amount (I won’t tell the exact number for those wishing to find out for themselves, as I like to myself.)

    The multiplayer is rather enjoyable as well. The killstreak system is weird, for lack of a better word, but I like it. In games like Call of Duty, you kill several people in a row without dying and you get a killstreak, a reward you can use (people who’ve played CoD games go ahead and skip down a line or two, this is for people who haven’t played those games.) Say you kill three people without dying, you can get a Recon Plane/UAV (same thing, different names) to reveal the enemy as small blips on your map. If you die at two kills though, you have to start all over.

      

     Alright CoD fans, you can start reading again. Homefront has a killstreak system, but it doesn’t matter if you’re killed or not.. well, then I guess it’s not technically a killstreak system, it’s just the easiest way to describe it. The system is, you gain points that only last for a single game for every kill. One kills is worth around 50 points, while special additions add another 30 points (special additions meaning headshots, revenge kills, avenger kills, things like that). All those points are cumulative not matter if you die or not. Now with those points, you can buy special abilities. These are abilities you’ve preselected for your loadout, such as an RPG or a flak jacket suitable for one life, or special vehicles such as a UAV, a small helicopter gunship, a hummer, an Abrams tank or an Apache gunship. These vehicles can be selected when you’re at the spawn screen, and if you select one you play in that vehicle until you die.

    This system I find is quite enjoyable, and while it’s hard to get a bunch of points for the higher goodies I think the challenge is worth it. Sorry about using the word ‘killstreak’ too, I guess that was a little misleading.

    Homefront’s multiplayer also has a leveling system, akin to Call of Duty pre-Black Ops. You gain a certain level and you gain access to weapons, no having to buy them (the BP – Battle Points – I talked about above is used solely for a match.)

   I’ve read that the multiplayer is similar to that of Frontline: Fuels of War, which makes sense because Kaos Studios also developed that game. I didn’t play that game however, so if anyone gets mad because I’ve compared it to Battlefield or Call of Duty, that’s the reason why

   Anyhow, I found Homefront an enjoyable experience. It was chock full of action-packed and gruesome scenes,  an incredible what-if scenario and the occasional witty banter, I enjoyed it even though I didn’t care for many of the characters. Anyhow, since I don’t have a suitable rating system as of yet, I suggest to all those interest to rent the game before you buy it, I see it as a love-hate thing. Especially with the beginning level, it’s just ripe for controversy.