God of War III

When we left the dethroned God of War, Kratos, at the end of the second game in the series, he was leading an army of Titans against Zeus and the rest of the Olympian gods – which suggested that things were building to a relatively straightforward climax. Of course, it's never that simple, is it? Within the first few minutes of the third game Kratos is discovering that his gigantic allies have their own agenda and the game heads back into very familiar territory: a half-man-half-god alone, picking up weapons, fighting his way through each level to pull the switch to open the gate to fight boss to collect object to get to next level. Like the other games, it's a platformer with extreme combat elements, dressed in classical garb.

Students looking for an excuse to play should take note: no one would advise using it as a study text. Hermes is represented as a preening queen, Hera a drunken harridan, and here's hoping South Australian Attorney General Michael "video games are corrupting our youth" Atkinson doesn't get wind of the well-boobed level with Aphrodite. The rather liberal interpretation of Greek mythology gives the game a superb sense of place, and the things that worked in the first few games – the combat, the puzzles – have been further improved; although the fixed camera does take some getting used to in 2010, when 3D camera is the norm for adventure games. However, the things that were damned annoying about the previous episodes – the constant quicktime events, in other words – are also still there, although they have also been made more intuitive by placing the command at the appropriate position on the screen (triangle at the top, X at the bottom and so forth). There are some blatant steals from other titles – one rhythm game section requires the giant-harp equivalent of Guitar Hero, for example, and a particularly well designed puzzle maze plays on perspective tricks stolen wholesale from Echochrome– but they're at least well executed.

Speaking of execution, there's a hell of a lot of it in God of War III. Kratos spends much of the game drenched in the blood of his many,many victims and the cavalier manner in which he dispatches the gods, gradually destroying the world in the process as the natural forces they control rage unchecked, may make one wonder why they're playing such a relentlessly unsympathetic character. Still, the story barrels along nicely, the artwork and sound design is superb and there are some nice voice cameos from quality C-listers such as Linda Hamilton (Gaia), Rip Torn (Hephestus), Malcolm McDowell (Daedelus) and, in an oh-so-post-modern twist, Kevin Sorbo as Hercules. It's not a revolution in gameplay, but if this is genuinely the last in the series (and it's hard to see where Kratos can go from here), at least he's gone out in style.

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