God of War III (½*/four)
The first ten minutes of God of War III could be described like this: The Greek gods are standing in ****ing badass poses atop Mount Olympus. They jump down in ****ing badass ways, engaging the approaching Titans. Poseidon summons ****ing badass tentacles from the sea, shackling Gaia, the Titans' leader. A bunch of ****ing badass soldiers jump onto Gaia's shoulder, where Kratos kills them with his****ing badasschain blades. Then, he runs up her arm, and a ****ing badass crab-horse-water thing pops up (which, incidentally, happens to be the tip of one of the tentacles holding Gaia, which is ****ing badass). You fight it for a while, and then, the tentacle twists Gaia's arm, leaving Kratos hanging underneath it. Being a ****ing badass, he keeps fighting the crab-horse-whatever thing, and eventually, Gaia's arm changes position again, leaving Kratos hanging on its side in a fashion best described as ****ing badass. He slashes the ****ing badass... Greek mythology creature thing some more, and Gaia flips her arm back to its original position. Here, Kratos finishes off the ****ing badass miniboss by ripping its jaw off (****ing badass!).
The first ten minutes of God of War III could also be described like this: First, you watch a cutscene. Then, you press the square button some. Then, you press L1, and hold left on the right analogue stick. After watching a very brief cutscene, you press the square button some, occasionally pushing the left analogue stick to the side. Then, you press the square button some more, occasionally pushing X. You keep doing this for a while. You're getting kind of bored. You go back to pressing the square button, occasionally pushing the left analogue stick to the side. Now you're getting really bored. Then, you play a grossly simplified version of Simon Says (in that there are only four possible actions, and you do them whenever the leader tells you to, regardless of whether or not he actually says "Simon says"). At this point you're so bored out of your mind, you're not sure you want to keep playing.
And that's God of War III's problem. It's boring. All this neat stuff is going on on the screen -- centaurs being gutted, gorgons getting their heads torn off, cerberi spouting fire all over the place -- and I'm sitting there on my couch, so bored, so utterly indifferent to it all that if the game crashed, I would probably not notice, and definitely not care. It's a video game designed by people who can't possibly have ever played good video games. At some point early in development, Santa Monica probably had a meeting than went something like this: The lead designer asks "How can we make this game fun?". A rookie employee says "Well, video games are fun, right? So we should make it like a video game". Approving murmur spreads throughout the locale: "Yeah". "This guy knows what he's talking about". "I would never have though of that". The producer thinks to himself: "I should give this guy a raise. Maybe a promotion, too". The lead designer says: "Hmm... I think you're onto something there. But what are video games like?". The murmur stops. The rookie replies: "Well, you press buttons. And then stuff happens on the screen". The team cheers. The producer blurts out: "This guy is definitely getting a promotion". The lead designer writes the following on a whiteboard, with capital letters:
VIDEO GAMES ARE FUN. VIDEO GAMES ARE ABOUT PRESSING BUTTONS AND WATCHING STUFF HAPPEN ON THE SCREEN. THEREFORE, PRESSING BUTTONS AND WATCHING STUFF HAPPEN ON THE SCREEN = FUN.
"This", he says, "This will be the foundation of our design philosophy".
God of War III is a video game about pressing buttons and watching stuff happen on the screen. God of War III is not fun. The reason it isn't fun, is that it's just a video game about pressing buttons and watching stuff happen on the screen. Let me explain: At one point in the game, there's this boss that runs around a lot. As long as you keep pressing the square button, he can't attack you; he, however, will take damage. So what you do is, you just keep pressing the square button until you've done enough damage to trigger the quick time event finisher. Then, you press a couple of buttons, and Kratos cuts his legs off. At another point in the game, there's a bunch of scorpions. If you press the circle button near one of these scorpions, Kratos rips its tail off and stabs it to death. So you press the circle button until all the scorpions are dead, and then you move on, and run into even more scorpions.
This is what I'm talking about. This boss fight, these scorpions… it's just filler. In most other games this wouldn't have bothered me too much. See, most other game have filler to, well, fill the void between the parts that actually matter (which, admittedly, is sort of stupid; why not ditch all that excess fat, and make a game whereeverythingmatters?). In God of War III, there are no parts that actually matter. It's just boss fights for the sake of boss fights; enemies for the sake of enemies; brutal kills for the sake of brutal kills. It's just "Look, you're pressing buttons, and cool stuff is happening on the screen! You're having fun, right? Right? Hey, I've got an idea! If we put even more scorpions on the screen, you can press the O button even more, and then, then you'll have even more fun, because pressing buttons is fun!". There's never any oomph, or crunch, or snap, because the connection between what you're doing and what's happening on the screen feels loose at best (and, at worst, nonexistent). There's never any motivation to succeed, because the main character is a complete douche, and you don't want him to triumph. There's never any sense of accomplishment, because there's never any real challenge. It's just dull, meaningless, insufferably boring filler.
Well, that's not entirely true. At some point in the development cycle, something happened. Maybe someone on the team had a chat with someone who actually knew a thing or two about video game design. Maybe that rookie was promoted, and replaced by someone who wasn't a complete dolt. Maybe someone suffered a concussion, and temporarily forgot about what the lead designer had written on the whiteboard. The point is, something happened, and the guys at Santa Monica decided to throw in an Escher-inspired puzzle, as well as end the final boss fight with a chill-inducingly clever sequence. The puzzle is really neat. The last sequence of the final boss fight is, too.
Playing through this game just to experience those parts though, would be like camping outside a bakery in the bad part of the city on a cold, rainy autumn night, just to get as fresh a bun as possible.