Playing "God of War III" reminds me that really, Kratos is a dick. Zeus pretty much sums it up by calling him a petulant child. For those unfamiliar, here is the Cliff Notes version of the story of Kratos:
God of War -- Kratos, nearly defeated in battle, calls upon Ares to help him win. Ares turns him into, essentially, a juggernaut whose sole purpose in life is war (blood for the blood god! Oh wait, wrong series...). Kratos goes home, murders his family and then, realizing what horrible thing he has done, he swears revenge on Ares. Okay, fair enough.
God of War II -- Having killed Ares in GoW, Kratos is now the new god of war (wow! No one saw THAT coming!!) and is fairly bored with his position. He acts like a jerk to all the other gods and seems to seek out war for war's sake. Annoyed, Zeus tricks Kratos into giving up his powers and kills Kratos. Not one to let death get him down, Kratos proceeds to swear revenge (apparently there's money to be made in the revenge business) on Zeus, and with the help of his new found friends the Titans, he rages war on Olympus. Oh yeah, he kills Athena along the way. Oooookay...
So that brings us up to GoWIII where Kratos has spent the first hour of the game swearing revenge (*yawn*) and throwing his toys around the room. Athena shows up briefly to, apparently, give credence to what Kratos is trying to do, but at this point, there is very little to like about Kratos.
The gameplay is fun, as always, and even though every game since GoW has instilled the dreaded quick time event (i.e. "press X to not die"), the original is still the best and GoWIII manages to make the quick time events fun and rather exciting. The action is great, attacks are fun and all the other shiny things a game is supposed to have.
But it's hard to get really sucked into the game when the voice actor went to the Christian Bale school of constipated grunt acting and over-emphasizes every word out of his mouth. Oh, and the fact that he's a giant dick who can't seem to get over all the wrongs visited upon him by ... oh wait, isn't this all his fault?? Again, just because you're a dick doesn't mean you're an anti-hero -- it's means you're a poster child for frat boys with too much testosterone.
Borderlands was a game that was thin on story, but great on gameplay and that worked because you were probably playing with a buddy and it was funny as hell. I don't care what the haters say, the clap-traps were funny. GoWIII is thin on story, but even great gameplay isn't saving it for me. Even some of the most beautiful backgrounds, amazing camera work and spiffy quicktime events can't hide the crappy voice acting and "Uh... so yeah, then this happens..." storyline. I've heard more interesting stories from three-year olds.
I'm an hour in and I can already tell what's going to happen: Kratos will kill all the gods. I just hope they manage to slap a little more meat on these bones.
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