God of War III – Graphical Attrition

December 17th, 2010

A few hours into God of War III, after the thrill of lustrous graphics wears off and the quota of mega set-pieces is spent up, it becomes widely apparent that replaying the original God of War for the third time over isn’t all that fun anymore. Following the tremendous height of the opening sequence ascending Mount Olympus on Gaia’s back (however contrived it may be), God of War III‘s new ideas and samples of sharp design are few and far between, and in conjunction with the facade of epicness the visual purpose, I found it difficult not to feel anything but pure deceit.

Never Judge a Book by its Cover

Graphical fidelity, being part of the context, what the player actually sees and therefore interprets the game to be, asserts a great deal. To us visual creatures, a high-end visual presentation suggests premier quality and importance, while a low end production suggests modesty, simplicity, cheap or poor quality and/or niche appeal. This appraisal is obviously a false one, but it’s a natural one as well, one that we can’t really avoid. As much as I trumpet on about rule systems and whatnot, it stands that when I see a game like God of War III, the visual presentation has an effect, a psychological effect denoting importance.

Disconnect between the presentation and the reality of the gameplay (rule systems, mechanics) can therefore be dangerous for a high production title and, on the other hand, a non-issue for a low production title. When a God of War III show-ponies high technical prowess and then fails to match this level of excellence in regards to game design, players get suspicious. (Such is the case with the contrived battles against the titans). And players ought to be suspicious since, due to the psychological component of appearances, they’re effectively being fooled into thinking that something is greater than it realistically is. At some stage there has to be a realisation.

The realisation creeps up on as with our ever-shifting interpretation of the visuals. As we familiarise ourselves with the visual construction of a game, the original impact and magnitude that the presentation had on us loses out to a more functional interpretation. Bumps in our conciousness for aesthetics occur when the game sparks our interest again with new environments, characters and effects. While game designers are getting better at engineering these types of bumps, along with other poor design tricks to keep players going, there will inevitably be a realisation point. And once the player arrives at that point, their enthusiasm sours.

Personal

In my eyes, God of War III failed to maintain visual interest through its mid-section of similarly-looking Greek-inspired architecture and underground labyrinths, as opposed to God of War II which traveled through snow, forrest and sky. Most importantly, however, is the fact that the game was getting continually less interesting the more you played it. That is, in addition to a sheer drop in pacing, the past 4 articles of criticism began bubbling to the surface in my subconcious.

Hollywood is Dead

For me, God of War III drilled the “graphics are ultimately superfluous” argument into the forefront of my brain and has completely turned me off of what Microsoft and Sony are marketing as “hardcore” experiences. These companies are training us to buy the virtues of hollywood and not the virtues of good design. Not that the two are mutually exclusive mind you, but rather one set of priorities can come at the detriment of the other. An industry that has mindless expectations for these supposedly Titanic sinking experiences wrapped up in digital glitter is not an industry that I want to support.

And so there is probably a point of contrast, a game that stands in humble opposition to these free-roaming Goliaths—and that game is CrossworDS (also known as Nintendo Presents: Crosswords Collection in Europe). Here is a game free of glamour and pretension, and faultless in its design.

I’ve been playing CrossworDS regularly for 6 months now and have got a great deal of enjoyment out of it over such a long duration. Here is a title which is humble, unassuming and delivers precisely on what it set out to do. Furthermore, CrossworDS has enriched my life and the lives of people around me. CrossworDS has:

given me much enjoyment and satisfaction over a long period of time
improved my ability as a wordsmith
been the last game since Doctor Mario that my own Mum (whom never plays games) will ask me to set up so that she can play for hours at a time
been a wonderful tool at helping my Chinese girlfriend practice English and a great 2 player game that we can play together

God of War III aims at an insurmountable high point, fails epically and leaves the player ultimately feeling hollow and malnourished. I’m not just singling God of War III out though, other PS3 games of a similar vein have left me feeling the same way. These games are like fast food for the soul, getting worse as they try to be all the more gigantic. In which case, God of War III is the last bout of food poisoning I’m willing to stomach. Good design and humility all the way!

God of War III – Kratos: Villain, Anti-Hero or Indifferent

December 14th, 2010

Many times during God of War III I felt that the game was trying to make commentary on Kratos’ role, not as an anti-hero but as an actual villain and eventual redeemer. Although it’s obviously intended that Kratos looks and acts like a complete bad ass, God of War III occasionally oversteps this mark, portraying him as a cold-blooded killer. The game’s villains (various gods), through their dialogue, all explicitly state that Kratos has stepped even outside of his own bounds and become consumed by his own revenge.

The God of War series is about the spectacle, not about the politics so this commentary puzzles me. The objective lens is turned on far too frequently in God of War III to be considered unintentional, yet come the end of the game, the conclusion regarding this critique is unclear, giving me the impression that the objectification is perhaps misplaced or under-realised. I’m left thinking that Sony Santa Monica tried to be serious about its protagonist in the same way it tried to create a meaningful ending, and as we know from the last post, the ending was a complete train wreck.

In any case there is a thread to follow on how Kratos is portrayed as a villainous murderer consumed by his own revenge. Let’s follow this thread and see how it establishes Kratos’ role throughout the game.

“The measure of a man is what he does with power”

The above quote kicks off God of War III, giving the player something to ponder and ponder I did. If “The measure of a man is what he does with power” and Kratos’ power can be interpreted as his sheer strength then clearly his slaughter of those around him defines him as a villain, if nothing else. Maybe this quote at the start of the game is a little preempt given that we haven’t seen what Kratos does with his power yet or maybe its trying to set a precedence.

A Bloodied Hero

The technology of the PS3 allows Kratos’ body to become stained with blood as he tears through his enemies. This touch of realism quite literally paints Kratos as a more brutal character. Furthermore, aside from the blood washing away in water, the player can’t respond to the blood and neither Kratos in the cutscenes. Therefore, through the player’s inaction Kratos accepts such barbarism as normality.

Poseidon POV

Watch this video from 2:50

I would argue that the point of view in the cinematic here (the first battle in the game) has a stronger impact than any of the other prior God of War cutscenes entirely. The series has always been brutal, but Kratos’ meeting with Poseidon, as viewed in first person through the eyes of the victim, indiscriminately frames Kratos as a bully, murderous, bordering on cruel and barbaric.

Change in Tone

If you watch through to the end of the above video, you’ll notice another change in Kratos’ character: his tone of voice. God of War III‘s story is re-aligned to suit mood of the original God of War instead of its boisterous sequel and, as such, Kratos speaks softly at times, presenting him as a more rational character. The narrative also returns to the topic of Kratos’ origins and the death of his family. These sequences which attempt to rationalise Kratos’ quest for revenge seemingly falter with the high contrast of Kratos’ personality when beating the gods into submission. For example, the fact that Kratos doesn’t just kill Poseidon in one go, that he tosses him around and lets him scramble while walking slowly up to Poseidon ignoring his pain and pleading all put forward the impression that Kratos wants to cook him slowly. It’s hard then to see his brutality as justified simply because of his prior circumstances.

The confrontations with the other gods are similarly cruel. In the battle against Hermes for instance, Kratos chops off one of his legs and then, in the player’s control, Kratos can only walk slowly towards Hermes as he backs away with one leg in agony.

But then that seems to be the point of God of War III, to paint Kratos as a man which has pushed himself past all reason, consumed by his revenge. As the narrative continues it only pushes us further towards this idea.

Gods Dialogue

Zeus plants this supposition early on when he states (first video above):

“Athena is dead because of the rage that consumes you Kratos. What more will you destroy?”

Every other god in the game invariably echoes the same sentiments. This affirms the interpretation that God of War III is portraying Kratos as a man consumed by his own revenge.

Saving the World

In this cutscene too, we see Kratos’ clear ignorance of everything around him bar his revenge for Zeus:

Athena: “As we speak, the war of Olympus rages on and mankind suffers”

Kratos: “Let them suffer, the death of Zeus is all that matters.”

On the other hand, Athena also convinces Kratos that “as long as Zeus reigns, there is no hope for mankind”.

This cutscene sends mixed messages to the player. It says that Kratos doesn’t care for mankind and is letting it suffer, yet is perhaps, at the same time, letting it suffer now knowing within himself that he will enact his revenge and, as a consequence, there will be “hope” for mankind. This “hope” that Athena speaks of is vague but becomes important later.

It’s hard to tell what Kratos is thinking as most cutscenes are opaque when they delve into Kratos’ thoughts beyond Zeus. Here is an excellent example of how Kratos avoids any form of expression:

When Hera confronts Kratos and questions him on the problems he is causing, Kratos doesn’t make a single utterance, making it difficult to construe his thoughts. We have to therefore understand him through his actions and at this stage he appears to be disinterested in anything aside from his revenge plot.

Killing the World, Saving it, or Neither

As Kratos destroys the gods, each death affects the earth in some way. This can be seen in gameplay.

Poseidon – Water levels rise
Hades – Hell’s souls are released
Helios – Sun is gone and storm rage the earth
Hermes – Plague is unleashed on the world
Hera – All plant life dies

Kratos Kills All Allies

Kratos kills bothe of his major allies throughout the game: the titan Gaia and Hephaestus. Gaia is killed because she abandons Kratos, leaving him to again confront Hades in the underworld and then demands that he stops intervening in a matter for the titans. Gaia herself wishes to kill Zeus on behalf of the titans and because Kratos is only interested in taking the honours, Gaia is removed. Of course, she is brought back to life, climbs Mount Olympus and is killed again. Hephaestus is killed in self-defence.

What we can gather from these 2 characters is that if they aren’t willing to aid Kratos, then Kratos will forcibly remove them for good. Continuing the theme of “barbaric man consumed by revenge”.

Gaia is also a reflection of Kratos’ dogmatism in being the first and only person to kill Zeus. The death of Zeus is not suffice, Kratos must do it personally. Hephaestus shows a Kratos’ lack of remorse towards such a pitiable character.

Pandora’s Box and Retconning

Athena reveals to Kratos that Zeus can only be destroyed by acquiring the power to kill a god found in Pandora’s box. Of course, Kratos already used this power in God of War to defeat the final boss Ares, but supposedly there’s more pixie dust inside; he just has to open the box again and find it. And so starts a convoluted story retcon which requires the player to be hit over the head with exposition (ala more talky cutscenes) just to get the general point across.

In short: after the great war, Zeus commissioned the blacksmith Hephaestus to create a box to store the evils of the world (hate, greed and fear)–and Athena slipped in hope without Zeus knowing (secret plot twist!). When Kratos opened the box in God of War, he unleashed the fear which ultimately created the conflict between Kratos and Zeus.

Fortunately, the core family of titans, gods and other characters are all mixed into the retcon. For most, the fear in Zeus has wrecked there lives and left them pissed off with Kratos (Chronos, Hephaestus, all the bosses) for opening the box. Kratos is pretty unremorseful to these people, which helps create situations of conflict to further exacerbate Kratos role as chief bad dude. (I know that I’d be annoyed if someone pulled this trick on me and then everyone else hated on me for it).

While the story as it leads into the second half of the game becomes continually more tangled in this nonsense, at least the retconning brings Pandora into the equation and henceforth we can continue to follow this thread.

Pandora

Pandora is the last key part of Kratos’ good/bad guy characterisation before we see whether or not this villain can be redeemed or, alas, save himself from his own rage. Pandora’s role is as an overworked metaphor for Kratos’ daughter. Naturally, Kratos has some affection for the freckly-faced teen, but it takes a while for it to sink into Kratos’ head (and even then we don’t know if he really cares). This is surprising given her unabashedly direct saturday morning cartoon dialogue. See lines like:

“Hope is what makes us strong. It is why we are here. It is what we fight with when all else is lost.”

I think that Kratos ultimately does care for her as he refuses to sacrifice her to the flame as seen in this sequence:

One could also infer that Kratos treats Pandora well because of some possible remorse for Hephaestus or just for the purpose of defeating Zeus, but it’s clear that his refusal to sacrifice Pandora contradicts the latter.

Again, the gods dig to the heart of the matter:

Zeus: “Don’t confuse this object, this construction of Hephaestus with your own flesh and blood.”

Kratos: “This has nothing to do with her”

Zeus: “It has everything to do with her”

First (and only) Sign of Change

The very first time Kratos responds to the assertions made about him throughout the game (and the ideas we’ve been following up until now) is right at the end. Athena demands that Kratos hand over what was in Pandora’s box, but as Kratos states, the box was empty. It seems that Athena is after the “hope” that was either in the box or somehow passed over to Kratos through Pandora (it’s never made clear). Kratos must know that he has this “hope” because his hands and eyes are the colour of Pandora’s spirit, blue. Again, maybe he doesn’t; the game is vague.

In this final scene, Kratos looks over the world from Mount Olympus and possibly takes the moment to consider the consequences of his all-consuming vengeance. Then, in his last act he says to Athena that Pandora died “because of my need for vengeance” and then states that he will put an end to his vengeance and kills himself. Kratos could not die prior to the existence of the gods (as we find out at the very end of the original game), so now he seizes the opportunity.

Kratos’ epiphany is short lived before he takes the easy way out and sacrifices his life. So has he really learned anything? On the other hand, despite finding the hope in his own near-death subconscious and everything Pandora has said to Kratos, he still kills Zeus. The world is destroyed, Athena was shafted, the gods are dead and there’s blue sparkles all over the place. The player, who by this stage has been side-lined to a viewer, doesn’t know:

if the world is saved (by Kratos apparenty unleashing his “hope” on the world) or doomed
how exactly Kratos came back to life
why he killed Zeus after seemingly being endowed with “hope”
if Kratos’ suicide is a brave or weak act
has Kratos found his peace
what does Kratos’ suicide and the blue sparkles of “hope” mean
whether he was planning on killing himself to begin with
does the blood trail at the end equate to more franchise milking?

In the end, has Kratos learnt anything? Was there really any rational point in the destruction of the planet just because Kratos was angry? The ending is vague on answers, probably because it lost so much direction by basing the plot around a retcon and then introducing a major new character for the second half of the tale.

Conclusion

Kratos’ exit from the game without any explicit response to the commentary the game shares ultimately renders the commentary itself as ineffective or Kratos as having learnt nothing. There is no closure on the story. All we know is that Kratos was obviously driven by hate and because of it the world is in ruin. Nothing was learnt or gained. What an unfulfilling story.

Pinpointing the problems with God of War III‘s narrative has been a lesson in frustration and some of that frustration has affected the writing. If you got more from this article than God of War III‘s narrative, then consider my mission complete.

God of War III – Ending Analysis

December 11th, 2010

Remember those NES games whose endgame boss totally abandoned everything you’d spent learning for the past several weeks, maybe even months, only to replace it with some cheap, unexpected gimmick boss battle with mechanics you’d never used before? Those games were great weren’t they? I totally remember looking upon those games fondly.

Sarcasm aside, it’s sad to think that such a design philosophy which counteracts the inherent properties of games could still exist today, but alas it does and God of War III is a spectacular example. Spectacular because it doesn’t just include one gimmicky battle with foreign mechanics, but several.

Let’s review:

God of War 2.5D

Battle begins at 5:50

The first is an off-kilter battle against Zeus which retains the regular mechanics, but changes the viewpoint to resemble a 2D fighter, limiting the battle arena to a 2D plane. The limitation focuses the fighting onto the player’s defensive manoeuvres as they have one less dimension to contend with. This makes sense as Zeus attacks Kratos at a greater frequency and with more power than the other enemies in the game. So moving to a 2D plane makes it visibly less troublesome to pick up on attack animations and hit boxes while also being an easier space to navigate. Without the hassles of 3D space, the combat can roll faster. Furthermore, interplay between the two characters can flow more freely in this space. So, this chunk of gameplay is more reactive than most of the game.

If the animations and effects were tidied up and there was more environmental factors then this capsule of gameplay be absolutely cracking model for a PSP alternative (as opposed to a current wannabe, status of the PSP games; more on those another time though).

Back to God of War III

This starts at 2:00

Some cutscenes later and it’s back to 3D. What’s instantly apparent in this unfinished battle is just how much the 3D loosens up the tight form of the previous battle. As you can see in the video, there’s too much lost space where the two men are trying to connect up for a confrontation. Zeus also has an unfair amount of invincible frames. Gaia cuts the battle short which is probably a good thing. It’s worth adding that this sequence was originally intended to be longer, but time constraints sadly limited the production. You can read more about these cuts, along with video here.

Gaia’s Stomach

^3:50 in the Youtube video above

There’s a minor interluding retread as Kratos makes his way up to Gaia’s heart and then proceeds to pummel it. This sequence is a nice reprieve before none other than Zeus floats his way onto the scene. This battle is a lot tighter than the last because of the smaller fighting area, the charge interaction with Gaia’s heart (both players can zap her heart for health in the down time) and Zeus’ expanded moveset, namely his minions, the sprint charge and lightning bolt. Each of these attacks alleviates the issues that come from the 3D space. The minions fill the dead space, while the sprint charge and lightning attacks are linear and auto target to Kratos’ current position reducing the 3D space to a linear war path. The golden fleece allows for some nice interplay as well. There’s a pattern of linear attacks in this sequence with Zeus’ sprint charge, the lightning attacks and the face-on QTE at the end.

Finding Hope

Starts at 3:05

More cutscenes; now they’re back on top of Mount Olympus, Zeus has Kratos on the brink of death, the camera enters Kratos’ mind through his eyes. Probably not what many players were expecting. This weird dream-like area has Kratos walking and swimming his way forward, helplessly watching the tragedies of his life unfold before him. The use of colouring here is awesome, but the sequence only uses the walk and swim mechanics, making it largely passive and difficult to be too affected by. If you didn’t gather, blue represents the hope with Kratos.

First Person Brawling

Starts at 0:50

Ok, this part is pretty embarrassing. The viewpoint now shifts to first person and Kratos is free to beat Zeus in the face for as long as they see fit. Like the person in the video, I kept bashing him until I realised that I had to stop for the game to continue. As silly as this sequence is, I’ll admit, that the last trigger (the game proceeds once the player stops bashing Zeus after his death) was quite a revelation. I mean, I stopped the violence because there didn’t seem a point to it, while Kratos, similarly, was likely having a similar epiphany.

As the Extra Credits video just below points out, after this sequence Kratos goes back to his old ways and there is no redeeming value to be had. It can be said that the same is true of the confused, wishy-washy ending that I’ve analysed.

Additional Reading

No Redeeming Value – Extra Credits (Story Analysis)

Set Pieces: Lights. Camera. Inaction?

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