The God of War series ends here.  There are no two ways about that.  The trilogy format is always best adhered to lest people get terrible bored with the following of the same old formula, but does that mean that the last of a trilogy is the best or the worst?  To be honest, I can't really answer because I haven't played the other two, but what I can say is whether God of War III stands up against newcomers Bayonetta and Darksiders and whether the game is any good as a standalone experience. 

Stand by to engage the very gods in battle once more and read on for the full glory of Kratos's last stand.

Back in the day, I was quite taken with Greek mythology.  The centaurs, chimerae, griffins and harpies, seemed to be such a beautiful diversity of creatures, add to that minotaurs, gorgons such as Medusa, sirens and Cerberus-type three-headed hounds and you've created an engaging world where anything is possible.  These marvels are the bread and butter of the God of War world, which concerns itself far more heavily with the political, social, sexual and physical aspects of the ruling pantheon.  The gods of Olympus have reigned too long according to your playable character Kratos, son of Zeus who himself is king of the gods; you are there to commit patricide and you are quite prepared to wade through the River Styx and gouge the eyes of Helios to do it.  This is no Very Hungry Caterpillar, this is probably about as huge as you can get and with every god that you murder, the world around you changes.  Kill the sun god Helios and the sun disappears forever behind the clouds, never to be seen again.  Kill Hades in the underworld and the souls he kept burst free.  And as if the grandeur of battling gods isn't enough of a feeling of scale, why not add battling with Titans with their immense physical scale, along with their own place in the history of Greek mythology of being those overthrown by the Olympian gods.

From a newbie point of view, God of War III has some reliance on knowledge of the previous two games.  You killed Ares, apparently, which crops up a lot, and you've used Pandora's Box in the past, but these events aren't relied upon as key story points without exposition.  You're made aware that you did these things and there are some Bond-opening-titles-meets-Watership-Down-intro-meets-parchment cutscenes that serve their purpose in catering for those who decided that 2010 was the year to join the God of War series.  Looking at it, it's cleverly done because you reach the end of the game wanting to visit the previous episodes on Kratos's life and discover what really happened when you opened Pandora's Box or what occurred when you killed Ares, the original god of war, taking his portfolio and assuming the title for himself.

Where God of War III differs from many other hack'n'slash titles is that fact that the right analogue stick controls Kratos's evasion moves and not the camera.  This means that there is a fixed camera you simply cannot control which can occasionally lead to some sticky situations whereby you become frustrated with not being able to see what's directly in front of you if it means it's behind a column or otherwise obscured from view.  It also means you can't stop and take in the views from angles you decide.  It's very much a directed game and feels as such, which is a double-edged sword: so you don't get to see things from your own angle, but it means you get to see things from the angles that the developers at Sony's Santa Monica Studio intend for you to see it, giving a finer perhaps more cinematic feel to the game.  There is no question that handing camera control to the user can lead to some inconsistent and ridiculous camera behaviour so perhaps this game and its brethren have it right after all.

Control-wise, I can't find much wrong with God of War III.  X to jump, O to grab, □ for a light attack and Δ for a heavy, slower attack.  L1 blocks and R1 interacts with objects, often leading to a quicktime event (QTE) where you have to quickly match the button-presses shown on screen.  The occasional hiccup occurs when you're presented with some inconsistencies with the camera angle.  This is largely because your movement is relative to the camera and when you use portals, you will suddenly be elsewhere in the room and forward becomes backwards and you may find yourself exasperated by having to pop through a portal inch by inch, then change your direction in order to successfully navigate the room.  These are very few, however and mostly, the controls are smooth and slick.  QTEs are commonplace, often acting as finishing moves in boss battles which either lead to your death if you fail to follow the directions correctly, or merely having to begin the process again.  The lengthiest and most challenging QTE occurs in an optional segment of the game where you fuck Aphrodite while her Sapphic handmaidens supply reactions to your off-screen dalliances.  Occasionally, QTEs will solidly reflect the action being undertaken, no more cleverly than that Helios eye-gouge.  L3 and R3 are to be pressed in for the move to take place and the contact you feel with the grissly manoeuvre is morbidly satisfying.  It's QTEs that form the backbone of clashes with Titans, gods and the most enormous of monsters. 

L2 activates one of the three items you have access to throughout the game.  One is the bow of Apollo which you start with, another is the head of Helios, which stuns enemies and exposes secret areas and the third is the boots of Hermes, the messenger of the gods, which allow you to run up walls and move at  a much increased speed.  Each of these is activated by holding down L2 and hitting a different button as and when you need them, so there's no cumbersome action-stopping radial menu or anything of the sort.  R2 activates a magical attack that deals a great amount of damage and saps away at your magical reserves.  Magic, experience and health are all regained using chests littered throughout the game, while gold orbs charge your rage meter, which allows you to use the Blade of Olympus for a short time, dealing even more damage and cutting short the lives of some marvellous mythological creatures.

Presented in 720p, graphically, the game looks gorgeous.  So, it's not 1080, but really, the scales on gorgon serpentine bodies look smooth and shiny as if it were an actual back end of a snake.  The effects and landscapes are spectacular, while the gore and blood are wince-inducingly vivid.  Only on one occasion did the game fail graphically and that was in front of Hades.  The Styx became transparent I could clearly see through the textures, looking at the underside of the textures above.  It was a bit odd.  It was at this point that I was stuck in a glitchy hell where whenever I would end Hades' life, the game would freeze with the sound on a perpetual loo-perpetual loo-perpetual loo-perpetual loo-perpetual loo-perpetua - TURN OFF SYSTEM - ARE YOU SURE?

Which was no good.  I left it for a day, came back to it and it was fine and I went on to complete it that day, unlocking very challenging challenge modes as well as the very difficult setting.  There's replayability there for those who really enjoyed the game but it is the sad fact that in the life of the games site editor, you don't get to tarry too long on any particular game and just as I completed God of War III with some very affectionate feelings, Just Cause 2 arrived from Squeenix and off I went to Panau.  But the glitching aside, God of War III was a fantastic game, beautifully paced with some real stand-out, clever moments set within a deeply intriguing world of the Greek gods.  There are twists and turns of the storyline and while the entire game can comfortably be completed in eight to ten hours or so, there are trophies and challenges to keep you coming back.  Those over at Santa Monica Studios say that Kratos's story doesn't necessarily end here.  The trilogy does, but we'll doubtless see Kratos again and though God of War III was my first meeting with him, I can quite firmly say that so good was my experience that I'll be there for the next game.