Ok, I need to make one thing very clear here. Whilst I’ve somehow managed to be gaming this long without playing God of War 1-3, I do have some knowledge of Kratos and the franchise. The main reason I haven’t blasted my way through the first three games before playing Ascension is for one important reason: it’s a prequel.
I figured, why play the old ones when the new one is just going to take me BACK in the story? I’ll play the new one then maybe play the rest of the story through if I like it.
So, what can I say? Will I be playing the old GoW titles? Read on to find out.
GoW: Ascension begins with Kratos, being tortured by one of the Furys, he betrayed a God (Aries) and now he’s being made to suffer. Ascension takes us on a journey through fantastic settings, against mighty foes, to win back Kratos’ freedom, in both a literal and spiritual sense.
Gameplay is fast, frantic and best of all, FUN! I’m not saying there haven’t been frustrating moments, but Kratos’ weaponry is fairly epic, and I gotta say, there was something special about the feeling that surged through me the first time I used magic.
The visuals are nothing short of stunning and they really serve to keep you deep inside the game. Mini-bosses are frequent enough to keep things interesting, but not too repetitive as to make you want to smash the controller. Each has a ‘mini-game’ in order to finish it off, usually revolving around dodging it’s last ditch attacks while you slash and hack at it in increasingly gruesome ways.
The Game is rated 18+, and with good reason. The back of the box simply states “violence” but that doesn’t fully prepare you for the rivers of blood, guts, brain, etc that you’re spilling everywhere as you hack your way through the horrific mutated enemies. There’s also a fair bit of nudity involved, in-fact, now that I think about it, I don’t think a single character, male or female, has been wearing anything above the waist (that I’ve noticed).
This game seems to want you to believe that in ancient times, clothing consisted of a scrap of cloth or some jewels to cover the nether-regions, and that’ll do. So maybe this really isn’t one for the kids.
As I touched on earlier, this is much more than a hack’n’slash action game, there’s a deep story going on which is fascinating and really drags you in, and the combat, whilst slightly manic, actually has a fair bit of skill needed to master.
Online Multi-player is something that I don’t normally rate within action games. That said, it’s actually got a BRILLIANT multiplayer side to it! There are 2v2 and 4v4 team matches, these consist of ‘deathmatch’ style events and ‘capture the flag’ games, as well as ‘free for al’l matches and even some nice 2-player co-op modes where you’re pitted against hordes of CPU enemies and have to survive as long as possible!
Overall, I’d seriously recommend this one for anyone who likes a bit of blood. It’s fast, frantic, bloody and most of 
all, fun. I’ll definitely be picking up the old games to see the story through… if I can ever put this one down.
Release: 15th March 2013
Platform: PS3 Only
Publisher: Sony
Rated: PEGI 18+