Does not do justice to the great names GOW

I've played all GOW games and love. The mixture of cool anti-hero, powerful and flexible combat system, fun puzzles, good story and graphical bells and whistles has captivated me again and again. Before the release of GOW: Ascension I was full of anticipation after the 3rd part has hitherto put everything in the shade and has cleared rightly absolute maximum ratings - man, what a hammer game! The first reviews of GOW: Ascension have me but then sobered and I decided my only game to buy if it can be had for about 30 EUR. After it was now ready and I've played through it, I want to publish my review. And to make it short, it does not fall excessively positive - unfortunately.

Note: I have played the completely unpatched version, so everything like on release day

What I liked:

+ The graphics are again on a very good level. You will feel a bit worse than in Part 3, but really minimal. Beautiful textures and always fluent display!
+ Great scenes and varied landscapes that have been created with great attention to detail. Especially the giant statue of Apollo is already made very great!
+ There are some puzzles and again I find that are cast. Become very good. Yes, even for the most part better than the previous! There are now no clouts, where you have to think forever, but sometimes you really have to experiment a bit. By using the Uroborus Amulet (one can thus let things fall apart and reassemble) and Eidsteins (creates a temporary copy of Kratos, which serves for example as "paperweights" a switch) are the puzzles quite varied :)
+ The sound is good as ever

What I did not like:

- The new mechanism for locking is terrible. One must now hold L1 and press X _danach_ to execute a counterattack. In the previous GOW games you had to press only shortly before the enemy attack L1 to perform a counterattack. The fact that you have to press L1 + X now, this means is practically useless because you can not use it fluently, for example, after you've just carried out the second attack a 3-piece combo. In addition, it also does not work if the opponent performs a combo attack, and you yourself will counter his second attack. Either one counters the first or no. Suuuuuper. I have always worked a lot Counter, because you thereby could fight very aggressively and liquid. But now you can forget that. If you want to counter, you have to stand around with active block and wait for an opponent attacks, so that you can then press X. Wtf, really ?! I think this new lock mechanism was introduced for the MP mode, so you can not easily block there. But then one would have to introduce this innovation even in MP and SP does not need to mess up so.

- The Rage meter was also changed .. and very bad. Through successful combos and not itself be hit by opponents, the Rage bar fills. And the joke is that you can access only when filled Rage bar on the strong combos (Thrice triangle, for example). How ridiculous is that, please ?! Because you extremely fast begins a few hits and the Rage bar is empty again, which is very annoying. After a while she empties automatically anyway, that is the beginning of a struggle it is always on the move only in the economy mode. Rather late in the game then you have a two-part Rage bar, where you have at least a certain buffer. Nevertheless, that makes a total of not really fun.

- The camera work is unusually bad in this part. Often you have no overview of the fight, because you have to close a) is off or b) too far away. In a few fights but the camera zooms in fact in the long shot, to represent a 2-pixel wide Kratos before the phenomenal backdrop. Is so great, but not during a fight ?! There remains only one left-blocking to wait until the camera is again closer oO

- The fights are very cluttered by various reasons. On the one hand you are fighting very often against great opponents swarms and you can easily lose track of where Kratos is just. Secondly, the struggles are just as vollgekleistert with graphic effects, so you can not see the forest for the trees. The unfavorable camera settings then contribute their part to do so.

- Unfortunately, this time also no different weapons more as the Nemeiischen lion (gauntlets) in part 3. While you can pick up weapons from enemies and this is also very fun, but unfortunately right weapon for high levels missing: / Instead, there are now 4 various "forces" for the Blades of Chaos .. Fire, Ice, Lightning and souls. Connoisseurs of the series already know, are behind the various magic attacks. But in the end it does not really matter with which "force" to play. The differences are tiny and I'm just staying with fire, because it looked visually at best;)
Additionally, it was presented at the site quite massive potential, because you get depending on power in successful Kills green / blue / red / golden orbs. But this is so minimal and rare that you can not say so in the fight: "Okay, I have just a little low on health, I move to force XYZ, so I can get green orbs". That one in Castlevania: hinbekommen much much better Lords Of Shadows.

- The story is pretty lame, being hergäbe the material enough: A prequel shows why Kratos pulls in God Of War 1 against Ares into battle. But you know here most of the time actually not even know why you do this and that .. you're doing's just come. Here a lot of potential is wasted because I really think the story would have had a lot of potential if they would have been told better.

- With the multiplayer mode, I will not warm, but I also do not understand why every good SP game now needs a MP mode. Okay, I know it already, because an MP mode keeps people from getting to sell the game and play it longer. In GOW: Ascension I do not think that this plan will work. In MP battles are still confusing and quite chaotic .. button-mashing halt. Personally, I would prefer, however, a really good SP game had instead a moderate SP game with drangetackertem MP: /

What I also noticed is that the difficulty "normal" in this game, but it is quite simple. The older parts, particularly Parts 1 and 2 were on normal clear crisp. Many other users also write that the "examination of Archimedes" would have been so hard, but I got the second attempt packed .. and without üüübermäßig large stress (both normal as well as heavy). And I've played the unpatched version. But okay, what the heck, maybe I was just lucky.

It's a pity, but with this game, the Santa Monica Studios is not a big hit. I hope in the next part, it will get better (ie as before;)).
As GOW Fan you can play the game anyway and you have your fun. But the quality of her is not enough by far ran to the earlier parts.