God of War: Ghost of Sparta

I started and finished playing this game earlier tonight, and I mean, what more can I say at this point about this series? Once again, just a fantastic effort from the God of War team. This was yet another beautiful example of hack-and-slash adventure gaming done right. Now, if I may offer a slight nitpick. As great as Ghost of Sparta was, it felt a bit light or messy on plotting, specifically the way the various game environments flowed into one another. This game is an interquel set after the events of the first God of War game but before the events of God of War II. In other words, Kratos has already become the titular "god of war," but he has not yet decided to go off and kill every other remaining god in a vengeance quest. (That's what happens in God of War II and III, right? That was rhetorical; if I'm wrong, don't tell me.) The problem, maybe, with Ghost of Sparta from the get go was that it had to use monsters and gods and other mythological figures that had gone un-used in the main trilogy and the previous PSP release. But where said PSP game, Chains of Olympus, got by with a decent plot and simple story, Ghost of Sparta went bananas cramming different enemies and environments into the game and seemed like little more than an attempt to just showcase Greek mythological content that hadn't made the trilogy. In this respect, it felt a lot like a compilation of "deleted scenes." This is, after all, a five-hour game in which, while ostensibly trying to rescue your brother from the "Domain of Death" (not the underworld; we've already been there, twice!), you: destroy Scylla, destroy the City of Atlantis, venture through a volcano, climb a mountain during a blizzard, visit Sparta just to mess with some prisoners and bang some chicks, brutally murder King Midas, and hesitantly murder your own mother just before she can tell you who your father is. (Convenient!) The whole thing just felt like a mix of over-the-top scenes and "wish we had found a better way to incorporate this into the actual trilogy" mini-conflicts. Even the level design, usually a strength of God of War, felt especially underdeveloped, as the game featured a decent amount of backtracking and very few actual puzzles. Also, the game's geography, if that makes sense, felt oddly cluttered and disjointed. Check any map of the Greek islands and you'll see that it's impossible to walk from the island of Crete to the city of Sparta. So why, in the game, are the two separated by some sort of mountain pass and not a body of water? Especially when Atlantis featured so prominently in this game, and is set, you know, in the middle of the water. I mean, again, these are just such minor nitpicks and the game was a whole lot of fun to play. Still, I'd rather point out these small imperfections while I can, because from everything I've heard, the remaining two games in the series are just fantastic.