PixlBit

I am trying to remember if I have ever played a movie tie-in game that was actually entertaining, and I don’t think I can. Clash of the Titans by Namco Bandai Games is another contender attempting to change this trend and, like the rest, finds itself lacking. It didn’t take much effort to assume that, due to the similarities in setting, the game would attempt to be a God of War clone, and that is exactly what we have, except inferior to its progenitor.

Like the movie the game is based on, Clash of the Titans has quite a bit of content, averaging over twenty hours to reach the conclusion of the story, but you will feel like you played it much longer as there is very little differentiation amongst the main or optional quest in the game. The storyline is a pretty faithful following of the new movie and puts you in the role of Perseus, unknowing son of Zeus. As is common in these things, your newly discovered family is trying to kill each other and you are forced to go on a mission of vengeance.

The game is essentially a running series of repetitive fights against the odd list of fantasy monsters such as undead skeletons, ghosts, and animated body parts. You will be given the occasional break with a boss fight, though none of them seemed too difficult and were more of a quick escape than a memorable event. You will find yourself spamming a series of light and heavy attacks against these foes, while holding a button lets you perform a special attack based on which weapons you have equipped.

A spotty lock-on system hurts you more than it helps as the overwhelming majority of your fights are against multiple enemies at once. Additionally, there is no way to switch targets manually and the only way to tell a target’s health and vulnerability to soul stealing (your mana for special attacks) is when you are locked-on. While this isn’t too harmful, some later battles can become quite frustrating as you find yourself trying to keep a balance, and instead are forced to work on one opponent at a time no matter where on the field they move to. For tougher foes you can engage in a quicktime kill event, that if executed properly, allows you to attain a gift or trophy to upgrade your weaponry.

Speaking of said weaponry, the designers went to great lengths in trying to give you anything your murderous heart desires. Magical powers, bows, and bone hammers are all available and waiting to let you work your arts. Only four are allowed at once and you switch between them with your D-Pad. The difficulty with the weapons is that there is no clear moment on when to use them for a challenge and actively working on an upgrade for them involves going through a long text based menu and each upgrade not having a noticeable impact on your abilities.

Luckily most of the quests are straightforward, with the simple objective of killing your foes. If they were any more complicated than that, I think there would be a lot of trouble, as the quest descriptors might as well be written in the Greek I imagine the characters are talking in. Almost purposely vague, they force you to just run around until you find a place that isn’t locked off, kill, and move on.

The visual effects of the game are oddly inconsistent, sometimes showing a dazzling vista or scene and others times dropping back to graphics appearing over a decade old. The audio is also pretty inferior, the sound effects sometimes not synching to the actual action of the game and the voice acting is either wooden or campy.

The game has some additional modes to it; co-op exists in the game but apparently only on quests where it was actually programmed for. A challenge mode exists to let you replay quests you already have played, but with a twist that doesn’t do too much to cover up what you did with a fresh coat of paint.

Clash of the Titans is a boring game with a predictable storyline. While the idea of being able to steal and equip numerous weapons had a certain appeal to it the delivery and presentation makes it fall short. You are better off looking for your God of War fix with an actual God of War title.