Reviews// God of War: Ascension - Multiplayer

Weaponry is limited to the three classes of sword, hammer and spear. You start with a basic version of your chosen weapon, but experience points will be used to upgrade both weapons and armour as well as your character's rank within your chosen god's allegiance.

Weapons and armour can be changed between matches as can your magic, item and relic equipment. You can have one of each equipped for a match, magic gives you devastating triggered attacks, items give triggered boons like defence or healing and relics give automatic boons after certain events like increased resistance for a short time after respawning.

Your style of play will dictate the load out you wish to take into any particular battle. You have a short pause between matches to enable you to refine your equipment for the next one. You're even shown the next arena in case you want to change your approach depending on the location of the battle.

As you gain allegiance ranks you are gifted with skill points that can be used to unlock or upgrade certain weapons, armour, items, relics and magic. Others are unlocked by completing various labours that the gods have challenged you with. Ares grants gifts for various numbers of enemies killed for example.

Ranks and equipment make a huge difference when playing, I found myself being juggled from one end of the arenas to the other when I first started playing, but after a few upgrades and weapon changes I was soon gaining kills and awards.

Awards are XP bonuses for completing various acts and labours such as revenge for killing a player that killed you. Even if you enter a match that is ended immediately due to the other players dropping out you will get some XP. A certain amount is handed out for your performance and another amount for completing the match.

XP is automatically applied to your rank meter and the level meters of the equipment you used in the match. The full amount gained is applied to all meters which was a nice surprise, I'd expected the XP to be split, but this keeps things simple and quick.

As you and your equipment level up your stats are increased. Your stats are initially set by your allegiance and cover your health, power of and resistance to physical and magical attacks and also the cool-down period for use of your items. You can also increase your stats with better equipment gained by labours and spending skill points.

All of the game modes play well, but there are a few minor gripes that stop this being an excellent multiplayer game. First and most serious is the camera, as with the single player game there is no direct camera control. This can get frustrating when the camera seems to prefer to show as much area as it can, meaning it's often difficult to see what's going on in furious skirmishes.

In a similar vein it's often difficult to tell your player apart from the others. Unlike other players, you don't have a name over your head, but that's often no use when you're in a big fight and can't read them anyway. I often found myself out of a fight and wasting time getting back simply because I was looking at the wrong player.

Given the way the series treats its female characters, it's probably no surprise that you can't play as one, but it would be a nice addition as long as they got useful looking armour rather than chain-mail bras to wear.

However, gripes aside, this is a very enjoyable multiplayer addition to a traditionally single player game. I wouldn't say it's worth the price of Ascension on its own, but combined with the single player game, it's an amazing package.

Pros
+ Fun and fast gameplay
+ Large amounts of equipment and awards
+ Fair levelling and bonuses

Cons
- Confusing camera system
- Difficult to make out players
- Initially frustrating being juggled

SPOnG Score (multiplayer only): 8/10

SPOnG Score (overall): 9/10