You've reminded me that I really need to replay God of War II, because I don't remember his plan to conquer Greece, at all. But speaking of God of War III, I really hope there's more to it than the demo, because it felt like I was playing God of War II in a higher resolution. Even the graphics didn't impress me, and I loved the other three God of War titles.

You got to the heart of Kratos' identity with this post, Evan. You're right to say that he is both badass and an asshole. But hate for Kratos is something players shouldn't be ashamed to feel.

I remember in the Making Of on the original GOW disc, David Jaffe explained the scene where you have to drag the Athenian soldier (whom you freed from a cage) into sacrificial flames to open a door in order to progress. Jaffe said he and his team debated giving the player the choice of killing the soldier or not, but ultimately decided that Kratos is not the player, who in most cases wouldn't set someone on fire; rather, he's a fucking angry jerk with compassion for no one but his family. So, despite how badass he truly is, it makes sense to hate him.

@Chris -- Oh, I'm very comfortable with my hatred...I guess this is an extension of the "plot vs. gameplay" argument. In this case, playing the game is definitely more satisfying than watching the story, and it's admirable that Jaffe and his team were willing to take such a huge gamble by making their "hero" so repulsive (a similar tactic didn't quite work in Army of Two, for example).

I don't hold the opinion that I have to like the characters in every piece of media I consume, but I do think that I have to care what happens next. At this point I'm thinking he's going to slaughter a bunch of guys, and then I hope he dies horribly.

I'm obviously a Kratos noob having just fired up the original God of War for the first time this week (did you see my article?), but I can see how he would rub people the wrong way. I watched him kill a guy for no reason in the gullet of the Hydra. I'll admit it was kind of funny in a deranged way, but if he keeps murdering ordinary humans in cutscenes I may grow tired of his antics.

I think Kratos is an archetype for vengeance gone too far; to the point it has wholly consumed him. I agree with you wholeheartedly that they took that concept a bit too far in GOW2, and I'm hoping they rein him in and let him "crack" in the last entry of the trilogy. I do also think however, that were it not for his over-the-top persona, he wouldn't have the drive or determination to complete the nigh-impossible feats that he has through the series.

I await with baited breath to see the end (or is it?) to his story come next Tuesday.

I think that him being a ridiculous dick would probably be easier to stomach for me if he had any personality outside of 'badass mean guy'.

Their are plenty of irressponsibly horrible dicks in fiction that people don't outright hate. For example I like the joker in the dark knight returns. He's roughly the same level of murdering douchenozzle bastard as Kratos, but he's kinda funny and you get some kind of feeling for his mode of operation and crazy ass motivations so you can kind of look past it because you can kind of draw a line from 'intelligent person' to 'unhinged psycho mudering douche'

Kratos meanwhile goes from murdering douche to mudering douche who's angry he was tricked into killing his own family, then just gets more douchy from there. Theirs not really any point where you could connect his thought processes with a rational human being other then 'wah family dead!'.

If you for some reason aren't won over simply because Kratos does things that are described as 'awesome' or 'bad ass' however, if say for example the kind of person who describes things as 'bad ass' is the kind of person who described you as a '@##%' in high school maybe, then you would probably have a lot less of a bromance for such a 'eff yeah' testosterone friendly character.....like how I hate gears of war.

I hate so many things...stupid nerd issues......RAGE!

I thought Kratos was still pissed off at the beginning of God of War 2 because Athena and the other gods had not taken the horrible memories he has away like they hinted in the first game? 

Still, like Eric says above, Kratos is the archetype for vengeance, and I hate him, or love him, for that.

Nice post!

Kratos is the best at what he does, and...wait...no that's someone else.  Kratos is war. War is not pretty, fair, or very nice. You don't have to understand it, justify it, agree with it or even have a good reason for it. All you can hope to do is prevent it or survive it.  I would feel weird about slaughtering every one i see if Kratos wasn't a jackass.  It gives you an excuse to rip off heads, and gouge out eyes.

I feel the exact same way, and don't expect it to subside in GoW 3 because, believe it or not, it's only supposed to get worse.  I've read a couple reviews that say he's such an unbelievable asshole in this one you're actually kind of horrified -- quoting Joystiq "there were times when I was nauseated enough by Kratos' actions that I was momentarily distracted from having fun.".  

Of course, that being said, it's supposed to be an incredible over the top experience that's an absolute must play.  Like others have said, the fact that Santa Monica Studios has managed to craft a protagonist that you can really hate is impressive, and if anything it's a refreshing take on the usual good guy routine.

I think you can still have repulsive characters in a videogame that works.

[b]Kane and Lynch[/b] was one, where both titular characters have done very bad things, and put their families in harms way, but it makes for a fascinating character study. Kane is one of the most complex characters I've witnessed in a videogame, where all he wants is revenge against the mysterious criminal organisation, The 7, but ultimately his family gets involved and things go sour very fast. Playing such criminals that you'd usually not interact with (in movies) is cool, because everyone's always interested in crazy people ([url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110632/]Natural Born Killers[/url]). 

@Lance is right.  Kratos wasn't really even looking for the position of God of War when he was initially 'hired.'  He was looking for an escape from the horrible memory of what he was tricked into doing to his own family.  Athena gave him some vague promise about how he would be relieved of his horrible past.

But then it turns out that the rest of the gods, like Ares himself, mostly want to employ and funnel Kratos rage, rather than relieve him of it.  So instead of remove the memories, they think they can placate him by giving him the most power he can have... as an agent of War... God of War.

So he sets about doing what he has been formed and manipulated to do, waging war.  But more than the gods want... better than they would have.  So they "take him down a peg" again.  At which point he decides that it is the actual control and manipulation at the hands of the gods that needs to be brought to a final end.

Or something like that.  That's what I got out of it.

Reading this made me take a step back and look at some of the games I have played over the past year and a half,and I realize that I usually don't like most of the main characters in the games I play. I loved inFamous, but I hated Cole as a character. In most games I feel it is easier for a developer to make a "bad ass" character than someone who is nice and likable.

I've never had the slightest interest in God of War, becuase it just strikes me as murder porn. I don't have a problem with violence in games per se, but I don't really need to see it rendered in such loving detail. The fact that Kratos is completely unsympathetic just ensures that I don't want to participate in his killing spree.

Perhaps this means that I, too, lack testicles. I'll leave it to Alex to make that judgment.

One of my favorite things about God of War is that Kratos is a (mostly) unsympathetic, irredeemable villain.  As someone who can never bring myself to play the bad guy in games that give me a choice (Fable, Mass Effect, etc.), I find it rather cathartic.

I don't get the appeal of God of War. I played the first game for a couple of hours and put it away because I was, well, bored with it. What draws you guys to it? 

@Jason: For me, like I said above, Kratos is a big part of it.  Not many games cast the player as a villain.  I also love the designers' interpretation of Greek mythology.  I looks nothing like the ancient depictions of that mythology, but its absolute grandeur captures the "feel" of it so perfectly.  The way they visually interpret these narratives and then bring them all together so cohesively fascinates me.  So many games try to do that and fail.  Brutal Legend, for example--I love Tim Schafer and I quite enjoyed the game--had moments where the visual design of its metal world was extremely successful, but it also had moments where it just seemed like they didn't bother (the ice and jungle areas, specifically).  

As for the actual gameplay, it's hard for me to articulate.  I don't like similar character action games, like Ninja Gaiden, but there's something about God of War's gameplay that hooks me.  Part of is the visceral impact that the animations have; hacking away at monsters just feels so substantial.  But I'm a button-masher.  I don't play on the harder difficulties where I really need to learn combos and more advanced maneuvers, so I can't really claim the intricacies of the combat as one of its high points (even if, as many say, it is; I just don't know from personal experience).

Now if I could only find some way to justify spending any portion of my very finite amount of money on God of War 3...

You guys obviously haven't seen the teddy bear snuggling mini game in GoW3.

You're not suppose to like Kratos, thats kinda the point.  Hes a blood thirsty hate filled killer and his gameplay suits his personality perfectly.  Its precisely why he's my all time favorite video game character because out of the millions of games where we play killers (which includes everything from Mario to Gears of War) he's the only one with games where the developers aren't constantly trying to convince us we're actually playing a 'good guy'.

A good guy would never kill as many people and things as 99% of games protagonists do.

@Christian: I'm glad you mentioned catharsis, because I was just about to. I don't actually find the series cathartic, because in order to do so I still feel like I have to have some personal stake in the character's fate. I just don't have this for Kratos. I don't care who wins in his battle with Olympus because all parties involved are such tools. I have no problems at all making the "evil" decisions in games like Fable 2, because the character is essentially a blank slate and I am free to bestow him with whichever qualities I think are appropriate.

@Jason: The appeal for me is a combination of my (general) enjoyment of character action games and the fact that I'm a huge nerd for Greek mythology (and extrapolations thereof, like this series). And like I said, they have that difficult-to-describe "fun factor." 

@Aaron I think that's an awesome point.  The gameplay is a really natural extension of who the character is.  I never have the feeling that I get with, say, Nathan Drake -- this charming everyman who "hates guns" even though he kills more people on an average Tuesday than most serial killers do in their entire lives.  On the other hand though, most (key word) of Kratos's victims are bloodthirsty monsters that are magically summoned out of thin air.  Even as a cold-blooded killer, he's probably killed fewer people than most action game "heroes."  Man, that was rambly. >_<

@Evan: That's interesting, actually.  For me, even though I love open games where I have a personal stake in my character's fate, they always come with a certain amount of anxiety for me.  I have such a hard time separating my character from myself, even for the sake of replay value.  And when I do, I get too into it, wondering, "How would this guy dress?" or "What would this guy say in this situation?"  Call it OCD or just general anxiety, I don't know.  But when the game just sits me down and casts me as someone else and tells me that I don't have a choice, it feels like an enormous relief.  Assuming that I enjoy the character, of course.  I can't say that I have a personal stake in Kratos's ultimate quest, but on a moment-to-moment basis I'm invested in what he's doing.

@Aaron and Christian: I think we're onto something here. It's like the argument from Pulp Fiction: if a pig had more personality, it would cease to be a filthy animal, and Nathan Drake is one charming motherfucking pig.

Kratos is one of the main reasons I haven't picked up God of War yet. Even though I love Greek mythology, and I would love to play a cool action game, it's hard for me to get into a game if it's own main character is so one-dimensional. It would be an interesting twist if the third game would reveal if it is all part of a cycle of war gods going rogue and being disposed of by a-holes who are thus promoted to war gods( apologies if I somehow guessed correctly.)