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actually, aside from ice breaking blocks, is there any other difference among the 4 elements? none. they all move at the same speed, they all do the same amount of damage, and they do pretty much the same combos with just different looks. the world weapons have so few actions it's ridiculous to consider them as "part of Kratos' arsenal. the relics are also bland, in that they do one click uses. does the amulet do anything else? no it doesn't. it has a long cooldown and you use it on one guy and you forget about it for 20 seconds.

compare that to previous god of war games where Kratos had an array of weapons that really did do different things. to name a few, the cestus from god of war 3 and the barbarian hammer from god of war 2 were completely different from the blades of chaos and they had a whole different set of move lists. aside from that, they required completely different timing and situational uses. kratos also had a bow, running boots, wings, not to mention that he had the blade of olympus itself.

so now which one has variety?

I´ll start playing the game soon, so could you give me an advice about the elemental weapons?...you mention ice is good for enemies that block, but what about the other elements?...what are the best specific situations to use the other three?

fire, ice, electric, soul are the options.  fire comes "pre-upgraded" btw as in when you get it there are only 3 upgrades instead of 5.

fire is a damage modifier.  it is really good when you are 1v1 and don't need the extra stuff the other elementals do.  i upgraded this one last as i used my other elementals so much i figured it was better to upgrade the base stats of the blades of chaos instead.  

for the other elements when you get them (as bugimmar says) they don't do much but change the color of the blades.  you have to upgrade them to get the useful parts of them.  the triangle move upgrades, the square move upgrades, the rage move upgrade, and the magic attack move upgrades.  all four elementals are unquie in each of these.

ice is unblockable.  there are ton of foes with shields this game.  there is a minigame to de-shield them but often time there are too many foes to be able to win this game ergo the need to use ice until the field is a bit more even.

electric damage stuns.  this is great when you have two larger foes.  when you meet two stone statues (forget their name atm) they can stun lock you if you aren't careful.  electric is amazing at keeping them subdued long enough to get in an attack otherwise you can find yourself blocking for minutes on end.

soul damage is AoE and range.  this is great when you have dozens of smaller foes all coming at once as it will hit them all.  the L1 triangle move will hit your foe regardless of where on the stage they are.  it is almost unfair how powerful this is on some of the boss fights when you can just kite and range them with this.

Thanks a lot!

I had heard enemies in Ascension block far more often than in other God of War games, so it´s true then.

actually, aside from ice breaking blocks, is there any other difference among the 4 elements? none. they all move at the same speed, they all do the same amount of damage, and they do pretty much the same combos with just different looks. the world weapons have so few actions it's ridiculous to consider them as "part of Kratos' arsenal. the relics are also bland, in that they do one click uses. does the amulet do anything else? no it doesn't. it has a long cooldown and you use it on one guy and you forget about it for 20 seconds.

compare that to previous god of war games where Kratos had an array of weapons that really did do different things. to name a few, the cestus from god of war 3 and the barbarian hammer from god of war 2 were completely different from the blades of chaos and they had a whole different set of move lists. aside from that, they required completely different timing and situational uses. kratos also had a bow, running boots, wings, not to mention that he had the blade of olympus itself.

so now which one has variety?

I´ll start playing the game soon, so could you give me an advice about the elemental weapons?...you mention ice is good for enemies that block, but what about the other elements?...what are the best specific situations to use the other three?

So I look at the review scores on metacritic, and being a GoW fan, I thought they were being unfair in saying that "it's the same old GoW" and gave it a low score. However, upon playing the thing, I recognize that it really deserves those scores, or even lower.

1.) The story is too short, and it's about something even shorter - the plot is sooooo long-winded that it's ridiculous. It details such a small part of Kratos' life, but the game forcibly renders it to go on longer and longer. There are far too many pointless areas and there are just too few story details that you can't get into what he's doing. In fact, halfway through, I didn't even understand what the hell I was doing anymore.

2.) Aside from being short, the story is simply bland and pointless - compared to other GoW games where you're actually doing something epic, such as in GoW 3 where you fought the gods themselves, this time you're just fighting 3 crazy women who keep yelling the same thing over and over: "death for you!". There's no epic boss battle to be had here, because the furies are 3 pay grades below what we've seen Kratos fighting.

3.) There's no variety in the weapons anymore - yea, Kratos gets 4 elements to his blades of chaos. Unfortunately, there's no clear cut definition on how the other 3 would be useful. They act in almost exactly the same way and the world weapons you pick up just don't cut it. You're basically blades of chaos guy with no other option.

4.) Jaggies, low definition textures, rushed production everywhere - in GoW 3, you could really go close up on Kratos and you wouldn't see anything wrong with him. In Ascension, he looks like a mess. There are very few moments where you'd be wowed by the graphics, and oftentimes you get to wonder why they put so little effort in the polish.

5.) Multiplayer is fun but not varied enough for the purchase - The single player story can be completed in about 8 hours if you're going around looking for everything. That's 8 hours of no variety nor epic moments. So basically you're buying the game for the multiplayer, but that alone isn't enough for your 60 bucks.

Conclusion: Disappointment. I was at launch day and I was in line. This time the reviewers have it right. It just isn't all that good. It's still GoW, it still has non-stop action, but it has less of everything we've seen before. I understand it's not a numbered game in the series, and it's more like a spin-off, but Santa Monica really tarnished their reputation with this one.

7.5/10