(click for larger scowl)In case you missed it this past Thursday, the God of War Demo was released on the Playstation Store. This is the same demo that was shown at least year's E3, but for the majority of us this was the first chance to play, so the level of asskickery contained within suffered no loss of awesomeness. Also good news: according to the Playstation Blog God of War III has gone gold. But on to the demo impressions!
This is God of War. Chances are pretty good that if you're reading this you're familiar with the first two games. If not, well there's now an easy way to solve that. Regardless, this is one of the most revered titles in over-the-top action games (think Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta and you'll get the idea) and with good reason. Even better, if you decided to try and stave of your hunger for GoW III by partaking in the outstandingly mediocre Dante's Inferno, (sigh, and I had such high hopes...) then Kratos' gloriously violent escapades will just seem that much more impressive by comparison. In fact, to remind you not only of how Kratos came to be embroiled in the circumstances of God of War III, but also to remind you how far past 11 he pushes the "badass-o-meter" let's have a look at IGN's handy video "God of War in 5 Minutes (Sort of)" which even includes the side/in-between story from the PSP entry, Chains of Olympus.
As awesome as that looked, actually playing the games is so much more satisfying. So let me remind you again that this doesn't require backwards compatibility or for you to still have a PS2 lying around.
Alright, now I promise I'm actually going to talk about the demo, and try to avoid spoiling anything nifty while doing so. As I mentioned earlier, this is the exact same demo shown at 2009's E3, so you should be fairly familiar with its content. You start off slicing, stabbing and otherwise maiming your way through some zombie-like soldiers and reacquainting yourself with Kratos' controls. Speaking of which, there are some slight differences from the last time you handled the Ghost of Sparta. The basics are still the same, Square is light attack, Triangle heavy, X jumps and Circle grabs, so the only real differences affect weapon and "magic" switching. You no longer select your desired magic with the D-pad and fire it off with L2. Now, holding down L2 equips whatever magic you used last, and you change between them by pressing the appropriate buttons (which also fire the magic's attack) while holding L2. By default, L2 pulls out your Bow (apparently not Typhon's Bane, though it serves the same basic purpose) with a change to Helios' head (the only other "magic" you pick up during the demo) accomplished by tapping R1. As mentioned earlier, using Helios' head makes that the default magic (L2), switching back to your Bow requires the player to press Square. This setup works quite well in the demo, and unless Kratos picks up an absurd amount of magical attacks, should prove effective throughout the entire game.
The previous selection method for magic, the D-pad, now changes Kratos equipped main weapon on the fly. During the demo the only other weapon Kratos has access to are the Cestus and well...they're pretty rad. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I never found myself giving much time to the other weapons in God of War I or II. The Cestus, on the other hand, are a lot of fun and I even found myself favoring them over the blades by my third playthrough of the demo. Acting mostly as gigantic metal boxing gloves in the shape of lion heads, the force of the Cestus can stun multiple enemies and throws whoever it strikes backwards. This causes damage to any enemies enemies struck by your primary victim. The ground-pounding of the heavier attacks will even launch just about every enemy around you into the air. Each strikes from the Cestus also pause time, very briefly, but this seems to be more for visual effect than any combat advantage. Essentially, the more limited range of the Cestus is not as great a detriment compared to the standard Blades as it was for supplemental weapons of games past. In fact, the Cestus even have extendable chains similar to Athena's blades, but their use is limited to special moves (still accomplished by a combination of block -- L1 -- and an attack button). It's also worth mentioning that, unlike heavy weapons of previous games such as the Barbarian's Hammer, Kratos can still dodge while using the Cestus. However, the move becomes a hop rather than a roll and the distance is cut down to about 75% of what it is while using the Blades.
There's some fun new additions to combat itself, mostly in the form of the grabs and quick-time events. In Krato's third outing, grabbing an enemy looks like it will have more uses than just ending them quickly. The method of execution that follows a grab is still dependent on the button press that follows (decapitate with square, tear in half with triangle, etc.) but you can also turn that enemy into a rather formidable weapon. Going beyond the previous games where you could throw most standard enemies you grabbed at another, you can now pick up your captive and run around the screen using the poor soul as a combination shield/battering ram. This is quite the effective attack and there's one section of the demo where you can lay waste to an entire squad of soldiers using only one of their comrades. So what you do with your grabbed enemy now requires a little more thought but can potentially have a significant reward. One of the smaller additions to God of War's combat actually requires the player to not do very well. It's possible for Kratos to be overpowered by a large enough force of enemies that will then pile on top of him in a kind of evil dogpile. Escaping is a simple matter of shaking the left stick back and forth and throws back every enemy involved. It's worth letting yourself get overwhelmed by enemies in this way at least once just to see the move in action.
Speaking of choices, there's one particular are of the demo that I want to talk about for a moment. Those of you that remember the E3 demo videos might recall the point at which Kratos reaches Helios' broken body only to find it protected by a phalanx of skeletal soldiers with very large shields. The Blades of Athena are completely impotent against this defense. What was most often shown in the demo was Kratos climbing aboard a Cyclops (using the improved quicktime interface that I will address shortly) and taking control of the beast in order to break apart the phalanx. This is not your only choice for overcoming the dome of shields however. The raw blunt force of the Cestus can also overpower the shields. So it's up to the player whether or not he uses the Cestus or bat at the defenses with the blades and prompt the cyclops to show up. Even if you choose the Cestus, the Cyclops will show up eventually so you can still climb atop the it and crush the enemies below...until you decide to rip the cyclops' eyeball out and kill it that is.
As for the quicktime events, the on-screen has improved considerably. The required button press is now located on the corresponding side of the screen -- X on bottom, Triangle on top, and so on -- so that you can actually concentrate on the action your button presses are performing without having to focus your attention on the symbol at the center of the screen. What's the point of having over-the-top violence if you can't actually watch and enjoy it, am I right? Especially since the new graphics engine Sony Santa Monica has come up with shows the effects of your attacks in real time. The most dramatic of these being "zipper tech" which allows for an "accurate" portrayal of organs spilling out when you've sliced an enemy open. Speaking of which, the graphics are exactly what you would expect from God of War: gorgeous. Four years into it's lifecycle the PS3 is really showing it's graphical muscle.
Once you've killed the soldiers, disemboweled the centaur, maimed the chimera, de-eyed the cyclops and decapitated Helios you'll get a chance to try vertical flight sequence that requires some fairly quick thinking to make through unscathed while you dodge beams and falling debris while you pilot Kratos straight up a vertical shaft. Once this sequence is completed the demo ends, all too soon I might add.
From the impressions the demo left, it looks like God of War III is well on its way to being as much of an improvement over II as that game was over the original. And that's really saying something.
This is God of War. Chances are pretty good that if you're reading this you're familiar with the first two games. If not, well there's now an easy way to solve that. Regardless, this is one of the most revered titles in over-the-top action games (think Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta and you'll get the idea) and with good reason. Even better, if you decided to try and stave of your hunger for GoW III by partaking in the outstandingly mediocre Dante's Inferno, (sigh, and I had such high hopes...) then Kratos' gloriously violent escapades will just seem that much more impressive by comparison. In fact, to remind you not only of how Kratos came to be embroiled in the circumstances of God of War III, but also to remind you how far past 11 he pushes the "badass-o-meter" let's have a look at IGN's handy video "God of War in 5 Minutes (Sort of)" which even includes the side/in-between story from the PSP entry, Chains of Olympus.
As awesome as that looked, actually playing the games is so much more satisfying. So let me remind you again that this doesn't require backwards compatibility or for you to still have a PS2 lying around.
Alright, now I promise I'm actually going to talk about the demo, and try to avoid spoiling anything nifty while doing so. As I mentioned earlier, this is the exact same demo shown at 2009's E3, so you should be fairly familiar with its content. You start off slicing, stabbing and otherwise maiming your way through some zombie-like soldiers and reacquainting yourself with Kratos' controls. Speaking of which, there are some slight differences from the last time you handled the Ghost of Sparta. The basics are still the same, Square is light attack, Triangle heavy, X jumps and Circle grabs, so the only real differences affect weapon and "magic" switching. You no longer select your desired magic with the D-pad and fire it off with L2. Now, holding down L2 equips whatever magic you used last, and you change between them by pressing the appropriate buttons (which also fire the magic's attack) while holding L2. By default, L2 pulls out your Bow (apparently not Typhon's Bane, though it serves the same basic purpose) with a change to Helios' head (the only other "magic" you pick up during the demo) accomplished by tapping R1. As mentioned earlier, using Helios' head makes that the default magic (L2), switching back to your Bow requires the player to press Square. This setup works quite well in the demo, and unless Kratos picks up an absurd amount of magical attacks, should prove effective throughout the entire game.
The previous selection method for magic, the D-pad, now changes Kratos equipped main weapon on the fly. During the demo the only other weapon Kratos has access to are the Cestus and well...they're pretty rad. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I never found myself giving much time to the other weapons in God of War I or II. The Cestus, on the other hand, are a lot of fun and I even found myself favoring them over the blades by my third playthrough of the demo. Acting mostly as gigantic metal boxing gloves in the shape of lion heads, the force of the Cestus can stun multiple enemies and throws whoever it strikes backwards. This causes damage to any enemies enemies struck by your primary victim. The ground-pounding of the heavier attacks will even launch just about every enemy around you into the air. Each strikes from the Cestus also pause time, very briefly, but this seems to be more for visual effect than any combat advantage. Essentially, the more limited range of the Cestus is not as great a detriment compared to the standard Blades as it was for supplemental weapons of games past. In fact, the Cestus even have extendable chains similar to Athena's blades, but their use is limited to special moves (still accomplished by a combination of block -- L1 -- and an attack button). It's also worth mentioning that, unlike heavy weapons of previous games such as the Barbarian's Hammer, Kratos can still dodge while using the Cestus. However, the move becomes a hop rather than a roll and the distance is cut down to about 75% of what it is while using the Blades.
There's some fun new additions to combat itself, mostly in the form of the grabs and quick-time events. In Krato's third outing, grabbing an enemy looks like it will have more uses than just ending them quickly. The method of execution that follows a grab is still dependent on the button press that follows (decapitate with square, tear in half with triangle, etc.) but you can also turn that enemy into a rather formidable weapon. Going beyond the previous games where you could throw most standard enemies you grabbed at another, you can now pick up your captive and run around the screen using the poor soul as a combination shield/battering ram. This is quite the effective attack and there's one section of the demo where you can lay waste to an entire squad of soldiers using only one of their comrades. So what you do with your grabbed enemy now requires a little more thought but can potentially have a significant reward. One of the smaller additions to God of War's combat actually requires the player to not do very well. It's possible for Kratos to be overpowered by a large enough force of enemies that will then pile on top of him in a kind of evil dogpile. Escaping is a simple matter of shaking the left stick back and forth and throws back every enemy involved. It's worth letting yourself get overwhelmed by enemies in this way at least once just to see the move in action.
Speaking of choices, there's one particular are of the demo that I want to talk about for a moment. Those of you that remember the E3 demo videos might recall the point at which Kratos reaches Helios' broken body only to find it protected by a phalanx of skeletal soldiers with very large shields. The Blades of Athena are completely impotent against this defense. What was most often shown in the demo was Kratos climbing aboard a Cyclops (using the improved quicktime interface that I will address shortly) and taking control of the beast in order to break apart the phalanx. This is not your only choice for overcoming the dome of shields however. The raw blunt force of the Cestus can also overpower the shields. So it's up to the player whether or not he uses the Cestus or bat at the defenses with the blades and prompt the cyclops to show up. Even if you choose the Cestus, the Cyclops will show up eventually so you can still climb atop the it and crush the enemies below...until you decide to rip the cyclops' eyeball out and kill it that is.
As for the quicktime events, the on-screen has improved considerably. The required button press is now located on the corresponding side of the screen -- X on bottom, Triangle on top, and so on -- so that you can actually concentrate on the action your button presses are performing without having to focus your attention on the symbol at the center of the screen. What's the point of having over-the-top violence if you can't actually watch and enjoy it, am I right? Especially since the new graphics engine Sony Santa Monica has come up with shows the effects of your attacks in real time. The most dramatic of these being "zipper tech" which allows for an "accurate" portrayal of organs spilling out when you've sliced an enemy open. Speaking of which, the graphics are exactly what you would expect from God of War: gorgeous. Four years into it's lifecycle the PS3 is really showing it's graphical muscle.
Once you've killed the soldiers, disemboweled the centaur, maimed the chimera, de-eyed the cyclops and decapitated Helios you'll get a chance to try vertical flight sequence that requires some fairly quick thinking to make through unscathed while you dodge beams and falling debris while you pilot Kratos straight up a vertical shaft. Once this sequence is completed the demo ends, all too soon I might add.
From the impressions the demo left, it looks like God of War III is well on its way to being as much of an improvement over II as that game was over the original. And that's really saying something.
