Publisher: SCEA
Developer: SCEA
Release Date: March 2010
What Is It?
When gamers finished God of War 2, they knew that the tale of Kratos was not done. God of War 3 continue’s Kratos’ tale on his quest for vengence against the Gods of Olympus.
What We Played
The demo starts you off at the gates of some Grecian city (it never told us where this is). It was besieged by enemies reminiscent of the ones found in God of War: Chains of Olympus. As he enters through the gates we see a Titan far off in the distance attempting to climb up into the city, but the Titan is harrassed by the sun God Helios on his sun chariot. As you first entered the city, you are immediately swarmed by at least a dozen grunts. In fact if one of them manages to grab a hold of you, the rest of them will converge on you and try to hold you down. You can break out of it by wiggling the analog stick until you break through like Neo against the dozen or so Mr. Smiths in Matrix Reloaded. One of the things you quickly learn from this part of the demo is that now Kratos’s throws can be interupted by simply being hit. You can get around that problem by pressing X which makes Kratos use the enemy he happens to be holding as a kind of running shield. Anyone that gets in his way is thrown back while he runs around like this. He eventually flings the enemy forward hopefully off a ledge or smack dab into a wall.
After the initial swarm of enemies were dispatched, a centaur steps out along with a couple of grunts as well. After taking down all of the grunts, the centaur was dealt with easily. Per God of War tradition, you’re given the opportunity to make a finishing throw on the centaur after you’ve dealt enough damage to it. Here’s where the game has also changed. In all of the quick time events, the buttons that you’re supposed to press doesn’t show up in the middle like before. Instead now it show up on one of the four edges of the screen accompanied by a faint glow of said edge. The side of the screen it shows up on corresponds with the 4 directions the face buttons makes, so if the button you’re suppose to push is X, it’ll show up on the bottom edge of the screen. If it’s circle, it’ll show up on the right side of the screen. Even the two shoulder buttons show up in the corresponding top corners of the screen. The idea is to watch the action in the middle while you let your peripheral vision deal with figuring out which buttons to press.
After disemboweling the centaur, Kratos moved on to a corridor with a ledge that he simply couldn’t reach by himself, but there’s a harpy in the area. Here the demo showed off one of the new features of God of War 3, the ability to “ride” certain enemies. Harpies happen to be one of those creatures, and in usual God of War tradtion, Kratos does so in the goriest way possible. After latching himself to a harpy, he stabs the harpy periodically which somehow forces it to keep flapping its wings. After a period of time, Kratos has to abandon it by ripping it in half which gives him a slight jumping effect.
Next up, a fight with a chimera. At this point, the demo reminded you that you had another weapon at your arsenal, the cestus. These “wolf fists” have a pretty short range, but they pack quite a punch. Interestingly enough, they’re connected to your arms like Athena’s blades, Kratos’s signature weapon, but only a few of the attacks uses them this way. After making quick work of the chimera with the help of the cestus — which involves cutting off the snake’s head, stabbing the hell out of the lion’s face, and breaking off a horn off of the goat’s head only to impale it straight back into the goat’s face — you fire off a giant arrow at Helios which distracts him long enough for the Titan to catch him in one hand and crush him like a fly before throwing him to a cliff wall. The Titan then moves on over the city.
With that Kratos moved towards the fallen God. When he reachd him, Helios’ minions bearing shields came to Helios’s aid by surrounding him with shields raised outward. Kratos couldn’t break through that without a little extra help. It came in the form of a cyclops. Like the harpies, the cyclops is one of the creatures that you can ride. In this case, he gets himself a walking tank that has a tendency to swing its club if you stab in just the right place on its neck. It was more than enough to obliterate through the defenses of the shielded grunts. After a while, Kratos must abandon the cyclops, but not before ripping out its eyeball. Once Kratos cleared out the remaining grunts, he proceeds to Helios where he, in probably the goriest moment in all of God of War history, rips Helios’s head off with his bare hands. You can see the skin in his neck literally tearing off of the rest body by the sheer force of this act. I’ve played all of the God of Wars before this, and this is the first time I’m actually slightly disturbed by his brutality. It was also then that I realized that Kratos is bloodied from the blood splatter of the previous battles. It doesn’t go away for a good while, and usually it get covered up by more blood.
As for the head, Kratos uses it to find hidden objects in the game. If you have it out, the controller will start to rumble which signifies that a hidden object is close by. Helios’s head also shines a light which reveals the hidden object. In this case, there was a door hidden in the cliff walls for some reason or another. Once inside, its completely pitch black. Enter Helios’s head once again. The God of the sun is literally reduced to a lantern. When the head is shone on an enemy, it would be temporarily blinded and even start to illuminate for a little while. Long enough for Kratos to eliminate it and anything else that might’ve come along.
Finally, Kratos comes to a giant shaft with an upward draft. With the help of the Icarus Wings, a nifty little pressent from Icarus in God of War 2, Kratos flew upwards carried by the draft. Unfortunately, there are obstacles along the way which Kratos must avoid. Once he gets to the top, Kratos comes face to face with the Titan still climbing its way up the mountain side and ending the demo. Who’s side is he on anyway?
Whatcha think
Bigger. Badder. Gorier. Was there anything the fans asked for that wasn’t included in the demo? No, not really.
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