On February 24th, Sony and Santa Monica Studios held a Global Media Event for God of War III. The event gave the press an opportunity to interview key members of the development team and play the first 25 minutes of the game. As it took play testers 15 hours on average to complete the game, the attending press was only given a small taste of what is sure to be one of the best games of 2010.
GOW III opens exactly where GOW II left off. Beginning with a cut scene, Kratos rides the Titan Gaia up Mount Olympus in order to fight Zeus and an assembled team of other Greek Gods. The cut scene looks just as good or better than any of the ones in GOW II. GOW III's director, Stig Asmussen, explained that most of the videos were done in real-time, although some of the more epic cut-scenes were pre-rendered with the game engine.
For people wanting to dive right into the action, we noticed that at least with the opening video sequence, there is no way to skip it and jump right into the fight. Despite that minor annoyance, the opening sequence will please even the most jaded gamer. Don't worry that Santa Monica Studios has already revealed epic portions of the game. John Hight, Director of Product Development for GOW III, said that "[Santa Monica Studios] didn't blow all our load on the first opening sequence."
Like the 2009 E3 demo, the game's opening screen features half of Kratos' face staring back at you with an extreme close up. It is obvious that a lot of improvements have been made to the graphics since June 2009. Kratos' eye is the most realistic to grace a video game. If you've ever felt the strangeness of staring into a great ape's eyes at the zoo, and felt they were so human like, this will give you almost the same experience.
While you are fighting or walking on Gaia, there are often things going on in the background with other Titans and Gods as they fight it out. The opening 25 minutes almost always has something amazing going on in either the foreground, the background or both at the same time. Despite this epic sense of scale, the game never dips below 30 frames per second. John Hight told us that the game is locked to never go below that mark, though it can and often does run faster. With V-synch locked to 30 fps, there should be no screen tearing.
The beginning of GOW III plays almost exactly like GOW II. Early in the game, Kratos loses his powers and must slowly gain them back. Adam Puhl, the lead Combat/Weapons designer said that while the beginning of the game plays like GOW II, later on, it begins to play differently as Kratos acquires new weapons, moves and magic. Adam mentioned that one of the things he is most excited about is the ability to change weapons mid-combo. They have attempted to make each weapon unique and just as fun to play as the standard chain blades. That means there will be three other weapons besides the chain blades with complete move sets to upgrade and master.
The Quick Time Events play out similar to previous God of War games with a slight change. Now, the QTE buttons display on the borders of the screen in order to make them more in your peripheral vision. In the beginning of the game, the QTE buttons don't change, but after a certain point, they will randomize.
Battling enemies atop a massive Titan is something you have to play to appreciate. John Hight said that we can expect roughly 20 percent of the game to take place on or within various Titans. The Titan's were described as having their own artificial intelligence, but the overall effect early in the game makes them feel more scripted. This seems almost necessary given the combat and puzzles that revolve around the Titans.
There was only one minor puzzle during the game's opening sequence, hardly enough to get a taste of what others will be like. When Steve Caterson, Sr. Producer, was asked to describe the puzzles in GOW III, he stated that we can expect them to play more like the original.
Adam Puhl recommends that hardcore gamers begin on Hard. The team is very proud of how the higher difficulty settings play. They were designed to provide a challenge to fans. We don't claim to be masters of the series, but we were able to play through the normal difficulty setting with only minor issues. Of course, this was only the beginning of the game. The hard setting really ramped up the difficulty. In our limited time, we were unable to defeat the first God that Kratos battles. Given that there is a Titan mode unlocked after beating Hard, which even Puhl says he has difficulty with, the most experienced GOW players should expect a huge challenge.
After playing through the first 25 minutes of GOW III, we left with the feeling that it will be a serious game of the year contender. There are few games that have this level of polish. It was obvious that the development team wanted to make the best God of War possible. Gamers should look forward to something very special.
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Reader Comments (1)
God of War II sucks. 10/10. This should have been in top 10 list format. I don't know how to read on this website without them. Boarders should be spelled borders. I am saddened that this remains my #1 source of videogame news. Although the "Cool videos you may have missed" are neat.