The God of War III demo playable at the 2009 E3 was previously only made available to those who purchased the high def upscaled God of War I & II collection for the PS3. However, starting last week, the demo became available to the general public on the Playstation Network. This was my first opportunity to play the demo because I did not pick up the PS3 collection of the first two games since I already played them on the PS2 (and was overwhelmed last fall and through this unusually busy winter — e.g. Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Heavy Rain).
Immediately noticeable is the high definition overhaul of the game for the PS3. The character models of both Kratos and his enemies have much more detail and the fighting animations are exceptionally crisp given how fast the fighting moves and how many enemies you might be fighting at once. The depth of the background in some of the areas is amazing and really takes the epic feel of the first two games to another level, especially when you see the enormous titan smashing through the city and fighting Helios in his flaming chariot in the background throughout the beginning of the demo.
In the demo, you, as Kratos, walk through some dilapidated ruins and fight skeleton soliders, interrupted with a few more difficult and larger enemies. You first encounter a large centaur with a strong charging attack. You then find a large ballista and try to help the titan by shooting down Helios’ chariot. However, a chimera appears, which is where things got a little more interesting. At first, the chimera attacked with its snake tail. But after you dodge its attacks and whittle down the chimera a bit, you enter a quick time event that causes you to cut off its tail. The chimera then stood on its back legs and attacked with fiery breath, intermittently charging at you. Like the first two games, you must vary your strategy and combos depending on your distance to the enemy and what attack it is using at the time.
During this first segment of the game, the combo system appeared to function identically to that of the first two games, so the fighting felt almost too familiar. However, there’s some updates that will hopefully vary the gameplay enough to keep things interesting. Besides Kratos’ traditional weapon, the Blades of Chaos, you can use a new weapon in the demo, the Cestus. This Cestus is essentially two very large gauntlets with fanged mouths on the ends of them with which to pummel your enemies. Unlike the Blades of Chaos, the Cestus works better at dispatching enemies at short range. For example, there’s a spin move like with the Blades of Chaos, but it works only on closer enemies, yet does more damage. However, there’s also a slow, yet powerful, long range attack you can use to gain some distance when enemies start crowding you. Because the move takes time to pull off, you have to think about your positioning and timing before you do it or the enemies will get too close and interrupt your move. You also have wings that you can use to glide after a double jump, allowing another option for dodging besides the right stick roll and jump back, which is especially helpful for getting out of the way of some of the enemies’ special moves or charges.
The quick time events have also changed. Now, instead of appearing in the middle of the screen or on portions of the enemies, the button prompts appear at the edges of the screen in the direction of the particular button. So, you just have to pay attention to the direction of the prompt and push the corresponding button. It’s a small adjustment, but it allows you to focus on the action and brutality you are triggering instead of concentrating on what symbol appears and, then, what button you need to press.
After killing the chimera, you finally get to use the ballista. With careful timing, you will shoot down Helios’ chariot, causing him to crash on the other side of a chasm. You can shoot harpies flying over the chasm with a bow. When the harpies get agitated by your attacks, they swarm you. This allows you to grab onto them and steer them (by slashing at them with your blades), so that you can cross the chasm. The harpies only last so long under the brutality of your steering method, so you have to jump from one to another to continue your flight if the distance is far enough.
Once you get to the other side, you encounter some more skeletons with strong shields and a cyclops. The shields rebuff most of your attacks. But after doing enough damage to the cyclops, you enter a quick time event and, instead of plunging your blade into the cyclops’ eye to kill it, you ride the cyclops and attack other enemies with it. The shields yield to the cyclops’ might. It was surprisingly fun to take control of the lumbering cylcops and mow down enemies in your path. And not surprisingly, once you are done with the cyclops, you enter another quick time event to kill it, plunging your hand behind the cyclops’ eye to pull it out as blood sprays over you. Yes, the bloody killing moves are back in full force in the third installment.
You find Helios injured and, after successfully completing a quick time event, rip off his head. When you hold up Helios’ head, a light shines forth from it, illuminating secrets that you could not previously see. In this case, that consists of a door into a cave. After some more harpie flights and light platforming, you arrive at an opening leading upward with a heavy draft of air rushing from underneath. You jump into the stream of air, flying upwards as the air catches your wings. You switch to flight controls (which can be set either as traditional or inverted) and must dodge debris, rocks, and beams. When you reach the top, you come face to face with the titan that you helped earlier. He takes a swat at you, and Kratos goes charging at the titan. Fade into darkness. End of demo.
As hinted above, my main concern with the God of War III demo was that the combat and controls seemed way too familiar. I’m afraid that although the game will clearly be polished and the fighting system yet even more refined, things might seem too similar to the first two games. The first game enthralled me, but by the end of the second game, it started to feel a bit repetitive. Hopefully the high def upgrade, new weapons, enemy types, and ability to ride and control enemies will be enough to keep things fresh. We’ll find out in two weeks when the game releases on March 16th.