[Preview]God Of War 3[PS3]

[BloodRaven]

 

Set in the realm of Greek mythology, God of War III for the last time puts Kratos at the center of the carnage and destruction as he seeks revenge against the Gods who have betrayed him. A single-player game, this final chapter allows players to take on the climatic role of the ex-Spartan warrior, Kratos, as he treads through the intimidating heights of Mt. Olympus and the dark depths of Hell once more to seek revenge on those who have betrayed him. Armed with double-chained blades, Kratos must take on mythology's darkest creatures while solving intricate puzzles throughout his merciless quest to destroy Olympus.

 

Utilizing a new game engine built from the ground up and state-of-the-art visual technologies, the development team behind God of War 3 have made significant strides in giving players the realistic feel of actually being on the battlegrounds. With texture resolutions being quadrupled since God of War 2, God of War 3 will feature fluid, life-like characters, as well as dynamic lighting effects, a robust weapon system, and world-changing scenarios that will truly bring unmistakable realism to Kratos' fateful quest. Players will have a chance to join battles on a grand scale with many more enemies on-screen and be able to interact with levels like never before.

 

 

Last time on God of War...

 

The story starts right where God of War 2 ended, so spoiler warning and all that, but you're going to need to know that ending to understand what happens here. If you recall, after facing off against Zeus but not quite finishing the job, Kratos finds himself scaling Mount Olympus on the back of the Titan Gaia to seek revenge. "Kratos' sole purpose -- the thing that really drives him -- is this need for revenge towards his father Zeus," says Asmussen. "Essentially what Kratos is doing is reigniting this legendary Great War between the Gods and the Titans."

 

This leads to God of War 3's first big idea: "Titan gameplay." A decent chunk of the game takes place literally on top of these Titans as they move around, though given their size, you're still able to play through fully developed levels on their backs. You might not even notice where you are at a given moment until you see the ground shake or the camera zoom out. God of War has always been good about zooming out to prove a point, and it seems like that concept will be more important than ever this time around.

 

As you can probably imagine, the setting changes the game's level designs quite a lot. At Sony's media event, members of the development team were fond of demonstrating how an area can change at any given second by holding out their arm horizontally and then tilting it vertically -- the arm's entire structure changes and the levels have to be built around movements like that as the Titans shift around. And while much of this will be scripted, according to Papy it presents a significant development challenge because the team wants these shifts to feel natural and not like they happen the exact same way every time you play.

 

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Creating a Battlefield

 

Part two in Sony's plan to supersize the game comes with an increased number of enemy drones that will attack you at once. When I first heard about this, I got a bit concerned that they might become overwhelming along the lines of something like Dynasty Warriors, which would clash with how God of War's combat has worked in the past.

 

God of War's combat has always been based around crowd control -- your weapons have decent range and can knock enemies over with the right combos, so the player who evades properly and herds enemies as a group does better than someone who button mashes hoping for the best. That's why Square Square Triangle was the best move in God of War 1 -- Triangle grounded many enemies, giving you time to reset Kratos and plan your next attack.

 

Fortunately, Sony Santa Monica's approach tackles this issue head on, attempting to add variety and options for how you fight bigger battles (and I should clarify that "bigger battles" here doesn't mean what it means in Dynasty Warriors -- "I think we might max out at like 50," says Papy, and no scene shown at Sony's media event got that high). Using what Asmussen refers to as "grab gameplay," Kratos can now pick up an enemy and decide whether to throw them (think overhand bowling) or put them on his shoulder like a linebacker. This opens a lot of options: you can use your meat shield as a battering ram and run into other enemies, you can carry them to a wall and bash their head against it, or -- as you can see in today's trailer -- you can carry one of them into a crowd and set off a little Kratos bomb to blow all the enemies into the air.

Another option for taking out grunt clouds is to use your bow and arrow, which conveniently has a fiery charge that can light enemies on fire -- and if you're lucky, they'll run into one another and light their friends on fire for you.

 

"This is another one of those things that's pretty common in next-gen games right now, seeing these massive battlefields with 50 or 100 enemies on them," says Asmussen. "There's no doubt it looks awesome. The first time I saw it in gameplay, it was pretty inspiring. But then you play it and you notice, 'You know what? I'm doing the same thing against 50 guys that I'm doing against five.' The combat really didn't evolve. So what we're doing is implementing a bunch of new grab moves and actions and attacks that you're able to do that actually do evolve when more creatures get on screen."

 

Armed & Dangerous

 

The updated weapon system is yet another feature the developers are planning to give the player for control over large groups, including the ability to switch between weapons on the fly (currently mapped to the D-pad) and more depth added to each alternate weapon. Granted, I'm taking their word for it on the latter, since I haven't had a chance to play the game myself and I've only watched the developers mess around with one new weapon, but it's a nice thing to hear them say.

 

The idea is that the Cestus (those big metal lion head gauntlets seen in the December trailer) will have as many combos as your default blades, with many of them mapped to the same button presses, making it easy to start a combo with one weapon and finish with another.

 

The Cestus is also unique in that it's not just a pair of short-range boxing gloves. If you look closely, you'll see rings behind the lion heads -- these "slam forward" whenever you make contact with an enemy, according to lead combat designer Adam Puhl, and "create a concussive force that will blast any surrounding enemies away." So it's easy to imagine a scenario where you use your blades to attack enemies from a distance, and then switch to the Cestus when you spot a clump of enemies that you want to knock off the side of a cliff with the final hit of a combo. Or a scenario in which -- since you can now juggle enemies off of walls -- you could bounce a grunt around a few times in the air before letting them drop for a deathblow with the Cestus.

 

Notably, the lion head gloves also have chains on them to allow for certain long range moves, making them more of a distance weapon than they might seem at first, although that doesn't mean they weren't inspired by the Gauntlet of Zeus from God of War: Chains of Olympus.

 

"We saw that people really liked the power behind the Gauntlet in the PSP game," says Puhl. "And when I played through it, as soon as I got the Gauntlet, I was like, 'That's it. I'm playing with the Gauntlet for the rest of the game.' We had some other initial ideas as well, but that's helped support us. To be honest, the Cestus weren't originally going to be as involved when we first started the game. They weren't going to be what you see right now. And the more we started playing with it, the more we were like, 'Wow, these could be really cool. Let's elaborate on this.' So we put the chains on them, and we added the specials where he claps the Cestus together, and you get a little bit of that chain taste in the Cestus, and people started loving it."

 

 

 

Official Site -

http://www.godofwar.com/Index/

Release Date: March 2010

 

[ĐarkSlayer]

God of war 3 rulez :D

[BloodRaven]

OFC :P I'll buy it for sure =)))

 

Also nice Game "Dante Inferno" smth like God Of War style but GOD still better!! ^^

[Mask]

Damn am so sad. I dont have PS3 Console :(

They should make it also for pc :/

I have played previews versions of it on PS2 and it was fantastic. I would like to play it but i don't want to buy the console am fine with my pc :|

[agapitos]

this is an excellent game i have finish god of war 2 in ps2 and i want to play god of war 3 i have Xbox 360 but maybe buy PS3 to play this game :)

[BloodyWarrior]

God of war 3 rulez :D

 

Agree , i have played this game and it's awesome

btw if u dont have PS3 then buy god of war 2 on PS2. It's a nice game too.

[wverri]

Coooooool!! God of War is a GREAT GAME!!!

[DāЯқŜiĐє]

My brothers best friend is an official ps3 GOW III beta tester (he has too fucking many trophies..)

[Beastlike]

i didnt read the whole topic i just wanted to asked when the game iz going to released

[BS®]

I really like the graphics.But i dont have PS3 ;/

[Devangell™]

I really like the graphics.But i dont have PS3 ;/

[Evered]

better devil may cry!!! it's the same style!!!

[NLObP]

not to say ... 2 screen amazyng .... finish 1& 2 part on PS2 very like ....

[LMAOROFL]

Previous ones were decent games, hope this one doesnt mess it.

Till this one comes out ill try darksiders its similar to gow and dmc

[Evered]

try the old version on psp!! so good!