Plus XP

There was one title in particular that drew me to Eurogamer - even amongst all of the other titles, nothing could keep me away from attending, since the day would grant me an opportunity to get my hands on the third installment of God of War. With a hefty amount of consoles dedicated to the new installment of Kratos’ latest gorefest, I waited my turn to get on one of the PS3′s dedicated to the title’s demo. So read on, and sit in wonder as I tell you all about my experience.

The demo begins with a usual God of War introduction – running through a few of the game’s basic enemies while a giant titan rampages in the background. I was thrown straight into the combat, and being an avid fan of God of War, I instantly felt right at home.

If you’ve played the previous titles, the game plays in very much the same way – which is fine with me! I happily chained some combos up with the Blades of Athena, and made short work of the first few enemies with Kratos’ regular combos. Like God of War II, the new title takes the engine from the previous game, and simply fine-tunes the game to an even sharper standard than the last installment.

The preview stage featured a scenario which wasn’t totally explained, but as far as I could tell, the Titan Perses was attempting to demolish this place I was in, while the god Helios attempted to attack him like a giant fly with his airborne carriage, drawn by flaming horses. It was hard to tell exactly whose side Kratos was on, even knowing the plotlines of the previous titles rather well!

As the demo continued, a new feature was introduced to me – as I was granted a scene of the latest model of a Harpy, it’s saggy-breasted nudity about as appealing as a mouldy chicken-leg (in a good way!). After whipping out Kratos’ bow and shooting the creature to goad it forward, I could press L2 and Circle to throw out a Blade of Athena, and latch onto it like a living grapple point. Pulling himself up to it in mid-air, I then proceeded to repeatedly stab the creature to force it to fly to a nearby ledge, then ripped it in two as I leapt from its screeching body to the higher area before me.

After a quick glide using the Icarus wings from God of War II to cross a gap (by double jumping and holding X), I next found myself fighting another group of enemies, aided by a large Centaur-like creature. After disposing of the regular enemies I put my focus on the Centaur. Using L1 to time my blocks with its attacks, I repeatedly mauled it with my Blades of Athena until it was significantly weakened – and my heart leapt for joy when I saw a Circle symbol above its head - thats right, time for some QTE killing! I pressed the Circle button, and Kratos grabbed the creature.

If you’ve played the previous titles this will all be very familiar, Kratos proceeded to slice up the Centaur, while I pressed button prompts in time with the animation to successfully take the creature down. If I failed, it would interrupt the attack and throw me down. Unlike the previous games, the button prompts did not appear in the middle of the screen, rather the sides – Triangle at the top of the screen, Square on the far left etc. The large size of the TV probably didn’t help, but I found it difficult to notice the icons, especially when I wasn’t originally expecting to see them there. After I worked it out, I quickly got used to it, although the new placement did throw me a few times, especially when the icon for mashing the Circle button would appear at the bottom right corner. This change seemed a little unnecessary, and not necessarily for the better – since it was harder to pay attention to the actual animation, but wasn’t game-breaking. The animation, however, was nicely improved from the previous titles, with detailed cuts and slashes torn into the beast, before Kratos ultimately sliced open its belly and pulled out it’s guts in perhaps the goriest kill seen in the series to date – I grinned with the primal evil that lurks in the corner of every person’s mind, with a guilty feeling of satisfaction.

As I progressed, I found myself standing in front of a projectile launcher that I could interact with, but before I could see what it did, a huge Chimera-like creature stalked into the camera shot and lunged at Kratos, forcing me to fight before I could progress any more. Well, of course I couldn’t refuse such an opportunity! The fight continued much like the Centaur fight, although this time I needed to do a bit more avoidance seeing as it had one or two flame attacks that were difficult to block. After a lot of rolling around and slashing it up with the blades, I found myself with another opportunity for a QTE, where Kratos savagely ripped the beast’s tail off. Wounded with an embarrassing stump, the beast wasn’t done yet – the oddly two-faced creature continued the fight – and after a couple of QTE’s which maimed the creature, Kratos finally ripped off one of it’s horns and stabbed it through the face. Oh if you’re just joining us – yes, God of War isn’t for the faint of heart.

I then ran back to the projectile launcher, and interacted by pressing R2 and pulling the analogue stick back. Releasing it, I found that it fired a flaming arrow forward, and after a bit of scanning the scene I realised that I should try and aim for Helios, who had been bothering Perses this whole time. Now, this bit was a bit tricky, seeing as the timing had to be very precise – and using the simple sight on the gun wasn’t exactly pinpoint – I found it took quite a few shots to pull it off, this was perhaps more frustrating than it need be, but eventually I hit the mark, and sent Helios spiralling into Perses’ waiting hand, where he crushed the Sun God with a mighty fist, dropping his mangled body.

Afterward, I returned to the previous area to find some fresh harpies, which I could abuse in order to cross a large chasm, grappling from one to another in brutal fashion to reach another ledge. In the next room I was faced with yet more enemies, where the game prompted me to try out the grab attacks of GoW3. Much like the previous titles, Kratos can choose how to deal with regular enemies once grabbed, such as beating them or ripping them clean in half – however GoW3 offers a new attack, which allows Kratos to run with an enemy, battering down any others in his path. At the end of the run he will throw the enemy, or if you direct it into a flat wall he was smash them against it. A nice little addition, I felt.

All the while keeping the enemies interesting, the next area introduced some new mechanics to the game – where several enemies with shields worked as a collective team to form a turtle formation, much like the old Centurions used to do. This provided them with a shield that made them invulnerable to basic attacks, so some thought was required.

The demo offered the opportunity to try out a new weapon of Kratos’, the Cestus. A pair of gauntlets, the weapons allow Kratos to perform more hand-to-hand style attacks, in a similar fashion to the gauntlet in Chains of Olympus. These weapons also have a secondary function to be extended on spring-loaded chains for some special long-range attacks, such as firing both of them out on either side of Kratos, and smashing them together to batter whatever stands a way in front of him. These could be used to bash the enemy shields, however I used an optional method that I found.

A few moments after my arrival, a Cyclops dropped down, so I left the enemies for now, while I took it on. After dodging its heavy slams I found myself able to grab onto it – but expecting the following QTE to simply kill the beast, I was surprised to find that once Kratos had gotten hold of it by the eyelid (ouch) I could actually control the creature’s movement and attacks – cottoning on, I had it walk to the shielded foes and smash it’s huge club down, scattering them, and proceeded to bash them to pieces. Don’t worry though – it was still possible to kill the Cyclops with a QTE, where Kratos did his usual thing and ripped it’s eyeball it with plenty of adult-rated detail.

Now, you may think ‘Hmm, this can’t really get any more gory, can it?’ Well, you’d be wrong there – since this platform is where the wounded god Helios has been dropped, and Kratos isn’t quite done with him yet. Grabbing him from the floor, a couple of QTE’s involve mashing buttons to brutally rip the god’s head off, and acquire it as an item, much like Medusa’s head in the previous titles. The head can then be used as a makeshift torch to light up dark areas with the light that shines from its eyes and mouth, as well as revealing secrets with its godly power – shining it against a nearby wall uncovers a hidden door allowing you to progress.

The last section involved a more mini-game like scenario, where Kratos took to flight by using his Icarus wings in a natural air vent – using the analogue you control his movements as he has his back to the screen, flying forward. The aim here is to dodge rocks and parts of the structure to survive the ascent – fairly tricky not to hit some of the obstacles so I died the first time since I wasn’t so prepared for a challenge. After succeeding, Kratos flew past Perses in cinematic fashion, and in a ‘WTF’ moment, leapt toward the titan as if going in for the kill, before the demo ended with the words “GOD OF WAR III” flashing onscreen.

If you liked God of War – you’re going to love this game. As with God of War II, it’s simply more of the same, with plenty of improvements, and that’s definitely something to be excited about - it’s a formula made of nothing but pure win. Just keep away if you don’t like gore – because Kratos is as brutal as ever. I’ll definitely be pre-ordering my copy!

-Leon