God of War III – Hands On!
By Aman Kapoor | Friday, December 04, 2009
God of War when it launched was supposed to be another action packed hack and slash game, a worthy addition to a already rich exclusive lineup of the PS2 era, where Sony was virtually the God of Consoles. There were bigger titles which had already made their name, Devil May Cry strikes the chord almost instantly . But amidst all this, God of war did really well and introduced us to a character who would then go on to lead the PlayStation brandwagon like none other, KRATOS suddenly was bigger than Dante or Nero and I guess the only worthy challenger who stood a chance against the him back in those days would have been a certain Solid Snake. When God of war 2 was launched, it hinted the end of the PS2 era but made Kratos and the franchisee even stronger, Sony was so confident about the success of the second edition that a parallel team was already working on the third and presumably the final version, the iteration which will see Kratos’s war against the Gods come to a conclusion.
When the first few trailers of the game were released, it made the gaming community stand up and take notice, after all the first two installments had pushed the Playstation hardware to its limits and given us some jaw dropping and eye popping (Pun Intended) graphics for that time and hardware. The benchmarks set by the previous two editions were so high, that pressure was inevitably on the Santa Monica team to deliver, but this time with the black beast known as the PS3. The first gameplay video was revealed during E3 2009 and I am sure if you are a fan, you have seen the video umpteen number of times.
Sony decided to release a closed demo of the same build to a few lucky ones but now the demo is readily available as a download coupon which comes with GOW-Collection. So without further delay let’s see if Santa Monica team delivers, if the game lives up to the self defined standard where none have ventured, except maybe Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.
The demo is around 20 minutes long and weighs a heavy 2.8 GB, it starts exactly from where they had shown it in E3, with Helios running chaotically in the sky and our hero running even more wildly on the ground, the first couple of minutes lets you get familiar with the controls, though if you are a veteran you don’t even need to look at the screen, the controls are mapped exactly the same way as in the previous games. The game then offers you the opportunity to check out the new weapon ‘Cestus’. You can use the D pad to select it and then you can start making mockery of the helpless soldiers in front of you.
The game tells you the special moves of the weapons if you hold R1 and using one of the three attack buttons, Kratos unleashes even more powerful attacks, its kinda nostalgic, but we still loved it to bits! Cestus is fantastic and is indeed a worthy addition to the arsenal Kratos has had in the previous games. The next section introduces you to a new feature, Harpies who have been old foes of Kratos and were also the ones who bought him the ever deadly Blade of Chaos, until now you could just kill them, now you can ride them to move from one spot to another. The riding aspect still needs a bit of polish but the way he rips them in two while leaping from one to another, gives you a sense of satisfaction like none other.
Next Page – The Final Battle draws near!
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