E3 Hands-On Impressions of God of War III

Here is about a third of the demo that E3 goers got to get their hands on. Only after standing in line for an hour and a half. A line full of drooling fan boys for the God of War franchise. But that seems to be just the nature of the beast at huge conventions.

It pains me to look at it and not be able to get back in that long line to play it again. Yes it was worth it that much. Even though you only fought against Helios and not Hades, but that is just a personal thing. But for those of you not lucky enough to have been at E3, the video is the best I can do until they hook up with a full demo on the PSN. No official word on that yet, but you know it will happen.

Stepping away from the hype here, hard to do, let me tell you about the actual game and how it handles.

Anyone that has played the other two console version of this game will be able to pick up the controller and go to town from the get go. All of the controls, at least for what we had in the demo, where completely the same. Which is good. No need to change anything when rolling into the final chapter of this epic story. But from the basic moves to the combos that Kratos is well known for, it is the same. At least for the Blades of Chaos.

Even though there were no Blades of Athena, though they have been confirmed to be in the game, one other cool thing that they let us gamers try out was the new weapon, the Cestus. They are a bit slow and they don't link as many hits together, but as they look, they do massive damage to the enemies that you are able to hit but also places more risk on Kratos. As should be expected though. You are getting down and dirty so it should be easier to be countered as well as hit, but they punish whoever is on the receiving end of them. As the video showed above.

Another fun addition to the gameplay for God of War, is the ability to use creatures as mounts while stabbing and beating the Tartarus out of them. Seen above and in other video on the interwebs, Kratos uses harpies to fly from platform to platform (above) and can also mount up on trolls to wipe out all kind of things on the map (not above). While one is just a mode of transportation, the other is something that requires a lot of tactics and a bit of skill to use to its full potential. I mean, it should be a little rough to guide a huge beast around and force it to swing on enemies by stabbing it in the neck. Which it is a little bit, but nothing more difficult than the quicktime events employed to finish off bosses and larger enemies of the game.

One more thing not shown in this demo, or any other that I have searched for online is the flight potrion of the game. At least I am hoping there is a bit more of it in the game outside of the small portion that was used in the demo. No I'm not talking about just the Icarus Wings for gliding around, but in this go around, you have to fly through certain parts of the game. In the demo it was a flight through a tunnel dodging objects and walls as you fly out of the area.

This was one of the parts of the demo that was a bit rough on the controls. Well at least it was for me. I'm not a big flight simulator fan and the controls to navigate Kratos through felt very close to those seen in those types of games. Inverted motion controls as well as slight movements making great changes in direction and speed. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad addition to the game play elements, but it was just something new that needs a little getting use to. Like seeing a friend that thinks poofing his bangs up and back is a good look on them. Just need to get use to it so you don't have to tell them how stupid they look.

In the end though, and it should be no surprise, I have to say that this thrid go at the story is going to be something truly epic and most likely go for game of the year in 2010. That is if they keep up with how good this game looked just as a small demo. I'd even say that it could be game of the year this year if it was coming out in 2009. But that is also partial @GodOfWarFanBoy talking here. But seriously, it will be awesome and I can't wait for the PSN demo.