http://www.gamesradar.com/f/latest-god-of-war-3-video-emerges/a-201001181530241032
Since E3 2009, God Of War 3 information has been on hiatus. Having been suitably wowed by the playable demo our anticipation for the game was already at fever pitch - especially with the imminent release of EA's multi-platform Dante's Inferno, a blatant 'homage' to the series, reminding us of the PS3 source material. But now we've got something else to get excited about....
We've just been given access to a brand new segment of gameplay showing of a boss battle of preposterous scale. The following is a scene by scene synopsis of the action viewed by our very own eyes.
(Only text and images at this stage, but these impressions come from an HD video - hopefully at some point before release we'll be able to share this with you too!)
00:01 The action starts with Kratos standing on a rocky mountain. Long shadows are cast over the rugged and wild-looking scenery as a harsh wind blows. Kratos has golden armour over one shoulder and proceeds to launch into a familiar combination attack against no enemy, just to show that this is in fact in-game.
00:10 Kratos moves away from the clearing towards a fallen tree and you can tell the player is rapidly hammering a button to move it out of the way, as you would done in GoW or GoW2. With a final push, Kratos throws the entire trunk off the side of the mountain. He looks angry.
00:19 Kratos begins to dash uphill along a wide dirt track. There are three skeletal enemies visible at the end. The wind picks up, blowing dust across the screen. The post-processing motion blur effects are superb and give the whole thing a pre-rendered appearance, even though this 100% certain it's gameplay footage.
00:23 As fireballs burst into frame from the top-right, Kratos leaps up and spreads his Icarus wings, flying over the head of the first enemy. Flight only lasts a brief moment, before he lands a few feet behind the other two foes.
00:26 A fight begins, but we're hardly paying attention to it – in the background, what can only be described as an electric, blue colossus is scaling Mount Olympus. It's not paying any attention to Kratos, who is busy tearing his foes in half, with plenty of gore as his reward.
00:42 Kratos continues uphill towards another group of minor enemies. But before anyone can even swing a weapon, the ground erupts underneath them and a huge beast emerges. The shifting terrain folds up realistically, with jagged rocks breaking through the earth.
00:47 It's an elemental water spider with a horse's head! Of course it is. And it looks phenomenal. It thrashes around, with cascades of water splashing everywhere and rivers of water running over the surface of its body.
00:53 Kratos doesn't seem impressed at all and sets about attacking it. The spider horse delivers a Pokemon-style water attack, a torrent of water erupting from its mouth. The player seems wise to this and stays to the left, attacking its chin with basic combo attacks.
01:03 Kratos summons a whirlwind attack that looks powerful. It's several storeys high and appears to move right through the beast's long, horsey face. Have that! The ground seems to be moving slightly and rounded rocks behind our foe are moving too. Something's odd about this scene.
01:24 The fight continues this way for a while, with the two trading elemental attacks. But then a deep voice seems to moan in annoyance and the ground starts to pitch. Kratos is thrown off-balance as the entire plateau revolves counter-clockwise. The spider-beast seems to be clinging on for dear life too as the camera zooms out to take in the bigger picture.
01:26 Oh. My. God. As the camera zooms right out, we realise it wasn't a mountain at all that we were fighting on. It was a mountain-sized Titan Gaia – think a 20 million tonne Kathy Bates covered in grass and leaves - and we've been fighting on her wrist the entire time. Needless to say, the scene does its job. Spectacularly.
1:30 With Gaia wide awake, her arm is now thrown the other way up. Unperturbed by the massive drop below him, Kratos begins to monkey across what is now a grassy ceiling and continues his assault on the spider-horse beast. Honestly, you'd think he would consider saving his own neck by now…
2:01 After half a minute more of upside-down cut and thrust, the camera zooms out again and we see Gaia’s arm come round and clamp onto the side of an actual mountain (unless it's an even bigger beast – at this time we don't know what to expect any more). It speeds back in and the fight continues.
2:33 The biblically big-boned lady brings her head closer and examines the tiny figure attacking this tarantula-sized critter. Kratos is still throwing everything he's got at his opponent, unleashing combo after combo and following them up with his whirlwind attack.
3:19 In a scene reminiscent of Yoda's lightsaber skills, Kratos performs a mid-air attack that looks like a Catherine Wheel. Surely the water beast can't have much vitality left. It's still thrashing at him and spitting out torrents of water in defence, but it looks like it's fighting a losing battle.
3:44 There it is – a big, 3D circle button icon appears above the creature's head, but looking like it's in the scene rather than overlaid on the screen. You know what time it is. It's time to finish this.
3:48 After leaping onto one of the creature's mandibles, Kratos jumps again and buries one of his blades into the creature's lower jaw. After a brief struggle, he manages to attack the other one into the other side, so he's got the creature chained by the head like an elaborately decorated (and aggressive) stunt kite.
3:56 Standing back on the ground, Kratos jerks the creature's head left and right with his chains. Something's gotta give. Sure enough, after a couple of seconds, the lower jaw comes away in its entirety, leaving the horse beast squealing in agony.
4:00 After writhing around for a bit, the defeated boss retreats into the ground, still writhing around. The camera whooshes in behind it, passing still-beautifully rendered special effects, and the God of War III logo appears.
So what did we think? Spectacular. The entire fight scene, from the choreography, dynamic panning camera shots to the sweeping scale is absolutely megaton.
The footage also finally gives us a tantalising look into how riding the massive Titans will work. Much like Shadow of the Colossus, Kratos’ ludicrously-sized allies are essentially constantly moving platform sections. Clambering all over Gaia looked fun as hell, so we’re mega pumped about getting our hands on these massive beasties and the rest of the game.
2010, say hello to your first potential killer-app.
