1UP impressions

Luis Buñuel and Salvadore Dali's 1929 experimental short Un Chien Andalou contains one of the most iconic and provocative scenes in film history -- even if this title sounds unfamiliar, you've undoubtedly witnessed the scene in question at some point in your life. Within the first few minutes of this film, we see an anonymous man sharpening a straight razor on a strop, testing its effectiveness on his thumb, and taking a few errant puffs of a cigarette. He glances up at the moon, and then, without warning, the scene cuts to a close-up of a very nonplussed woman who proceeds to have her eye sliced by Chekhov's razor. After a clever shot of a thin cloud drifting past the moon, we again cut to the eye, which proceeds to leak and goo, as an eye would in such a situation.

This brief bit of cinema makes for a disturbing, haunting, and effective scene that artistically portrays a shocking act of violence -- and one that's made film buffs more than a little queasy for the past 83 years.

Last Thursday's God of War: Ascension unveiling reminded me of this scene in question, but for all the wrong reasons. After a producer took the stage to flatly spill the beans about the latest God of War "product" (hint: the best way to get people excited about your game is to speak of it as you would a tractor or discount boating supplies), a crowd of journalists bore witness to not one, not two, but four ripped-and-shredded Greek figures tearing into monsters and one another with the kind of testosterone-fueled mania now standard for the God of War series. An initial fight with a cyclops ended with a spectacular burst of violence when the one-eyed creature's meticulously rendered entrails slipped out of his man-sized torso wound, causing its lifeless body to slump over and disappear, Double Dragon-style. Soon after, the action shifted to a larger arena, with a building-sized Cyclops acting as the captive centerpiece; little did I know that he would comprise God of War's own Un Chien Andalou moment -- albeit, one callously engineered for a very different audience.

After the somewhat directionless action leveled off, the playable characters focused their attacks on the colossal megaclops, which seemed like it'd be happier anywhere else, given the chance. After slicing his jaw down the center, our heroes each launched a grappling hook into his throbbing, bloodshot eye, as if to reenact some ancient World's Strongest Man competition. But instead of yanking a bus down a city street using only their teeth, these brave warriors slowly but surely pulled his eye from its socket in what can only be described as an excruciating handful of seconds. Just before the eye could pop forth from its happy home, a player leapt at it, sword pointing dangerously outwards. Mere tenths of a second before contact, the God of War: Ascension logo hit the screen with that noise logos make when they do such things, mercifully interrupting what could have been -- surprisingly -- even uglier.

The lights go up, and the crowd erupts. I slink down in my chair. Did I somehow get on the wrong bus and end up at a serial killer convention? Or are tasteless examples of sadism like this slowly but surely slithering their way into video games?

After previewing the upcoming Sleeping Dogs, 1UP EIC Jeremy Parish expressed concerns that some of the acts of violence took on such specifically brutal and graphically depicted forms that they made him feel a little uneasy. I instantly recalled these comments as the megaclops fought against the worst case of blinding since King Lear, despite having murdered thousands upon thousands of digital creatures in my quarter century of gaming. The violence I'm most accustomed to comes in abstract, cartoonish, and mostly unrealistic depictions, and usually lasts just as long as it needs to for the sake of game flow. God of War: Ascension's prolonged and detailed violence felt ripped right out of torture porn's greatest hits, with a dash of added ugliness thanks to the fact that you're not supposed to empathize with the creature crying out in pain. I'm sure that megaclops may have decimated its share of villages and eaten a few hundred virgins, but damn it if I didn't feel for it during those horrible final moments.

Now, I could be drawing too much attention to such a minor moment of the demo -- even if Mr. Megaclops clearly acted as the preview's centerpiece and bullseye for logo placement. But when the lights went up for questions, I felt like I needed a shower, and clearly wasn't ready to dig into the free lunch provided for us afterwards (luckily they did not include peeled grapes in the fruit selection). I've always been peripherally aware of the God of War series, but I never really assumed the violence had such a sadistic angle -- though I do remember a description of eye-gouging during God of War 3's preview coverage had me making a mental note to avoid it at all costs.

The march of time and technology has only made stomach-churning displays of violence easier to create, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Gut-shot soldiers in Call of Duty multiplayer don't vainly try to shove internal organs back in their midsections as they scream in pain and regret while blood oozes from their wounds -- hell, 2002's Soldier of Fortune II tried to make war as ugly and brutal as the real thing, a trend that (thankfully) never caught on. It may seem strange to desire some protective barrier between violence and ourselves, since media watchdogs tend to condemn unrealistic violence for failing to portray the realistic repercussions. But, speaking from my own perspective, causing intense and prolonged pain in disturbingly vivid detail -- regardless of the context -- doesn't make for the fist-pumping good time the crowd around me seemed to indicate. Granted, Sony showed us only a brief snippet of a very unfinished game, but the focus on gross-out violence doesn't bode well for fans of good taste.

 http://www.1up.com/previews/god-war-ascension-preview

They said on the live stream that the poly count in the MP is no where near as high as it is in the SP

1UP impressions

Luis Buñuel and Salvadore Dali's 1929 experimental short Un Chien Andalou contains one of the most iconic and provocative scenes in film history -- even if this title sounds unfamiliar, you've undoubtedly witnessed the scene in question at some point in your life. Within the first few minutes of this film, we see an anonymous man sharpening a straight razor on a strop, testing its effectiveness on his thumb, and taking a few errant puffs of a cigarette. He glances up at the moon, and then, without warning, the scene cuts to a close-up of a very nonplussed woman who proceeds to have her eye sliced by Chekhov's razor. After a clever shot of a thin cloud drifting past the moon, we again cut to the eye, which proceeds to leak and goo, as an eye would in such a situation.

This brief bit of cinema makes for a disturbing, haunting, and effective scene that artistically portrays a shocking act of violence -- and one that's made film buffs more than a little queasy for the past 83 years.

Last Thursday's God of War: Ascension unveiling reminded me of this scene in question, but for all the wrong reasons. After a producer took the stage to flatly spill the beans about the latest God of War "product" (hint: the best way to get people excited about your game is to speak of it as you would a tractor or discount boating supplies), a crowd of journalists bore witness to not one, not two, but four ripped-and-shredded Greek figures tearing into monsters and one another with the kind of testosterone-fueled mania now standard for the God of War series. An initial fight with a cyclops ended with a spectacular burst of violence when the one-eyed creature's meticulously rendered entrails slipped out of his man-sized torso wound, causing its lifeless body to slump over and disappear, Double Dragon-style. Soon after, the action shifted to a larger arena, with a building-sized Cyclops acting as the captive centerpiece; little did I know that he would comprise God of War's own Un Chien Andalou moment -- albeit, one callously engineered for a very different audience.

After the somewhat directionless action leveled off, the playable characters focused their attacks on the colossal megaclops, which seemed like it'd be happier anywhere else, given the chance. After slicing his jaw down the center, our heroes each launched a grappling hook into his throbbing, bloodshot eye, as if to reenact some ancient World's Strongest Man competition. But instead of yanking a bus down a city street using only their teeth, these brave warriors slowly but surely pulled his eye from its socket in what can only be described as an excruciating handful of seconds. Just before the eye could pop forth from its happy home, a player leapt at it, sword pointing dangerously outwards. Mere tenths of a second before contact, the God of War: Ascension logo hit the screen with that noise logos make when they do such things, mercifully interrupting what could have been -- surprisingly -- even uglier.

The lights go up, and the crowd erupts. I slink down in my chair. Did I somehow get on the wrong bus and end up at a serial killer convention? Or are tasteless examples of sadism like this slowly but surely slithering their way into video games?

After previewing the upcoming Sleeping Dogs, 1UP EIC Jeremy Parish expressed concerns that some of the acts of violence took on such specifically brutal and graphically depicted forms that they made him feel a little uneasy. I instantly recalled these comments as the megaclops fought against the worst case of blinding since King Lear, despite having murdered thousands upon thousands of digital creatures in my quarter century of gaming. The violence I'm most accustomed to comes in abstract, cartoonish, and mostly unrealistic depictions, and usually lasts just as long as it needs to for the sake of game flow. God of War: Ascension's prolonged and detailed violence felt ripped right out of torture porn's greatest hits, with a dash of added ugliness thanks to the fact that you're not supposed to empathize with the creature crying out in pain. I'm sure that megaclops may have decimated its share of villages and eaten a few hundred virgins, but damn it if I didn't feel for it during those horrible final moments.

Now, I could be drawing too much attention to such a minor moment of the demo -- even if Mr. Megaclops clearly acted as the preview's centerpiece and bullseye for logo placement. But when the lights went up for questions, I felt like I needed a shower, and clearly wasn't ready to dig into the free lunch provided for us afterwards (luckily they did not include peeled grapes in the fruit selection). I've always been peripherally aware of the God of War series, but I never really assumed the violence had such a sadistic angle -- though I do remember a description of eye-gouging during God of War 3's preview coverage had me making a mental note to avoid it at all costs.

The march of time and technology has only made stomach-churning displays of violence easier to create, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Gut-shot soldiers in Call of Duty multiplayer don't vainly try to shove internal organs back in their midsections as they scream in pain and regret while blood oozes from their wounds -- hell, 2002's Soldier of Fortune II tried to make war as ugly and brutal as the real thing, a trend that (thankfully) never caught on. It may seem strange to desire some protective barrier between violence and ourselves, since media watchdogs tend to condemn unrealistic violence for failing to portray the realistic repercussions. But, speaking from my own perspective, causing intense and prolonged pain in disturbingly vivid detail -- regardless of the context -- doesn't make for the fist-pumping good time the crowd around me seemed to indicate. Granted, Sony showed us only a brief snippet of a very unfinished game, but the focus on gross-out violence doesn't bode well for fans of good taste.

 http://www.1up.com/previews/god-war-ascension-preview

I didnt write the article, so dont be mad at me.