So a bunch of us over at Neogaf were heavily analyzing the God of War III trailer shown at the VGAs, and we came across some pretty interesting stuff that isn't all that noticeable from just a quick glance.  To be honest, the trailer went by so fast that it was hard to notice much of ANYTHING worthwhile.

First of all, you can download both 720p and 1080p versions of the trailer here.

One of the things I noticed is that Kratos' character model is one of the more detailed I've yet seen in a video game. The muscularity and general animations are probably THE best I've seen yet, with only Uncharted 2 coming close. The way Kratos' abdomen muscles contract, for instance, is quite impressive.  What's even more impressive is the way the veins in Kratos' arms fade into his skin depending on the position of his arm. All this can be seen in the following three screenshots:

Notice the vein along his bicep? 

The vein thing is really just fancy texture work, but the muscularity deals more with the animations.  Some of Kratos' more subtle animations are also very impressive, like the way his face tightens up at the beginning of the trailer, with his jaw clenching and his nostrils flaring (props to Callibretto for the gif):

The most impressive part of the trailer, however, doesn't involve Kratos at all.  It seems the entire trailer is actually taking place ON a Titan. If you watch the battle with the Cyclops, the setting alters in direction while the sky remains static, implying that they are on some gigantic moving object.  This is probably the Titan Gaia. The gigantic chains in other scenes only further imply that this is indeed the case.

You can see the landscape's (or rather, Titan's) movement in these shots (props to Guymelef for the shots):

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMG

@_@ Dear lord that's awesome! And I already know for a FACT that this game is going to be more impressive when it get's nearer to it's launch >: ) That's already some amazing tech though ^_^

Are they working on a new type of character animation engine? Like one that incorporates muscles too @_@?

I think the biggest reason people are unimpressed by this trailer is because it is just to quick. It never lets you get a broader view, and I think that really takes away from the nice details. Of course this game is a long way out so I would not expect it to be a finished looking project.

I think it's that combined with the fact that the textures, particularly on the ground and the cyclops, are still pretty low res.  During the video you couldn't notice much, but you COULD notice the blah ground and fugly cyclops.

Of course, if Killzone 2 is anything to go by, the textures will be sharpened up quite a bit by release.

If you speed this GIF up it will look very suggestive.

Great find.

The Lady has quite the dirty mind.  ^_^

This is pretty impressive, never really took the time to try and slow it down to check it out.

But that's what other people are for :P. This was a good catch of the eye, glad someone caught it and is pointing it out.

Well, yaoi (gay hentai) is anti-drug.

Holy Shit, you're right!

You are awesome, MM! This will silence all of those haters who said "OH NOEZ IT'S ALL SNOWY!"