All good things come to an end, eventually, and so too does the God of War series. Sad, though, that it did have to come to an end on, of all things, the PS3. Yes it’s now prettier and more robust with more things to do and more content but still… since the majority of the game has been enjoyed on the PS2 (which I guess includes the PSP outing Chains of Olympus which I suppose must have been ported to the PS2 by now) why, oh why, did they take us all the way to the end only to bring said ending to the PS3!

Of course maybe I’m just being abit grousy about it, but these days since PS3s are now more affordable it might be on your to do list to acquire one, if only to play great games like this and others that are PS3 exclusives (a sign Sony is not entirely daft as they kept some of their greats still PS3 exclusives, like God of War III). This is the preview of the recent God of War III demo that has just became ALMOST available to PS3 owners… almost. Thing is, however, if you are (say) a North America PS3 owner you have to first pre-order the game from participating stores (or buy the God of War Collection on PS3... COOL! Now that’s what I’m talking about!) (You don’t want District 9 on Blu-Ray, right? That’s another option but go get the collection instead!) like GameStop in order to earn the DEMO (once preordered you’ll be able to pick up and play the Demo of the game). So it’s nothing us casuals can play, you must be ready to order the game now in order to play this demo (or get the Collection or District 9 on BluRay… why that I‘m not sure). So no need to cover most of the DEMO EXCEPT the new content exclusive to GOWIII.

No need to go over the story, except one point. At the end of GOWII Kratos had taken over the Island of the Sisters of Fate, killed them all (or trapped at least one in the past) and took control of his threads, enabling him to go back to fight Zeus again at the moment of betrayal only to find out that Zeus is his father (well it’s not like we didn’t see that coming). And all he had to do to find that out was fight Zeus (last end boss of the game) and kinda kill Athena… oh, well.

Kratos goes back in time and brings Gaea forward from the great war between

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the Titans and Gods to the present, where they reassemble the Titans and begin the new war against Zeus and the gods of Olympus. That’s where the game ended us.

And starts NOT on Gaea, as the first teasers for the game showed (maybe later), but you and Atlas are laying siege on a Greek city fighting it out with Helios (hmm, both characters from Chains of Olympus though in the demo Atlas isn’t speaking, so I guess it’s up in the air whether or not you know who is reprising his Atlas role in GOWIII). Now the new stuff.

First off the blades, Kratos bread and butter tride and true weapons, are now upgraded. Besides the standard blades you now have a ball and chain setting which allows you to bludgeon your enemies in much the same was the blades allowed you to hack them up. It is a little slower on the draw (especially your slam move with the balls) but it packs a mean punch from what I saw on the Demo (no, me not playing demo, me watching demo on you tube from Mahalo Games… hmm… are they Hawaiian? Mahalo… wonder if they even know what Mahalo means.

Now you can pick up low grade enemies and run them about like battering rams, knocking other low grade enemies aside as you dash through their lines. This is a great way to clear tightly packed lines of enemies before you do the blades or ball and chain finisher, and I suppose you don’t need just enemies but also civilians as well can be used to clear bunches of enemies or at least knock them about so you can finish them off.

A new means to get across large chasms and pits provides itself in the Harpy Ride. Basically now Harpies (which were just cannon fodder enemy in the previous games) now provide short term transport (once you get them in the air). By grabbing them (and beating them as you fly) you can make them fly you so many feet before you either jump off or switch Harpies (some pits require several Harpy shifts before you reach the safety of ground). This is an important skill to master as you’ll find you can’t progress in several areas of the game without using the Harpies to give you abit of a lift from area to area (against their will of course).

Once again you can jump on certain cyclops (Cyclops Ride… what’s with this game and the whole idea of riding everything?!?) and use them as giant mounts, then once you use them to clear off enemies

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you can pull it’s eye out and kill it… and wow, it like everything else in this game looks way more gorier and with more detail… well of course, it better be graphically superior as it IS the damn PS3 (tearing the Cyclops eye out, pulling Helios‘ head off, it‘s all gorier and gruesome to look at, but then again wasn‘t that one of the fun points of this game? All the gore we inflict while playing?!?). Anyway if it (the PS3) couldn’t keep pace with it’s PS2 counterpart then that’s something most sad about the PS3... Of course it can and excel too so at least it’s earning it’s chops as the high powered next gen it is… now, BTW, did they fix the whole problem of playing PS2 games on the PS3? I’d like to think before launch you could plunk down the first two (or three is Chains of Olympus got ported to the PS2) God of Wars and play them back to back before tackling III… yeah, I know, you can get the Collection on PS3 but what if you already have all the games on PS2! What then!

In the demo you tackle Helios, and rips his head off… which becomes sorta like the Medusa head upgrade in the original God of War, only instead of turning enemies to stone the head of Helios turns enemies into glittery emo-vampires which you must kill before they number enough to form a vampire baseball league… I mean his bright shiny dead head shines light, which of course means there’s quite abit of dark areas in the game which only can be traversed using the head of Helios to light the way. Also the head can be used to uncover hidden cloaked doors and items and whatever so it has a puzzle solving aspect as well as a simple Doom 3 light source function (and yes, I’m sure there’s no patch which allows you to duct tape Helio’s head onto the blades or your other active weapon).

Hmmm… what else is there to say about the game? The demo is abit short, but it already showed off a few of the nifty new tricks of the game. New gear, new moves, new stuff (I guess this time out you kill the Gods of Olympus to gain their nifty gizmos or body parts to upgrade, and yes the stuff you got from God of War II is useable in the demo like the Typhon bow and the wings of Icarus… though, look, honestly I’m sure that’s Icarus’ dad because didn’t Icarus die when using the

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wings? Flew too close to Helios and was bedazzled by the freaky god’s metro sexuality and ended up falling to his death crying “DO NOT WANT!!!”… anyway I’m sure the wings belong to the dad, not Icarus.

Anything else? At the end you do have a flying sequence using the Wings of Icarus to glide up a long tunnel path to get back in the game and hook up with Atlas, but that’s the end of the demo so no need to go into it further. Let’s see… no, that’s it. It’s short so not much here. The great God of War music is back, even in this demo. All the solid button mashing gory gameplay we fell in love with from game one is back and better than ever. It’s a Demo, sure, and I couldn’t play it because I went Xbox over PS this time out (odd since most of the time I went with Sony until the PS3) but even I can see this is going to be a great game. Be sure to preorder it when you can so you can enjoy it on release date!

My one regret is that I won’t be able to play this for review on it’s release. Of course should Sony send me a PS3 (don’t care if it’s first gen PS3 or what) and this game I’d be more than glad to happily review it and provide them yet another perfect 5 out of 5 for their review scrapbook. I mean I have not once been regretful about reviewing this game series, it has been there for me since the beginning and not once had I felt the game deserved less than a perfect score for being the perfect game it is. Sad I’ll miss reviewing it on release, but there’s other PS3 reviewers here to tackle the task so I look forward to reading their reviews of the game.

So that’s it. By default (no PS3) this is my last God of War review (pre review at least). Maybe at one point should I ever acquire a PS3 I’ll review the game, but for now… it’s abit sad to finally see my participation in the review of this series end. Oh well. Now you go out and enjoy this game when it releases! It should be great, and a great way to say farewell to this grand beloved series that made button mashing fun again. Good bye God of War, good bye Kratos, it’s been a time and a half! Excelsior (Captained by Hikaru Sulu)… what! That’s the truth… OK, I’ll stop talking now. Bye.