Nick Kyme

So, it’s not a great surprise to learn I am eagerly anticipating the release of God of War III for the PS3. Also rather cool is the fact that there’ll be a God of War Collection, which comprises the first two instalments of the franchise (but not the PSP’s Chains of Olympus) in HD format together with a juicy voucher to use on PSN for an exclusive GoW III demo.

I’ll take one of those too Mr Computer Game salesmen, thank you very much.

I remember way back when, during an afternoon in Grimsby town centre no less, where I first got my mitts of the first God of War. What I loved so much about the game was the sheer level of bloody, visceral action but with a puzzle solving, adventuring-cum-platformer element to it. Levelling up skills and magic also lent the game a flavour of the RPG about it with all the tedious character building and endless pointless questing.

I liked (though ‘liked’ isn’t really the right word) Kratos, the central character, so much that he became part of the inspiration for Tsu’gan in the Salamander stories. All that rage and feelings of entitlement of being done wrong by the powers that be  – it was the perfect vessel for one of Third Company’s angriest members.

God of War, unsurprisingly, became a franchise and what a franchise. The launch of the sequel provoked quite a bit of controversy with a promotional campaign that included sacrificial goats and half-naked warrior gods. The game’s arrival on PSP was of the best selling titles ever released on the troubled system, really stretching its boundaries and limits, and even opening the door for other ‘big’ game franchises to find their way onto the portable handheld (Little Big Planet, Soul Calibur and Assassin’s Creed to name three).

Aside from the brutal gameplay and it’s central figure, one of the things that has remained consistent through each iteration is the monsters. God of War has some of the best and most brutal beasts ever conceived. Greek myth is a wonderful stomping ground for its creatives and I have fond memories of slaying gigantic hydras, basilisks and gorgons, amongst other horrors.

It’s not all about the hack n’ slash, either – a souped up Golden Axe for ground-ups this is not (not that there’s anything wrong with Golden Axe, you understand – that’s my misspent youth at the Empire Arcade in Cleethorpses that is). God of War is a step above not just because of the graphics, the story, the creatures, the character or the combat – it’s the gameplay. It’s riding a pegasus whilst fighting off hordes of harpies, it’s cracking ludicrous difficult puzzles, it’s freeing titans to reach the next part of the level, it’s climbing up columns of flesh embedded with razor blades in the realm of Hades – it’s all of this mad stuff and more.

So, why babble on, why take up our time with all of this God of War back slapping? Well, God of War III is soon to hit the shelves and the good people at IGN.com have put together everything they know about the game so far in one handy little article. Have a butchers and, if you don’t mind the sight of blood and violence, you should definitely check this game out. There are loads of screenshots and videos too.

It’s one of the game I’m looking forward to in 2010, along with a few others (Dante’s Inferno is also looking extremely good and I’d suggest borrows quite a bit from God of War’s uncompromising ethos).

Get your buts over to IGN and read all about it now.

And while we’re at it, here’s the games I’ll be shelling my pennies out for in the New Year… (keep going after the pics – there’s more…)

Cripes! I’ll be having nightmares after this lot!

Seriously though, everything I’ve seen so far makes me believe that these will be the games for me next year, so speaks the Console King!

Coincidental, they all have a sort of gods & monsters theme to them, too. Dante’s Inferno is obviously about one knight’s descent in the depths of Hell, God War III speaks for itself and Darksiders features War, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, hunted by demons and angels at the world’s ending.

Epic stuff indeed. Here’s hoping they’ll live up to the hype.

So, brave readers, what’s floating your boat for the New Year? Answers on a blog comment-shaped postcard please…

Head on over to IGN.com for the latest Darksiders video.

This, like a lot of the trailers I’ve seen, is really getting me excited about the forthcoming game and now I really can’t wait to get my mits on it. There’s a little bit more from the angels in this installment, plus some of the clips from previous trailers too.

For those who are not in the know (and if you liked console games, then I suggest you get in the now, at least you should on the evidence so far…), Darksiders is essential an apocalypse story where the minions of Hell are waging war against the denizens of Heaven and the good guys are losing (or have lost, a significant victory for Hell in any case). Earth is pretty much their battleground. In steps Death, one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, who’s really not happy because it’s his and the other three horseman’s jobs to bring about apocalypse and this one has come too earlier. But Death has been duped by powers unknown and unseen, stripped of all his strength and slapped right in the middle of all the carnage.

Here's our boy, good old Death himself...

So as the tagline goes: hunted by Heaven and hated by Hell, Death has not only got to try and survive while restoring his old powers, he must try and figure out who has brought about the apocalypse and why, and then restore balance to the world.

The game looks seriously awesome with shades of Devil My Cry about it in the style and combat system employed by the protagonist. The beasts are huge and impressively varied (at least those shown in the trailers), and some of the E3 footage looked stunning. It has a Fall Out element to it too, in that the levels are reputably ‘free-roaming’ with all sorts of hidden bonus missions and extra material that lies off the beaten central storyline track.

I’m going to wait for the reviews before I commit, but Darksiders is one game that I am keeping my Console King’s eye on…

Well, E3 is all over for another year and I have to say it’s looking like a very exciting 2009/2010 is in prospect for all of us gaming fans.

I don’t wish to labour over the details again; you can check out my earlier posts to see what has interested me from this year’s con. Below, though, are some of my edited highlights…

* God of War III – Looks like it’s going to be THE game for the PS3 next year. The trailers look totally awesome. This could be the greatest installment yet. There’s a walkthrough with developer commentary here at GameTrailers.com. It’s in five parts and the guy playing even gets iced by a centaur mini-boss at one point (as he’s telling us that the centaur isn’t that tough to beat – oh, the irony…). One particular scene that stood out was the section in the Icarus vent. This is totally new to God of War III and looks like a lot of fun to play. Hail Zeus!

* Assassin’s Creed 2 – Even better than the first game, if the stunning trailer video and gameplay demo are anything to go by. Renaissance Venice offers a new flavour to the previous incarnation of the game during the Crusades, and there looks to be a lot of innovation and new material in terms of the game mechanics too. I’ll be watching this with great interest.

* Batman: Arkham Asylum – It’s released in under two weeks and I can’t wait. Fingers crossed that it’s awesome. It looks it. This could be the Batman game us Dark Knight fans have been waiting for. Needless to say, I have the special edition for the Ps3 on preorder.

* Ghostbusters - At the head of the Ghostbusters revival is the new video game, which simply looks cool. It’s a total retrofest and really pushes all of my buttons as far as 80’s nostalgia goes. Much like Arkham, I am really looking forward to the imminent release of this game and have fingers crossed that it’ll live up to all the hype.

* Darksiders – I love Devil May Cry and this looks like a game cut from a similar mould with a bit more juice in terms of action and spectacle. The trailers are stunning, the milieu and narrative appealing. Looks like the third person action/adventure genre is really getting a boost.

* Dante’s Inferno – Since I first saw the trailer, this looked like something special. Admittedly, it’s early days and no gameplay demos have been released yet to my knowledge, but the flavour and atmosphere in this game is enticing. I’m hoping for something that has echoes of God of War, but which also treads it’s own path. It looks like another third person action/adventure too. It’s my favourite gaming genre, so I’m happy.

* Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny – Mainly because it’s on the PSP and that it has Kratos, from God of War, as a playable character. I’ll totally be buying this game. I hope the Kingdom Hearts game for the PSP comes out soon, too. The only reason this console struggles is because the software isn’t up to scratch. It seems Sony are starting to realise that and are doing something about it. Fingers crossed.

* Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Ever since I saw it on the Nintendo NES, I’ve always been a fan of the Castlevania games. Here it is all next-genned and looking rather spiffy. There’s a swathe of voice talent for the trailer (have a look at that right here, folks) and more Devil May Cry-esque action looks in the offing. With so many third person action/adventure games coming to the fore, some are bound to be less than perfect. We’ll just have to wait and see which ones.

These are really just the few things that caught my eye in the excellent coverage provided by E3 Insider. As console king, I’m very happy with what I’m seeing. Now, I just need to make sure with all this gaming that’ll be going on that I leave enough time to write some books and short stories…

A few weeks back I posted a video and some blurb about a new game coming to the Xbox 360 next year, Darksiders.

Browsing the E3 content from E3 Insider at GameTrailers.com, I came upon this little beauty.

What can I say, my enthusiasm for the game has increased still further and I heartily look forward to its release.

I think I must be behind the times or something, as I’ve only just seen the awesome trailers to Darksiders on the Xbox 360. Holy hand grenades, this looks totally fantastic!

There’s just something extremely appealing about battling through a Biblical apocalypse with one of the Four Horsemen – in this case, War.

In this game, the story goes that War has been accused of bringing about the apocalypse and the Horsemen, being the arbiters of order and balance between the forces of Heaven and Hell, aren’t too pleased about it. They love a good apocalypse as much as the next demi-god, but this wasn’t scheduled nor was it too their precise order. These things take careful y’know.

Well, it’s too late. By the time War arrives on Earth to clear his name and figure out who did start the apocalypse and why, it’s already pretty much over. Meteors have landed all across the cities, bringing ruin and chaos. Zombified humans plague the streets, along with daemons and angels kicking the living crap out of each other (by the way, from what I’ve seen, it looks like the angels are losing… big time). In steps War then, who, as it says in the catchy marketing blurb, is ‘hunted by Heaven’ and ‘hated by Hell’ – nice alliteration there, I like it – who is caught smack in the middle of some Biblical conspiracy. The only way to uncover the truth? You guessed it. He has to go and smack the bejesus (pun intended) out of all and sundry to fight his way to the stop for some much-needed answers.

War is a damn cool looking character – more akin to a superhero (think Azrael from Knightfall with glowing eyes and even flappier robes) than a Horsemen, but awesome all the same. He struts around with a massive sword, Alastor-like in its hugeness, unleashing all manner of apocalyptic death on a variety of foes.

This game is really up my street. It looks to borrow quite heavily from other great franchises like Devil May Cry and God of War, but matches up this winning formula into a sublime alchemical tonic by adding Oblivion-like freedom to the proceedings. I’m getting all my gen my IGN (how poetical), but a developer review I’ve seen suggests that the levels are quite large and freeform, which hints and secrets for the game explorer.

Darksiders certainly looks like a spiritual successor to Devil May Cry, having a lot in common with Dante in terms of the characters moves and attacks. The modern cityscape is really nice, however as is the ability to drag cars into your grasp from distance and fling them at the gribblies intent on stopping War’s violent investigation.

Pleasingly, the monsters (as in the boss-level creatures) look huge and, according to that developer review, aren’t defeated by just button-bashing their heads. Apparently, there’s strategy to vanquishing the daemon kings and other beasts. Bodes well. Each boss is only beaten by applying the lessons learned and equipment gained throughout the preceding level, and here’s where my interest grows further – there’s a distinctly Legend of Zelda/Link feel to how some of this strategy works. (Talk about adding to an already perfect alloy – at least in theory.) You are able to do cool stuff like transfer fire with your boomerang-type blade (a later upgrade, along with a kick-ass pistol) to smite your foes with and solve puzzles etc. Very nice.

Adding to my already considerable joy is the fact that none other than Mark Hamill is voicing the character of the Watcher in the game (a creature sent to make sure War is doing what he’s supposed to be doing – methinks a twist lies in store there…). To say his tones for this character are akin to the Joker is an understatement (the malicious, less fun-loving side ).

A couple of other things I noted in the game play videos I was plying… War gets cool ‘dark angel’ wings whenever he does a long jump or falls from distance, plus he can ‘daemon-up’ becoming the all-powerful ‘Havoc-form’ (War’s ‘normal’ smiting form when he’s not been powered down to go to Earth – bummer).

I’ve always been a huge fan of these types of games – hack n’ slash action mixed with platforms, exploration and puzzle solving. I think it’s one of the reasons I love the God of War franchise so much, except here we’re swapping Greek gods for Biblical ones.

If you haven’t already, check out the videos below and prepare for coolness…