I played through the E3 demo of God of War: Ghost of Sparta, the newest entry into the
acclaimed God of War series. As most of you know, Ghost of Sparta is a PSP exclusive title
and it’s being developed by Ready At Dawn Studios. If you played the only other God of War
title on PSP, Chains of Olympus, you can appreciate what good hands Ghost of Sparta is in.
So the details I was able to get out of the SCEA rep are scarce. What we do know is that Ghost of Sparta takes place after the events of the original God of War, and before the start of God of War II. So, Ares is dead, but Kratos isn’t the “new” god of war just yet. Also, some of you may recall the spartansstandtall.com teaser site, which showed Kratos’ reflection in a pool of water. I was told that Ghost of Sparta includes aspects of Kratos as a younger man, so it will be interesting to see where Ready At Dawn goes with it from there.
As for the actual demo itself, it wasn’t a cohesive sequence of events from the final game, but instead a combination of parts to demonstrate different aspects of the gameplay. Of course, the raw action oriented gameplay famous in God of War is unchanged. The E3 demo starts off with Kratos aboard a ship at sea, actually not unlike the start of the original game. Kratos is wiedling a round shield and a staff, which he can use to knock enemies into the air and stab them. I didn’t recognize the enemies on screen, but they were of the horde variety, the same kind that Kratos fights so many of in the other games.
After a brief ‘clear the decks’ action sequence, I was taken inside of another part of what I believe to be the ship. Some decent water effects on the side walls (water streaming in) made for some nice atmosphere as I led Kratos through a few more enemies and smashed several objects (yielding red upgrade points).
Moments later I was face to face with Scylla, a huge sea monster. In this boss battle, the sea monster has Kratos cornered on a small area of land, from which you have to evade Scylla’s attacks and quickly get in attacks of your own.
It wasn’t the most interesting boss fight in the series, but the game as a whole has a long way to go yet before its fall 2010 release — marking the first time a God of war game has come out in a month other than August. Be sure to check back with us later this year for a full review and a developer Q&A if we can score one.
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