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God Of War Ascension Single Player Demo Impressions -Totally Recalled It

T

The One and Done™

Member
hey_it's_that_dog said:
Some general impressions:

Image quality is exemplary, as it was in GOW3.

The animation really does feel new in a way that GOW3's didn't.

Combat is faster, which was already apparent from watching videos.

Kratos is a little too powerful in the demo; sometimes it's hard to experiment with the combat because everything you do completely demolishes the enemies.

Framerate is a little low for a GOW game, but I'm only worried it will mar their excellent animation, not that it will hurt playability.

Experience orb chests are now smashed instantly, health and magic still take time to open, which makes sense given the original reasoning behind making chests difficult to open in a pinch.

The sound design is notably different; tons of bass when those chains slam on the ground and some new chain swinging SFX, too. A welcome change from GOW3 which for some reason didn't sound that good to me.

New combat features:

An SSX-style real-time combo upgrade system. As you play, you build the rage meter, and it unlocks more powerful combos at the halfway mark. It also imbues your attacks with fire, using the same fire mechanics as Ghost of Sparta, where you can plant time-delayed bombs on enemies. I believe they have said that Kratos will get several elemental magics and we're seeing the fire magic in the demo.

At the full mark it allows for what appears to be an insta-kill blade-grab move. As Meta4 said earlier in the thread, I hope they add something better than that because it's a little anti-climactic.

Grab an enemy with R1 and hit X to disarm them. It looks like they're serious about the World Weapons system and you can acquire weapons almost at-will rather than having to wait to find them in the environment.
Click to expand...


Whoa really? I need to try this.
 
H

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
MuseManMike said:
Will the intro top God of War 3's?
Click to expand...

I'm going to guess that it won't, but the moment-to-moment action has been substantially improved so hopefully they won't need to rely as heavily on a few massive, memorable setpieces. (I hope they accomplish both, of course, but I'll settle for more interesting combat distributed throughout the game over a few huge moments.)
 
R

Radec

Member
MuseManMike said:
Will the intro top God of War 3's?
Click to expand...

I doubt any game this gen can..

m8uSy.jpg
 
R

rdrr gnr

Member
Thanks for the responses.

Do you guys remember someone from SSM commented and said that they had to cut back on what they intended for the final boss fight in GoWIII; it was supposed to be significantly more epic. I wonder if any of those ideas will translate over. And I'm glad that a huge moment in the game is front-loaded as the development process is rocky enough to where ideas for the finale may not come to fruition. But I agree that just trying to outdo what GoWIII did is probably not the right approach. They need to be creative and clever with the ending (in addition to scale). I'd be okay with it playing better and being less grand than previous iterations.
 
T

The One and Done™

Member
MuseManMike said:
Thanks for the responses.

Do you guys remember someone from SSM commented and said that they had to cut back on what they intended for the final boss fight in GoWIII; it was supposed to be significantly more epic. I wonder if any of those ideas will translate over. And I'm glad that a huge moment in the game is front-loaded as the development process is rocky enough to where ideas for the finale may not come to fruition. But I agree that just trying to outdo what GoWIII did is probably not the right approach. They need to be creative and clever with the ending (in addition to scale). I'd be okay with it playing better and being less grand than previous iterations.
Click to expand...

I don't remember that but I do remember them saying that there was suppose to be an "Epilogue" boss battle in the game with the Titan Atlas that was cut out.
 
H

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
MuseManMike said:
Thanks for the responses.

Do you guys remember someone from SSM commented and said that they had to cut back on what they intended for the final boss fight in GoWIII; it was supposed to be significantly more epic. I wonder if any of those ideas will translate over. And I'm glad that a huge moment in the game is front-loaded as the development process is rocky enough to where ideas for the finale may not come to fruition. But I agree that just trying to outdo what GoWIII did is probably not the right approach. They need to be creative and clever with the ending (in addition to scale). I'd be okay with it playing better and being less grand than previous iterations.
Click to expand...

I believe they were going to have you fight Zeus in that rotunda while Gaia was holding it and moving it around. I faintly recall that some previews even mentioned that, so it's something that they showed to a few people before cutting it. (That last part might be some shit my brain made up.)
 
A

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
dab0ne said:
Nice dude thanks for the upload. There is one thing I've always wanted out of a God Of War game and that's the ability to cancel a combo. I hate it when I see an attack coming but I can't cancel my combo to avoid it. Can you do that in this game?
Click to expand...

Corto said:
Does it look like a painting?



The fact that it's not on PC.
Click to expand...

elbourreau said:
We are dealing with consoles textures and shadders (first rank tough!!) but the character modelling is gorgeous!
Click to expand...




dEvAnGeL said:
the fact you don't need a 500 dollar GTX 680 to get that image quality, im a avid pc gamer and I've always been impressed at the sony exclusives, i own a ps3 just for their exclusive titles, is quite remarkable what they do with a hardware that is so freaking old, really top notch dev talent
Click to expand...

RoboPlato said:
It's running on seven year old hardware.

Looking at the footage, I really like what they've done with the HUD and QTE prompts. They're pretty small but still stand out.
Click to expand...

If you quantify it like that then I definitely agree, it's impressive for the hardware, but it isn't exactly as mind blowing as others are saying when you compare across all of games. The character model is pretty great when you take some time to absorb the detail though yeah.

I sound like a fucking PC snob and I'm so sorry about that.

vazel said:
Kratos from GoWIII is still one of the best looking character models I've seen on console or PC.

Also, it's funny you say PC has spoiled you, because the vast majority of good looking games we get on PC are ports of console games; if we're lucky we get better textures.
Click to expand...

I guess the difference here is that often the games can at least be supersampled to ridiculous resolutions and you end up with a really clean image and everything looking exactly as crisp as it can. Whenever I look at console games the aliasing just stands out so strongly to me now.
 
O

ohlawd

Member
Psychological Intellect said:
jesus christ, how did kratos's model get better? shit looks like CG!
Click to expand...

yeh my post in the other topic is done. Santa Monica managed to do it... they created a better model from GoW3's. Give these guys a fucking medal. Just don't skimp out on the other NPCs ;)

MuseManMike said:
Will the intro top God of War 3's?
Click to expand...

Don't think so hahah. GoW3's intro is too high of a bar. It was a curse though because the middle was just meh and it never managed to get to that level of awesome again until the final stretch of the game.

meta4 said:
They said the game will be just more than the original GOW length and the environments will be as varied as GOW2. The bosses will also be bigger than GOW3.
Click to expand...

That's the 2nd best scenario. Ahh I'll take what I can get. Best scenario would be 2's length and environment with 3's bosses.
 
V

vladdamad

Member
Hm, all those bulls... Maybe the game takes place on Crete? In the legend, Zeus turns into a white bull and steals the goddess Europa (and then rapes her). Or maybe something to do with Daedalus and Icaras? In any case, concept art looks really nice
 
C

Chuck Norris

Banned
hey_it's_that_dog said:
Some general impressions:

Image quality is exemplary, as it was in GOW3.

The animation really does feel new in a way that GOW3's didn't.

Combat is faster, which was already apparent from watching videos.

Kratos is a little too powerful in the demo; sometimes it's hard to experiment with the combat because everything you do completely demolishes the enemies.

Framerate is a little low for a GOW game, but I'm only worried it will mar their excellent animation, not that it will hurt playability.

Experience orb chests are now smashed instantly, health and magic still take time to open, which makes sense given the original reasoning behind making chests difficult to open in a pinch.

The sound design is notably different; tons of bass when those chains slam on the ground and some new chain swinging SFX, too. A welcome change from GOW3 which for some reason didn't sound that good to me.

New combat features:

An SSX-style real-time combo upgrade system. As you play, you build the rage meter, and it unlocks more powerful combos at the halfway mark. It also imbues your attacks with fire, using the same fire mechanics as Ghost of Sparta, where you can plant time-delayed bombs on enemies. I believe they have said that Kratos will get several elemental magics and we're seeing the fire magic in the demo.

At the full mark it allows for what appears to be an insta-kill blade-grab move. As Meta4 said earlier in the thread, I hope they add something better than that because it's a little anti-climactic.

Grab an enemy with R1 and hit X to disarm them. It looks like they're serious about the World Weapons system and you can acquire weapons almost at-will rather than having to wait to find them in the environment.
Click to expand...
I feel like this has always been the problem with GOW combat, Kratos is just so powerful that you can't really make a mistake. I wish they would implement some sort of timing system where the quicker you mash the buttons, the weaker the hits become till they become easily block able by the enemy. If you time and swing according to momentum the hits will be more effective.
 
E

Elios83

Member
Artworks are really good, many colors, big scale, middle-east/arabic influence so it could be Crete.
I hope they deliver with their single player.
 
V

vladdamad

Member
Also, from watching a playthrough of the demo online, holy cow the combat is fast. Really speedy, and the game looks super gorgeous, as others have noted. THe one thng that really bugs me is the UI and the font used in the text, I don't like it at all. I wish they kept to the stylised Greek lettering from the previous games
 
H

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
Chuck Norris said:
I feel like this has always been the problem with GOW combat, Kratos is just so powerful that you can't really make a mistake. I wish they would implement some sort of timing system where the quicker you mash the buttons, the weaker the hits become till they become easily block able by the enemy. If you time and swing according to momentum the hits will be more effective.
Click to expand...

Turning up the difficulty quickly remedies the feeling of being too powerful, but at the same time the game doesn't always feel well-balanced around the most difficult modes.

Your idea is excellent, though. Timing based stuff in action games is always a great hook, and what you suggest certainly wouldn't be overly demanding for a more casual player.
 
C

Callibretto

Member
Baconsammy said:
I need the demo to convince me that it's not a repeat of 3, which I thought looked nice but wasn't remotely fun to play.
Click to expand...
I think gow3 is the most fun combat wise, if you dont think its fun at all, maybe the series is just not for you. I certainly dont want them to change the combat too drastically
 
V

Violater

Member
Baconsammy said:
I need the demo to convince me that it's not a repeat of 3, which I thought looked nice but wasn't remotely fun to play.
Click to expand...

I think 3 was a letdown overall for me but not necessarily because of the combat system but more because the story seemed half baked and the ending a letdown.
 
B

Baconsammy

Banned
Callibretto said:
I think gow3 is the most fun combat wise, if you dont think its fun at all, maybe the series is just not for you. I certainly dont want them to change the combat too drastically
Click to expand...

It was boring. I love one of the PSP games, and also enjoyed 90 percent of the first PS2 title (hated the climbing at the end). A large part of what bored me silly in 3 was that the combat hadn't changed much at all. Sure it was pretty, but yawnworthy gameplay. I like the changes to the combat that I've read in the thread. Definitely looking forward to trying the demo.
 
H

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
I can agree GOW3's combat wasn't as different as I would have liked, but I wouldn't call it bad just because I finally got bored of it.

In any case, I'm pleased with the changes I've seen in the Ascension demo so far. If GOW3 could have implemented more of those changes, it probably would have blown everyone the fuck away. The realities of game development on a new platform being what they are, I do understand why they simply couldn't polish their tech and confidently innovate their gameplay and still meet a 2010 release date.
 
R

Ricky_R

Member
Put me on the list of people who enjoyed GOW 3's combat a lot. GOW 3 is actually the one that I had the more fun with in general.
 
K

Keasar

Member
Will be interesting to see if they have done any improvements to the combat which I feel have often been GoWs weakest part, visually they all look stunning, gameplay wise they are not quite there. Anything when the demo will be out on PSN?

Radec said:
I doubt any game this gen can..

m8uSy.jpg
Click to expand...

Maybe not visually but I thought the intro from Bayonetta was a pretty awesome way to kick it off.
image_bayonetta-11736-1653_0019.jpg
Click to expand...
Played a lot better though.
 
R

Ricky_R

Member
Is there new footage out of this demo? Aside from the E3 one? I want to see it in action again, but played differently.
 
R

Ricky_R

Member
manfestival said:
man that looks awesome. I love how they handled the qtes in gow3 and gowa keeps it, which is awesome. Allows me to enjoy the action and still manage QTEs. More games should follow this implementation. Having a button in the middle of the screen tends to ruin my enjoyment of a scene... especially if it is an awesome looking scene
Click to expand...

Yeah... It lets you focus on the sequence and it even adds a slight challenge by making us see which button to press with the corners of ours eyes.

Pretty simple, yet smart.
 
D

Die Squirrel Die

Member
Is there any option to use L1 + left stick for dodging like the PSP games? I really hate using the right stick for dodging. It feels so counterintuitive to be taking my thumb away from the attack buttons.
 
O

omonimo

Banned
Baconsammy said:
It was boring. I love one of the PSP games, and also enjoyed 90 percent of the first PS2 title (hated the climbing at the end). A large part of what bored me silly in 3 was that the combat hadn't changed much at all. Sure it was pretty, but yawnworthy gameplay. I like the changes to the combat that I've read in the thread. Definitely looking forward to trying the demo.
Click to expand...

Uh? wut? GOW 3 is a huge step above to GOW 2 in the combat mechanics. Most of the weapons of GOW 2 are completely useless & bland. GOW 2 is better just in the story & in the levels scenario.
 
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