Posts Tagged ‘god of war’
God of War Collection announced, brings first two games in 720p glory
Sony Computer Entertainment has announced today that they will be porting the first two games in their God of War series to the PlayStation 3, dubbed as God of War Collection. The compilation will feature reworked 720p versions of the game, offered on a Blu-Ray disc.
“We are excited today to announce God of War Collection,” said Scott Rohde, vice president, Worldwide Studios America. “Our fans spoke and we listened; thanks to our partnership with Bluepoint Games, fans and newcomers to the series can experience the epic God of War and God of War II saga in stunning 720p on PS3. This Blu-ray Disc compilation brings Kratos to PS3 even earlier than expected.”
God of War Collection is scheduled for a holiday season release. As for the forthcoming third entry in the series, God of War III, will be making its debut March 2010.
E3: Soul Calibur Broken Destiny trailer
The latest portable fighting game for the Soul series is shaping up to look really good so far. Besides the addition of Dampierre and Kratos to the roster, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny mainly borrows Soul Calibur IV’s elements, ultimately becoming a portable version of the game. Nonetheless, it looks exciting to play as the protagonist of God of War.
Broken Destiny will be hitting stores on September 30th for the PlayStation Portable.
Kratos In PSP Soul Calibur
Soul Calibur has an ever-growing stable of characters each with their own back story, weapon and fighting style. Whether you prefer the immense and evil Nightmare or the ridiculous Elvis-esque hairstyle of Maxi, there’s someone that’s bound to appeal to you. Yet one of the most enjoyable parts of the series has often been the special guest characters.
Soul Calibur 2 had three different characters depending on your console. Soul Calibur 4 brings in characters from the Star Wars universe, allowing gamers to jump around their opponents as everyone’s favorite jedi muppet. As the first game in the series coming to handhelds, Broken Destiny has a hefty pedigree to live up to and it’s bringing a heavy hitter to the roster, both in terms of sheer power and appeal.
Sony’s handheld will feature a playable character from the company’s own stable of characters and who better to square off against dozens of brutal warriors than Kratos, the antihero of the God of War series. Unfortunately he wasn’t a selectable character for the demo at E3 so we don’t have any shots of him in action yet.
Viking: Battle For Asgard Game Review–Kratos Goes To Norway
Vikings make great characters for video games. Their history is one of huge quantities of fighting and destruction, and I say this being of Danish descent myself. Okay, sure, the Danes didn’t have quite the fighting past of, say, the Norwegians or the Swedes, but we still got our blades wet from time to time. Anyway, that’s probably part of the impetus behind Sega’s recent release of Viking: Battle for Asgard, now available for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
In this one, you’ll play a local boy named Skarin, who’s about to get a serious promotion from random sword-toting schmuck to champion of Freya herself. This is actually much like the relationship between Kratos and Athena. Except, of course, Skarin wasn’t a homicidal psychopath like Kratos. Anyway, Skarin is now part of the big war between the gods, fighting on behalf of Freya to take out some of the footholds that Hel, goddess of the underworld, has on Earth. Just in case you wonder, Earth is called “Midgard” here. For every bit of Midgard that Skarin takes back from Hel, Freya uses her weird goddess powers to make it green and vibrant again, like nothing ever happened.
There are an uncomfortably large number of comparisons available between Viking: Battle for Asgard and God of War—both feature a human elevated to godly champion status, both will feature occasional battles with large monsters that require a series of timed button presses in order to beat, both will have you find small red orbs to recharge your powers and whatnot—the more I play Viking: Battle for Asgard the more I wonder if it really ISN’T just God of War in a Norse mythology skin and with a lower development budget and a whole lot less promotion.
This isn’t to say, of course, that Viking: Battle for Asgard is all that bad a game. In a lot of ways, it’s actually rather fun, and it does distract from the endless flood of first person shooters out there. Getting anything other than one of those is actually a cause for some minor celebration these days. Think of it as God of War with less bloodshed and more fetch questing and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s going on. Admittedly, it’s still plenty fun to wander around a map and repeatedly jam a blade in things–you’ll get to do likewise with an axe and a whole host of special moves which, for some reason, must be taught to you by ghosts who will require payment in gold first, but there’s room to shake things up here and that’s always a good thing. Plus, you’ll get to imbue your blade with various elemental powers as part of your agreement with Freya, thus introducing a small note of strategy into things. Do you freeze the monsters and try to thin out the crowd? Or just set everything on fire? Your call!
These are strange days in gaming, when just by virtue of not being a first-person shooter you get a little extra bonus to your originality score. Granted, this is only one step beyond that—a THIRD person slasher / action game—but still, it’s a step, and a step is better than nothing.
Despite this, you should still be able to get some fun out of this one, especially if you were really into the God of War series and are sort of jonesing for a little of that old god-driven bloodsport. There’s enough action and adventure to go around, and this should also ensure that you get some fun out of the whole affair. In the end, that’s better than nothing, if not by a whole lot.
God Of War I & II Coming To Blu-Ray?
I’m not sure when developers realized that people would pay extra for ‘collectors editions’ of games, but they’ve been a staple of the industry ever since. The contents vary from game to game, but ‘making of’ documentaries and soundtrack CDs are common and recently exclusive DLC has become quite popular.
Sony is gearing up their marketing machine for the impending arrival of spartan Kratos’ third console adventure, the aptly titled God of War III, which definitely warrants a collectors edition package. Sony has been polling gamers to see what people actually want from a limited edition set. Some people enjoy physical, tangible objects like tshirts and exclusive figurines while others are only interested in the bonus DLC.
The question that piques interest is when they ask what would prompt gamers to shell out the extra cash for a collectors edition. Along with relatively standard and somewhat boring options like tshirts, exclusive packaging and the like, they mention the possibility of releasing God of War I & II on a blu-ray disc. They also mention including a cinematic movie compilation from the games, either as an alternative to playing through the two previous games if you want to find out the back story or in case getting them to work on non-backwards compatible PS3s turns out to be impossible.
GOW III Picks Up Ideas From Original Games
Gamers often complain about how long it takes to get details from a video game in development. Early screenshots and concept art come out, then nothing for quite some time. While this frustrates many it’s generally to keep people from getting too disappointed when the game comes out, because frankly everything a developer tries might not work well enough to make it into the final release. Lionhead has often had this problem, since Peter Molyneux likes to talk up all the fun features they’re working on for their games long before they’re completed.
Cecil Kim, a concept artist working on God Of War III is talking up some of the cool features in a very abstract way. Without giving out any specific details he says there are certain gameplay mechanics and ideas that were pitched for the original two titles, only to be dropped because they proved ‘too ambitious’. Whether that means the coders weren’t up to it or the PS2 wasn’t powerful enough is a bit of a moot point, because with skills honed over the years since the second title and the incredible power of the PS3 these dreams are now a reality.