God of War III demo performance analysis Comments by Richard Leadbetter

Played this at the Eurogamer Expo and was probably my favourite game of the show. It's not overly complex, it's not mass loads of text, it's just pure and simple mutilating anyone that stands in your way with the occasional gory finisher.

Nothing like ripping an eye out of a Cyclops to ease your blood thirst.

Has the potential to be a very huge title for the PS3 I think, very tasty indeed.

The same ingame demo was uploaded a few days back from the website GT for those aware of it. So in answer to your question Richard, this isnt a first no exclusive for Europe. Game looks good.

After watching those videos, all I can say is wow, just WOW!

The art design is stunning throughout, the lighting is amazing as are the textures and the game's framerate remains stable and tear free despite all the carnage and special effects going on. I saw some minor texture seaming (white lines on dark edges) but otherwise the graphics are definitely up to scratch. The gore is certainly eye opening too. An impressive looking game that I'm really looking forward to playing in 2010.

Purists will no doubt voice disappointment that the game doesn't maintain a constant 60 fps but I'd rather have the eye candy and spectacle personally.

This too was one of my favourite games of the show, loved it. Not sure if I can sustain a full game's worth of button mashing, but it looked incredible and was great fun.

Best played in small sessions though.

Might have been better to have just locked it at 30fps.

This game looks the part and will deliver. The first 2 pushed the PS2 to the limits, I hope this can push the PS3 to its limits too.

@Digital_Forge,

I played the game at the expo too and think it was the best looking title there bar none. Absolutely stunning, with a couple of caveats. The blood splatters and environmental "damage" only hang around for a few seconds and then disappear right in front of your eyes. Also, while the lighting from weapons, fireballs, etc light the environment and characters beautifully, the same hard shadows are not affected at all, making them very unrealistic.

For me, the main problem was that the gameplay itself just felt dull. Now admittedly, the hack'n'slasher isn't exactly my favourite gametype, but I didn't expect to be bored playing a demo.

Each to their own, but this, IMO, is looking very tasty. GOW isn't a complicated game, it's a metric assload of fun.

Quite intruiged by the end of the second video where Kratos takes a swing at the Titan.

The blood splatters and environmental "damage" only hang around for a few seconds and then disappear right in front of your eyes. Also, while the lighting from weapons, fireballs, etc light the environment and characters beautifully, the same hard shadows are not affected at all, making them very unrealistic.

The short-lived environmental damage was never a problem with GOW or GOW2, I don't imagine that being a real nuisance in GOW3.

Is the lack of frame cap to indicate that they are going for 60fps on the final game? I didn't notice much problem in the vid even with the framerate changes but maybe the difference is easier seen and felt playing it yourself. I am hoping they add a lot to the game to make it worth the play, because since they are releasing gow1and 2 in hd ppl will easily compare the 3 games.

Anyone notice that the weapons in those caves actually hit the walls and weren't just some straight animation? The distance they traveled from the player was limited by how close he was to the wall of the cave.

They need to lay off making kratos look so damn crazy though. He doesnt have to be but ugly angry cause ppl wont relate at all.

@SeesThroughAll,

You know, this is a 2010 game that's going to be played on 50" TV's in High Definition.

When it fades out right in front of your eyes, it's much more apparent. Imho of course.

To me this could of been on PS2 graphics still and I would of enjoyed it. The gameplay is sublime! I mean take for example picking up an enemy and just running through other enemies and then smashing them into a wall and repeatively smacking their head against it GIVE ME MOREEE. To me it felt so intense and brtual...which is technically what GOW should be about.

This looks like GoW 1&2 on roids. Awesome. Must play for fans.

Didn't get to see any magic attacks. They'll probably be as destructive to your foes as before.

Sony were kind enough to send me a demo code yesterday, so I gratefully downloaded it!

Wow, what a game, I'm keeping the demo on my hard drive until March - and I can envisage a good few playthroughs between now and then....

The only qualm I have is the fluctuating framerate, I did notice it! At the start of the demo you're in a close-up of Kratos' face which pans back when you push start (like the first two games) - but you'll notice judder and framerate fluctuations in this camera pan-back movement.

Hope this gets sorted by release, a locked 30fps would be sweet (60fps would be better, though)....

I got tingles throughout those entire clips. Especially the ending of the second one.

Roll on March.

I bet Bayonetta is even better than this. Roll on January 5th. 40/40 in Famitsu.

God of war 3 will be very good too though.

I also played this at the EG expo, and so I say thanks for showing me what happens after the bit where you shoot helios down. I was stuck on that part for about 5 mins, then a member of staff came over and told me when to fire. As I still missed then, i gave up out of embarrassment. >_>

Definitely my fave game of the show, and graphically I felt second only to Heavy Rain, which appeared to trigger a series of expletives preceded by ' Holy!' from everybody who passed it!

Hmm, I'm not too impressed with how the game looks, honestly. The lighting is lovely, but the rest is kinda meh. Reminds me overall of the first Prince of Persia, except entirely gray . So very gray. They could at least have the decency to splash in other colors than things related to fire and gore. Or do something like Prince of Persia and light other areas differently, use that lovely lighting engine on something other than shiny weapon effects! Maybe it's just a fault of the demo pick?

Also, motion blur? Would have been amazing here. I'd rather have that than depth of field in a game like this, and it'd also vastly improve the look of Kratos's chain blade effects.

More predictions from muscleblade, at least he keeps trying.

I didn't get a demo code for this which is a shame as I've been quite lucky so far in that respect. This is looking like good old mindless fun, think I'll pick it up at some point.

When it fades out right in front of your eyes, it's much more apparent. Imho of course.

Fair enough, I understand if some people don't like it. Personally, it doesn't bother me.

i want to see god of war performance and god of war 2

It looked mostly 30fps when I played it. Dantes Inferno was 60fps with superior texture filtering. Still played fantastically and if you like brutal (very) gory action, well this game is definately for you.

at around 9:30 on fri morning my PS3 died while I was playing Uncharted 2, trapping the disc inside (6 week wait and a £128 repair bill that I'm refusing to pay) and then at just before 8:00 in the evening Sony kindly emailed me a download code for this demo!!!!!!!!

Looks like an HD version of GOW2. The textures are good but far from 'exemplary' and lighting is decent. On the plus side the programmers seem to have implemented some rarely seen 2X-AA on the PS3 so things do look clean. Overall from a graphics point of view GOW3 will rely mostly on art work to impress.

says the fanboy

cod is no technical marvel no matter how much you want it to be. You should also know that the same goes for most or all the games you like on the 360. Cod (multiplat) has not moved on at all has it? Its just a new story with the same kind of gameplay; same with halo, gears, forza and whatever else you want to call out. This game will bring at the very least more interesting elements and those not already interested in it can experience it with the HD remakes and release of gow 3. I would have liked to see those 2 games bundled with gow (not in some special edition but in the regular retail) but oh well.

I didn't notice it went below 30fps, where is that?

Why compare it to chains of olympus? :S

No-one commented on what I mentioned about the weapons hitting the cave wall during attacks. It looked pretty cool that the attacks didn't clip through the cave walls there.

Semitope wrote:

"Is the lack of frame cap to indicate that they are going for 60fps on the final game?"

There is zero chance of this. Typically, there is almost no difference, frame-rate wise, between demo code and final build code.

By the time a game gets to a public release, 99% of performance engineering has been done. Sure, developers then tinker with post-processing, effects, cleaning up of polys and textures, etc. but don't expect more than 1 or 2 frames difference from a demo build.

Just looks like God of War.

womble: LOL, this is not typical demo. It will have almost a year when the final build came to shops. Turn 10 changed 30fps to 60 in just few months (cockpit).

Sorry for bad english ^^

People really like to put the boot in when it comes to GoW. I really cannot see why...

@huge360fan "This franchise just strikes me as juvenile. The over the top gore seems like it was designed to appeal to the 300-worshipping fratboy crowd. Pass."

I think youve got the wrong GoW in mind there mate.

Im downloading the demo right now. I hope it has realistic paint textures like we were told, but silly expectations aside I have very high hopes for this title. The e3 trailers were very impressive. Shame it will probably get banned in australia

womble - lol... smh

Demo is very, very nice. It's still GoW tho. No real improvements or innovations gameplay-wise (at least not in the demo), but it plays just as well, and the number of enemies on screen has increased - plowing through a whole hord of enemies at once was a real delight. Also, the finishing moves on the bigger enemies is just as in-your-face brutal as always. Love it.

Gonna be a great, if typical GoW.

@womble

GoW 1 and 2 were 60 fps with some drops to around 40 so i think we can expect that to be their aim. This build is the e3 build, not quite the same as a demo being released near to the full game release like most games have.

Those who don't have the demo can check out this guys gameplay videos of it. The playthrough isn't controlled like you see on DF (cause of the analysis being absent) so you get to see a gamer just going at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSvS7ElUbPU

Watching the vid I hope the AI is up to the task. Dodging attacks and forcing you to block and dodge as well on higher difficulties.

I too played this at the expo. It's God of War 1 and 2 with vastly improved graphics, more enemies onscreen and much more gore. I think that those that enjoyed the prequels will enjoy this too; those militantly against the others however should probably avoid it.

I'm mostly positive about it, but I hope the full game has some more emphasis on puzzles. The thing I loved about the first game was how the paced it with action, puzzle bit for a quiet, contemplative moment, more action, etc.

This is the same demo I played yesterday courtesy of a redeem code that was randomly e-mailed to me from SCEE. I agree that locking the frame-rate would have made it slightly easier to control (never played GOW before).

I too hope the framerate gets fixed. If it is less than 60 fps with a couple of drops here and there, then it is an instant no-buy as with every other brawler/beat-em-up.

Anyway for regular common men like me to download the demo?

i have a US PSn accoutn but ti doesn't seem to be showing up there.

Hmm,only few fps better that Bayonetta PS3.
It will be funny if "remastered" PS2 GOW1,2 turns to be 60pfs and GOW3 stays like this.

"If it is less than 60 fps with a couple of drops here and there, then it is an instant no-buy as with every other brawler/beat-em-up."

Your loss. Basing a purchasing decision on a frame-rate of 30 vs 60fps is quite silly, especially for a game such as this one.

"GoW 1 and 2 were 60 fps with some drops to around 40 so i think we can expect that to be their aim. "

Umm, no.

The aim is clearly 30fps. Did you even bother to look at DF's video?

There is a huge difference between a PS2 game, and a 720p game. Where on earth do you think they are going to be able to literally double the frame-rate between now and release? What magic code are they going to be able to add that they haven't added already?

The aim is 30 fps? How do you get around to thinking the aim is 30fps when the game doesnt even look like it goes below that?

Why do you think they can't get to 60fps for the majority of the game with dips here and there?

Anyway:

http://www.totalvideogames.com/God-of-Wa...

We've already heard about how amazing God of War III looks, which will no doubt be helped by news that the game's Sony Santa Monica dev team is currently running the game at a sustained 60 frames per second.

This news comes from GDC in San Francisco, where the game's programmers were espousing its ability to run at the higher frame rate echelons according to Kotaku, although they did concede that it has to drop down as low as 30 FPS at times.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57...

Tilander and Fillipov explained that the game will not be locked at 60 frames per second, and will likely drop below that during intense scenes. However, it will never fall below 30 frames per second.

http://www.psu.com/God-of-War-III-runs-a...

God of War III’s Jim Tilander and Vassily FilipPov revealed to hungry crowds at this year’s Game Developers Conference that Kratos’ latest outing will run at a smooth 60fps – well, for most of the time that is.

Tilander and FilipPov, who serve as programmer and lead game programmer, respectively, confirmed that the title would occasionally drop down to 30fps in order to cope with some of the more demanding sequences in the hotly anticipated PlayStation 3 outing.

I guess that does it for the 60fps argument. Notice I didnt do the fanboy thing and cut out the part about 30fps. Also for those who care, apparently there is no physics in GOW3. Even the cloth is not realtime which is ok cause obviously the game doesnt need it (would be nice though). Your 720p comment is also pretty lame considering they are putting the original god of war games on ps3 at 720p (with aa?) and those will likely look still better than anything on the 360 (:p) and run at 60fps.

Well those videos look bloody amazing dont they.
I was happy to just sit here and just watch that, let alone play it...

meh

last gen fixed camera angles

not even 60 fps which is a standard for action games

shallow button masher gameplay