OMG. I just watched
this video of God of War 2 Demo playthrough from E3 2006 and I am amazed.
Seriously, God of War 2 looks like it's doing everything quality. It's going to be absolutely HUGE! I mean, you've got your typical mass market third-person action game but...
Wow. The hard work that went into that demo is mind-boggling. Their animation is fluid, a dream that must've taken months of man hours to craft. They keep everything at a fast exciting pace, even opening chests doesn't slow you down as you simply shove it open and the health/magic it restores comes out on its own accord and groups to you so you can immediately start running around again.Their level design is linear even though the game is 3D, allowing for sweeping pre-determined camera angles that really bring the cinematic aspects of the game alive.
The level appears to have 3 or more actual MINI-BOSSES each of whom would have been a regular boss in any other game, and large enemies can trigger short button-sequence challenges that are corrdinated with beautifully animated kill-scenes, like climbing up large monsters, or ripping individual heads off of a cerberus type creature.
And oh my god, they implemented a great feature for block puzzles: powering up a powerful kick you can shove a "block" all the way across the room, removing much of the tedium of block puzzles and keeping everything so relentlessly cool. And then the levels is peppered with "moments of cool" like destroying important pieces of terrain (which sheen momentarily every once in a while to let you know that they are important) to form land bridges and whatnot.
The demo...was in a word... an immense achievement that can only be looked upon with awe and respect for the hard work and dedication that went into it.
This is seriously the first game I've ever seen that made me want to buy a PS2.
~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com