It's "powerful, brutal, kinetic, flashy and responsive," claims Papy, while retaining the "heart and soul" of God of War. But change has been necessary to accommodate the broader scope of multiplayer. The combat system is built on the same core mechanics as the rest of the series, with the same buttons pretty much doing the same thing. "It's a team-based multiplayer experience and we want to make sure you're not always going with the same guy, like a game of Street Fighter where everyone picks Ryu." We don't want to reveal what each god will do just yet but you can expect some key differences. "Some are based on damage, some are based on healing and sustaining, some on magical attacks. In other games it would be considered your classes," says lead combat designer Jason McDonald.Īs for the classes: "It's pretty similar to what you'd expect," he adds. "Based on that selection you'll be able to gain magical abilities, items, different things you get from these unique gods that influence your style of play. You must ally yourself with one of four gods: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades or Ares - as in the original God of War when Kratos pledged his allegiance to the latter. The basic premise of multiplayer in Ascension is that the player can "go from an unknown hero to a god, following in the footsteps of Kratos," says Papy. It was hard to make sense of it all at first sight without commentary, to be honest, but it turned out we had witnessed a game of domination, with two teams battling to control two points on the map, after which the victor proceeded to the endgame. But the rest, I am later assured, is a real map that will ship with the final game. Stills don't do it justice - in motion, Ascension's as stunning as anything in the God of War universe.Ĭlearly the opening part was a bit, purely for the purposes of a dramatic reveal. I catch my breath.Įvery combatant in the demo was controlled live by a member of the team, Papy notes, anticipating queries over how much of what we just saw was staged for effect. A fraction of a second from impact, the demo cuts to black. While it strains and swells in the socket, the fourth player leaps towards it, motioning to run it through with a spear sent down from the heavens. Having smashed its jaw in half, three of the warriors launch chains at the monster's enormous eyeball. Because this is God of War.Īnd that, in one hugely impressive sequence, is Ascension's multiplayer in a nutshell: classic team-based action, coupled with the series' trademark technical bravura, epic scale and orgiastic celebration of savagery.Īs the round rolls on, one of the teams eventually batters the other sufficiently to earn the right to take out the titan in a scene of quite spectacular violence. A few seconds more and a furious, horned titan, ensnared by chains, fills the screen. Because this is eight-player multiplayer. A few moments later, the area opens up to reveal characters duelling all over. That's how you announce multiplayer, God of War-style. The duo jog off triumphantly through a door and Papy calls out: "Give me a taunt to prove it's live!" One of his team, who had up to this point been an unknown presence lurking at the rear of the theatre, promptly obliges as one of the warriors thrusts his sword skywards and they charge on. The pair now gang up on the fabulously well-animated beast, one leaping onto its writhing shoulders to draw back its head, while the other guts it from waist-to-neck 'til it collapses in a jellied pool of its own spurting innards.Īscension's multiplayer promises to stay faithful to the series' sense of scale.
Soon he's scrapping with a bulging, barmy cyclops and we're in familiar territory: classical hack-and-slash action of murderous beauty.Īnd then the camera teasingly shifts to the right to capture the entrance of a second warrior, who promptly wades in. The bit that was always supposed to be the actual reveal, though, taking place in a private theatre in Hollywood - "Welcome to one of the worst kept secrets in the industry!" chortles game director Todd Papy - opens with a superbly crafted piece of drama.Ī brooding warrior, whom we are supposed to think is Kratos, is revealed by a retreating camera to be another muscular, Mardi Gras-attired brute entirely. Not the one that happened the previous week when, faced with more holes in its hull than it had PR fingers to poke in them, Sony gave up trying and rush-announced God of War: Ascension to stem the swelling tide of tittle-tattle. The first live demo to the press, I mean.
0 kommentar(er)
