When Mars Attacks

My job as a keyholder at a video game store has certain perks. Any game that we get used I'm allowed to try to for free for a few days, I'm pretty much the first in line at midnight releases, and I have access to demos and betas that we get for pre-orders. One such that was for a game that I, admittedly, had no real interest in but had to try to the demo for the sheer fact that it's so sought after.

God of War III E3 Demo (PlayStation 3) is something that you think someone like me should be interested in, but I found the first two kind of lacking in staying power. As impressive as they were, I found them pretty short and had too many frustrating puzzles like the goddamn fire one in God of War II which cut down on my desire to play through them again. But I got the demo, and I figured it was worth a play.

The demo is as sick as you think it would be. The graphics are fantastic--real lighting and fire graphics out of the Blades of Chaos, so you can actually light up a dark hallway with them. The gore is just as over-the-top as always, and does not disappoint for a second. The only spoiler I will mention: you eviscerate a centaur. There appears to be a new gameplay mechanic involved with jumping from stabbed harpy to other stabbed harpy which handles kind of crappy and is a pain and another where finding secrets via the rumble of a Dualshock becomes necessary and I'm not sure how into that I am for a God of War game. It ends on an epic note, somehow perfect for the series and yet lame at the same time.

You can get the demo a number of ways: work for Sony, pre-order from Amazon.com, Game Crazy, or GameStop, buy the God of War Collection which is coming out for the PS3 in a week, or buy District 9 on Blu-ray in December. I would suggest both of those ways as that movie is gonna look crazy on Blu-ray and even I believe I'm going to invest in the collection, especially if the graphics are updated to the point God of War III is shaping up to look, because it looks fantastic. I love reasons to play my PlayStation 3, of which I do not nearly have enough of.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor