01:24 The fight continues this way for a while, with the two trading elemental attacks. But then a deep voice seems to moan in annoyance and the ground starts to pitch. Kratos is thrown off-balance as the entire plateau revolves counter-clockwise. The spider-beast seems to be clinging on for dear life too as the camera zooms out to take in the bigger picture.
01:26 Oh. My. God. As the camera zooms right out, we realise it wasn't a mountain at all that we were fighting on. It was a mountain-sized Titan Gaia – think a 20 million tonne Kathy Bates covered in grass and leaves - and we've been fighting on her wrist the entire time. Needless to say, the scene does its job. Spectacularly.
1:30 With Gaia wide awake, her arm is now thrown the other way up. Unperturbed by the massive drop below him, Kratos begins to monkey across what is now a grassy ceiling and continues his assault on the spider-horse beast. Honestly, you'd think he would consider saving his own neck by now…
2:01 After half a minute more of upside-down cut and thrust, the camera zooms out again and we see Gaia’s arm come round and clamp onto the side of an actual mountain (unless it's an even bigger beast – at this time we don't know what to expect any more). It speeds back in and the fight continues.
2:33 The biblically big-boned lady brings her head closer and examines the tiny figure attacking this tarantula-sized critter. Kratos is still throwing everything he's got at his opponent, unleashing combo after combo and following them up with his whirlwind attack.
3:19 In a scene reminiscent of Yoda's lightsaber skills, Kratos performs a mid-air attack that looks like a Catherine Wheel. Surely the water beast can't have much vitality left. It's still thrashing at him and spitting out torrents of water in defence, but it looks like it's fighting a losing battle.
3:44 There it is – a big, 3D circle button icon appears above the creature's head, but looking like it's in the scene rather than overlaid on the screen. You know what time it is. It's time to finish this.
3:48 After leaping onto one of the creature's mandibles, Kratos jumps again and buries one of his blades into the creature's lower jaw. After a brief struggle, he manages to attack the other one into the other side, so he's got the creature chained by the head like an elaborately decorated (and aggressive) stunt kite.
3:56 Standing back on the ground, Kratos jerks the creature's head left and right with his chains. Something's gotta give. Sure enough, after a couple of seconds, the lower jaw comes away in its entirety, leaving the horse beast squealing in agony.
4:00 After writhing around for a bit, the defeated boss retreats into the ground, still writhing around. The camera whooshes in behind it, passing still-beautifully rendered special effects, and the God of War III logo appears.
So what did we think? Spectacular. The entire fight scene, from the choreography, dynamic panning camera shots to the sweeping scale is absolutely megaton.
The footage also finally gives us a tantalising look into how riding the massive Titans will work. Much like Shadow of the Colossus, Kratos’ ludicrously-sized allies are essentially constantly moving platform sections. Clambering all over Gaia looked fun as hell, so we’re mega pumped about getting our hands on these massive beasties and the rest of the game.
2010, say hello to your first potential killer-app.
18 Jan, 2010
