God of War III: Graphics, From the Demo to Retail

[John Funk]

God of War III: Graphics, From the Demo to Retail

Last year, people said that the demo of God of War III [http://www.amazon.com/God-War-III-Playstation-3/dp/B000ZK9QCS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1278968473&sr=1-1] from E3 looked pretty damn good, but not mindblowing. Well, as it turns out Santa Monica wasn't just using the time between then and release to polish up gameplay.

When the E3 demo of God of War III came out, the reaction seemed to be "Yeah, it's cool, but it's not as mindblowingly good-looking as I'd have liked it to be." It seems that Sony Santa Monica used the time between the demo and next week's release to good effect: As a piece on Eurogamer's Digital Foundry shows [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-godofwariii-demo-vs-retail-blog-entry], the final review build of God of War III looks much, much better than even the demo.

Well, it looks better in motion, anyway - one of the effects Santa Monica added was a movie-esque motion blur that looks really awesome in action, but makes capturing still frames a bit less clear-cut. Even so, the screenshots where you can actually clearly see what's going on look markedly better than the rest: textures, lighting, et al have all been improved.

Nor has this improvement come with a performance hit: A side-by-side video reveals that the launch code of God of War III actually runs better than its demo brother. So, suffice it to say that GoW3 is pretty technically robust.

Hit Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-godofwariii-demo-vs-retail-blog-entry] to see the rest. It's out next week, and we can't wait.

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[Irridium]

I'm not that suprised.

The God of War games have always been pretty outstanding in terms of technology and graphics.

I'm still suprised that the first 2 games were able to do what they did on the PS2.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Can't wait.

 

[MurderousToaster]

Is this the "FANCY LIGHTING THAT NOTHING ELSE CAN HANDLE GNARFANARFL!" that they were talking about?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Looks the same...but shinier.

Not that its a bad thing.

 

[Hat of Controversy]

More pronounced bloom and shine, and higher contrast.

That's cool, I can dig it...

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Santa Monica remains in my top dev team list, for the sheer awesomeness of what they can do with technology.

 

[Hazy]

Looks the same...but shinier.

Not that its a bad thing.

I'd say they touched up some shadow work as well.
Very interesting to see how nice that Helios section in the cave looks during the final product.

I'm not that suprised.

The God of War games have always been pretty outstanding in terms of technology and graphics.

I'm still suprised that the first 2 games were able to do what they did on the PS2.

I agree as well.

The developers claimed that it was a gigantic memory hastle developing the first two, but they look all the better for it.

 

[That's Funny]

Well I can definately see that there is more fine detail on Kratos, and the blood looks awesome.

 

[Sh0ckFyre]

It just looks like they improved the lighting. But then I saw the Helios picture and I said "Holy fuck that looks amazing". This game looks to be outstanding. I'd also like to add it also looks like the GAMEPLAY is going to be FUN.

 

[Terrorist_school_drop-out]

Wait a second... final build considerably more refined than months-old demo? STOP THE PRESS!!!
Seriuosly now, from what I can tell thay just added more visual effects and refined the textures giving them more depth.
I find this something to be expected considering the time thay had, but even so I have to say, the game looks very preety.

 

[AfroTree]

the first God Of War game, will ironically be, most likely the last, and quite possibly the best...yay?


also, that demo is amazing!

 

[Wolfram23]

Sweet, I thought the demo looked good. Definitely glad they improved it tho. Textures and such were fine but looks like they improved lighting and glow effects.

 

[Jared]

More pronounced bloom and shine, and higher contrast.

That's cool, I can dig it...

Oh yeah! Looks like they pulled out alot of stops...should be epic awesome =D

 

[Shy_Guy]

This is the game Sony should be using to showcase the PS3 and Cell. Not the blurry mess that is Killzone 2.

I'm very impressed at the changes they've made and it's making the short time before release now all the more unbearable...

 

[auronvi]

As far as graphics go, there are little tricks that can make a game look a million times better and the cost much less processing power than just upping the AA or resolution. Motion blur is one of those things! Games that do it well are Killzone 2, Half Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal, , Uncharted 2, Crysis, Shadow of the Colossus, and the original Killzone.

The Mass Effects had it but it never seemed to look that good. A PS2 game had great motion blur and that was last generation.

If you ever fiddled with the visual settings on Crysis you notice that turning on high motion blur took very little performance away and had a stunning effect. On lower end machines, if you took AA off and put on motion blur, the game look fantastic as long as you kept moving. The combination of motion blur and AA made my machine lag at the highest setting telling me that there are some heavy optimizing that could be done there.

Other small effects like film grain and glows make a game look that much better too if done right. The picture of Kratos shows the difference a glow effect can have and trust me, it doesn't take much processing to do it.

When I look at games that don't have the above, I wonder what the visual designers were even doing. They must not have had any.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The demo already looked amazing.

I don't know what in God's name people were complaining about.

 

[Scrythe]

The only difference I can see between those two photos is that they turned up the bloom lighting, dynamic shadows and about three textures. That , coupled with the motion blur, and I'm sure it's going to hide quite a lot.

I honestly don't care if it looks exactly like the first two, as long as it's still an overall amazing game. The demo was a good enough teaser to keep my cock hard for a week, so here's to the full release to blow it off completely. Cheers.

Note: Although this may or may not be the case with GoW3, turning up shadows and bloom that high and adding motion blur is generally a trick used to hide just how outdated and plain your in-game models look. For proof, take a look at every Need For Speed game from Underground and up, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Well that explains a lot. I didn't think the graphics in the demo were much, but they've really put some spit polish on it since then.

 

[Simalacrum]

Wow, I did wander why the GTTV coverage of GoW III looked so much better in comparison to the E3 demo... now I know why!