[E3 2012] Mythological Mindgames
God of War: Ascension's multi is a deadly game of rock, paper, scissor, spear.
Published: June 8, 2012
Back in April, I had a chance to see Sony Santa Monica officially unveil God of War: Ascension, along with its franchise first multiplayer component. It looked promising but many press members were left confused by the presentation. How would a combat system designed entirely around PvE work in PvP? How will the cinematic qualities of the franchise carry over to the multi? Thankfully, I got a chance to sit down and dig in with one of the devs from the multiplayer team at Sony's E3 booth this week and had some knowledge dropped on me. I'm happy to report that the Santa Monica team has found a way to imbue Ascension's multi with a sense of skill and style not unlike the spectacle of the single player offering.
For starters, they stuck with the same basic setup the franchise has used from the beginning. Square and triangle buttons give you light and heavy attacks respectively, “x” jumps, and R1 grapples. Blocking and evading are mapped the same way as the previous games as well. The primary difference is the way these basic techniques work in relation to one another. Light attacks are quick and can be chained easily, but do nothing if the opponent is guarding. Heavy attacks on the other hand are predictably slow but entirely unblockable, forcing a defending opponent to time a dodge if they want to avoid damage.
This would appear to make defense really strong initially. After all, GoW players are quite used to holding block and simply reacting to unblockable boss attacks with a quick dodge. This is where grappling comes in to play. Whenever a player dodges, blocks, or jumps, any player in the vicinity can press R1 to rope them in and hit them with a big damage throw attack. So standing there blocking, or continually spamming dodge will get you in to a lot of trouble. The counter point is that grappling only works against blocking, dodging, or jumping opponents. Attempting to use a grapple on an opponent doing anything else, even just standing around, gets automatically countered and leaves you wide open to eat a full combo or one of several weapon specific special attacks. It boils down to a typical rock-paper-scissors flow, but it really works well within the context of God of War's fast paced battles. Properly dodging and countering heavy attacks, or baiting people into dodging only to tag them with a brutal grapple attack gets addictive quickly.
Those same grapple attacks are responsible for injecting some cinematic flair too. Killing an opponent this way brings the camera all the way in to witness one of GoW's trademark execution animations. The camera zooms in at other key points in battle as well, highlighting critical exchanges and giving the player a better view of the abundant eye candy. Even in multiplayer, Santa Monica shows a mastery of the hardware few studios can match. Despite still being early in development, Ascension already looks gorgeous, whether zoomed in tight on two warriors clashing, or zoomed farther out where you can see most of the sand blasted battlefield. When one team slays the giant cyclops in the background, Polyphemus, the sequence looks like something straight out of a single player set piece. While obviously not as busy or large scale, these moments remain exciting, and remind you that this is still a God Of War title.
And that Polyphemus dude just can't seem to catch a break, can he? Poor guy is going to have to relive his own death over and over again online, regardless of what mode is being played. For my first preview, I was shown a mode called “Execution” where the entire purpose of the match was to capture every control point on the map to call down the Spear of Olympus and use it to slay Polyphemus, winning the day for your team. This time I saw a different mode called “Favor of the Gods”, but poor old Poly' still ain't safe. In this mode, teams compete to reach a point total first. Points are earned by capturing control points, finding and opening treasure chests, defeating opponents in combat, and of course, killing everyone's favorite new one eyed whipping boy. I really dug this new mode since it presents so many different ways to contribute to your team's victory. It's a nice melding of objective based play and team deathmatch style bloodbaths.
After spending some hands on time with it, I felt a lot better about Santa Monica's decision to include multi. Multiplayer modes being added to predominantly single player franchises have become a touchy subject amongst hardcore fans. Often, it's perceived as a marketing ploy by the publisher or developer – a way to sell an online pass or keep people who don't value single player experiences from renting a game or buying it used. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case here. Sony Santa Monica has always delivered high quality experiences, and God of War: Ascension's multiplayer looks like it will continue that trend.
For starters, they stuck with the same basic setup the franchise has used from the beginning. Square and triangle buttons give you light and heavy attacks respectively, “x” jumps, and R1 grapples. Blocking and evading are mapped the same way as the previous games as well. The primary difference is the way these basic techniques work in relation to one another. Light attacks are quick and can be chained easily, but do nothing if the opponent is guarding. Heavy attacks on the other hand are predictably slow but entirely unblockable, forcing a defending opponent to time a dodge if they want to avoid damage.
This would appear to make defense really strong initially. After all, GoW players are quite used to holding block and simply reacting to unblockable boss attacks with a quick dodge. This is where grappling comes in to play. Whenever a player dodges, blocks, or jumps, any player in the vicinity can press R1 to rope them in and hit them with a big damage throw attack. So standing there blocking, or continually spamming dodge will get you in to a lot of trouble. The counter point is that grappling only works against blocking, dodging, or jumping opponents. Attempting to use a grapple on an opponent doing anything else, even just standing around, gets automatically countered and leaves you wide open to eat a full combo or one of several weapon specific special attacks. It boils down to a typical rock-paper-scissors flow, but it really works well within the context of God of War's fast paced battles. Properly dodging and countering heavy attacks, or baiting people into dodging only to tag them with a brutal grapple attack gets addictive quickly.
Those same grapple attacks are responsible for injecting some cinematic flair too. Killing an opponent this way brings the camera all the way in to witness one of GoW's trademark execution animations. The camera zooms in at other key points in battle as well, highlighting critical exchanges and giving the player a better view of the abundant eye candy. Even in multiplayer, Santa Monica shows a mastery of the hardware few studios can match. Despite still being early in development, Ascension already looks gorgeous, whether zoomed in tight on two warriors clashing, or zoomed farther out where you can see most of the sand blasted battlefield. When one team slays the giant cyclops in the background, Polyphemus, the sequence looks like something straight out of a single player set piece. While obviously not as busy or large scale, these moments remain exciting, and remind you that this is still a God Of War title.
And that Polyphemus dude just can't seem to catch a break, can he? Poor guy is going to have to relive his own death over and over again online, regardless of what mode is being played. For my first preview, I was shown a mode called “Execution” where the entire purpose of the match was to capture every control point on the map to call down the Spear of Olympus and use it to slay Polyphemus, winning the day for your team. This time I saw a different mode called “Favor of the Gods”, but poor old Poly' still ain't safe. In this mode, teams compete to reach a point total first. Points are earned by capturing control points, finding and opening treasure chests, defeating opponents in combat, and of course, killing everyone's favorite new one eyed whipping boy. I really dug this new mode since it presents so many different ways to contribute to your team's victory. It's a nice melding of objective based play and team deathmatch style bloodbaths.
After spending some hands on time with it, I felt a lot better about Santa Monica's decision to include multi. Multiplayer modes being added to predominantly single player franchises have become a touchy subject amongst hardcore fans. Often, it's perceived as a marketing ploy by the publisher or developer – a way to sell an online pass or keep people who don't value single player experiences from renting a game or buying it used. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to be the case here. Sony Santa Monica has always delivered high quality experiences, and God of War: Ascension's multiplayer looks like it will continue that trend.
