Wednesday, March 14, 2007

God of War 2 Metreon Event

Monday night at midnight Sony put on a launch for God of War 2 at the Metreon in San Francisco. Seeing as how I never make it up to Nor Cal I was trying to squeeze everyone and everything into that 24 hours I would be there. The biggest problem was that 1/2 the people I wanted to see were at SXSW in Texas for either Evo South or for SXSW itself. Screw those hippies because I still had a ton of fun.

Mark MacDonald from the 1up/ZiffDavis family was awesome enough to meet up with us and grab a drink. Here we are first meeting up and him actually showing us the God of War setup for the first time.



After meeting up with Mark we met back up with the rest of the team to join the rest of the festivities. There was a small break where we all met up in a theater where Cory got up and gave an awesome speech to everyone in the crowd. I've known Cory for a really long time now and moments like these are why everyone loves him. Big ups to the kids from the midwest!

The photos below are him talking. The first one you can see the back of the heads of TC Carson and Michael Cheng. Second one is him bringing everyone up from the team and introducing them one by one. Last one is with him and Mr. Aaron Echolls - Harry Hamlin!




After this quick moment we went outside for some more zany antics.





After me and John Choi finished taking crazy pictures on the chariot we met up with a whole bunch of awesome people from the 1up family - Karen, Cesar and Jason. They got a lot of great footage but hopefully none of me babbling haha.

As the event was winding down Cesar and Jason took us to another bar called Kate O'Briens that turned out to be pretty fun. Here you can see Nate Gary, Stig Asmussen and Joel Taubel hanging out.


What I thought in all honesty was going to be a pretty terrible event turned out to be a lot of fun. Thanks a lot to Mark, Karen, Cesar and Jason for showing us a great time!

8 comments:

Devin Greer said...

Just got the game about 3 hours ago, or so... I popped in the Disc 2, first. I watched all of the videos except for the ones put under the name "SPOILERS", I didn't even dare to look in there, yet. It took about an hour and a half to watch them all, so I figure that including the spoilers, it's at least 2 hours long, all I can say is "Holy shit, thank you." When they were talking about the organization of the people's desks in the studio, they showed the combat guys, so I got to see you for like a few seconds...

Just started playing the actual game itself, in God Mode, got to the part where you throw the Colossus' arm into the wheel and started cutting the shit out of it's face. I'll say more later. Man, I can't wait to get farther...

-Devin Greer

Devin Greer said...

Wish I could have been at that event... Man it sucks that I couldn't, perhaps for God Of War III? Eh...? I saw a video and loved see the ad on the back of the manual, the PSP game is confirmed. Fuck... Well, I'm happy with this for now, my PSP will be pumping out some combos with the Blades Of Athena, later this year...

Devin Greer said...

Just got to Theseus (Spelling?)... I keep on messing up on the mini-game you get before he climbs up... It's so... sudden... I mean, in my opinion, I give the first game a perfect 10, for the reason that it was so original and awesome, my score doesn't lower, either. And so far, God Of War II gets perfect 10, too. I mean, the ONLY thing that I could complain about is that on the cut-scenes that use the in-game graphics, sometimes it skips a bit but it's nothing too bad...

Maj said...

Dude you gotta let John Choi borrow that chariot for Evo. How dope would that entrance be?

Devin Greer said...

Damn... I beat it, with about 17 hours of game-play time. Of course, that's counting the time that I left it on (paused).... Which was quite a bit... So probably about 15 hours, nice and long, especially compared to the first game. I watched the Spoiler extras... You got some nice camera time in there, eh? You seem... a lot... nicer... than most of the other people on the team. I mean, I don't know what it's like to work with Cory or David, but apparently they can become assholes at times... It was so messed up when Kratos accidentally stabbed Athena. He was like, "Oh no..." Like sympathetic for someone for once... Of course he did that at the end of the first game to, with his family and stuff. Kratos had control of time... Fuck... That's going to be crazy... The final boss battle, with Zeus was more impressive than Ares, and did leave the impression which you suggested in one of the Spoiler videos. I loved the CS part near the end where your pin Zeus into that rock and stab him through the chest, truly awesome... And the epic-ness of the whole thing was just great. I have yet to play Titan Mode or to attempt the Challenge Of The Titans... As you can see, it is very late, but I knew I was getting near the end and couldn't help pushing out a few more hours.

On the launch event videos I noticed a number of different God Of War shirts up on racks, and was wondering if you knew (besides eBay),. where I could get them? Or were they just being sold/given at that event?

And to end my comment, I was wondering, Derek, do you play any PC games?

-Devin Greer

Unknown said...

I just finished the game and have to say that it was a fantastic conclusion. I played a tiny bit on Titan Mode and in bonus mode with Cod of War, but I think I'll have to move onto another game for now, as I have such a vast list to play (including my currently rented MGS 3: Subsistence, which everyone keeps telling me is fantastic, but I'm still having trouble getting drawn in).

What I found interesting about the ending (Spoilers ahead for those commenters/lurkers not in the know) is that Kratos had the chance to go back in time not only to save himself from Zeus (although he actually doesn't really "save" himself, his "present" titan-healed self is still the one that ends up fighting Zeus), but then the second time he is reminded that he has control over time, so he goes back in time again. The thing that started it all was that his memories of killing his family were tormenting him, he even had another vision of his wife late in the game, so why did he go back to the great war to recruit the titans instead of back to when he killed his wife so he could stop himself from doing so? I guess he was so wrapped up in vengeance that he must have forgotten why he was taking revenge in the first place.

All in all, though, an awesome game and a well-told tale. Well done (and next time there's a God of War 3 launch event or something like that, and I happen to be in SF again for it, I'll be sure to look out for you, as I know what you look like now from the extras). Thanks!

-Jeff
http://alinktothefuture.com

Derek Daniels said...

Devin: Glad to hear you beat it man! I think I heard that hot topic or something was going to sell shirts? I honestly don't remember. Someone also said if you buy it at Circuit City you get a shirt I think?

When I was your age I used to play a ton of computer games - commodore 64, apple IIe type of stuff. Games like Ultima 3 and 4, the sierra adventure games like police quest, space quest and what not. Here lately I haven't played any PC games though, even though things are getting better regarding drivers and all that other silly nonsense I would still rather just play something on a console where I know it's going to work.

Jeff: Glad to hear you finished it also! I finally got around to playing MSG3:S late also, prolly finished it like 6 or 8 months ago (whenever it came out). The beginning is really slow - the first 2 hours all you do is get your backpack. Stick with it and it gets better. Although I never really got good at sneaking around - i just shot sucka's and ran like a girl in that game.

Unknown said...

I think that's my biggest problem... I have trouble sneaking around without the aid of the the radar that you get in the other games. The few guys that I've managed to get close enough to kill seem to spot me anyways when I get too close to them. I've had a surprising amount of trouble with the controls as well, which I didn't experience in the previous games. I just made it to a section where I had to take out 8 guys which was surprisingly difficult for me to take out. Even just some kind of compass would help me, but as far as I know, I don't even get that.