God of War Rising Again

Development is just about done on what could be the last truly huge game on the PlayStation 2.

The brouhaha surrounding the imminent arrival of the PlayStation 3 is enough to make people forget about its humble predecessor, but people like Cory Barlog are making sure the PlayStation 2 doesn't go down without a fight.

Barlog, a lead designer at Sony's studio in Santa Monica, is putting the final touches on what could be one of the last huge games on the system: God of War II.

Barlog wrote on his blog this past weekend that he had wrapped up his work on the game. "There are still bugs to be worked out as the game goes through the final bit of Quality Assurance (QA), but for all intents and purposes I am done with everything I can do on the project," he wrote.

Writing about the weapon-switching system used in God of War II, Barlog said that he's learned from what games such as Devil May Cry have done recently.

"When I play a game and they do something cool I look at how they did it and file that away to use later," Barlog wrote. "That isn't to say that everything about the games we make is just found or borrowed from some other game, but when something really works well there is no reason not to use it. Some call it stealing; I call it realizing when something works."

Europeans won't see the game until April but Sony is putting together a demo, which is due in North America in February. The company has not yet confirmed whether the demo will be available outside of the US.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo