God of War III is undoubtedly one of the PlayStation 3's biggest and most anticipated titles. Gamers have been waiting for a couple years now to see how Kratos' story ends, and fortunately we won't have to wait too much longer as it'll be out in March 2010. Yes, we have to wait until next year, but it's only nine months away.

Anywho, the build that was on display (and fully playable) actually seems to be identical to what we saw of God of War III back in February. You should read that article for the full details on the content, but as a quick recap it involves fighting a chimera (and ripping off one of its horns and stabbing it in the head), jumping on a Cyclops and "steering" it and getting it to kill other baddies, and finally teasing a face-off with a Titan.

While the content was the same, just being able to get my hands on the game and taking it through its paces was awesome. I'm a big fan of the franchise (I gave the second game a 9.7 after all) so for me the team has a big task ahead of them.

Fortunately it seems like they've got everything nailed down right. Kratos feels identical to how he did before in terms of moves, but it actually felt like he had a little more weight to him. This is quite possibly simply because of the massive graphical upgrade, but I thought he felt a little more solid and "realistic", if that's an applicable description.

One thing that I thought was pretty cool is that the bigger enemies seem to have a little more variety to them than they did in the first two games. The chimera, for instance, changes its attacks based on what you've done to it. So at the start of the fight, he'll try to get you with his tail. Once you take that off, he'll stand up and try to smack you, and once you pummel him some more, he'll get down on all fours and try to charge at you from a distance.

The game has undergone a massive lighting rewrite since the last time we saw it, resulting in smoother and more natural lighting. Technical speak aside, Kratos looks even more detailed than before and the whole thing is starting to look stunning at this point.

Jeff had mentioned this is in preview from February, but one thing that has changed is that the quick-time event button prompts no longer appear in the center of the screen. Instead, they show up on the corresponding side of the screen (so Circle is on the right of the screen, X is at the bottom, etc.). This was slightly confusing at first, but once I realized what was going on then I thought it actually worked much better than before. You can pay greater attention to what's going on as you no longer need to "read" the buttons, but instead just pay attention to their placement. It's a relatively small change in the grand scheme of things, but it's a good one.

I really dig what I played. I suppose that's not too surprising that I'm a big fan of the franchise, but the fact that the game holds up to my expectations so far is very good. God of War III is due out in March of 2010, so we'll definitely have more on it soon.