Killing the Gods

It is tough to walk on stage following a masterful act, a display of talent so epic and awe-inspiring that anything before it will be deemed second-rate. Sometimes competitors are wise to simply slink away and other times it’s best for them to grin and bear it, hoping to merit just a portion of the attention given to the previous act. The folks at Game Republic will be doing the latter this year with their game version of the Clash of the Titans remake, hopefully silencing any skepticism given to them by the fans of God of War III, the ash-covered, blood-soaked elephant in the room. Both are sword-and-sandal epics, challenging you to slay mythological beasts from ancient Greece using godly weapons and your own brute strength. The difference is God of War has virtually cornered the market on that type of fast action and Clash of the Titans must somehow find a way to snag a piece of it. This, obviously, will not be easy, but the Tokyo developer is prepping themselves for the spotlight anyway.

Greek Fever

Given the attention heaped upon the Greek mythos as of late, combined with the coming release of the new movie, there should be enough to warrant the Clash of the Titans game a look. The 1981 original was practically a video game in movie form, satiating the appetite of action-adventure nerds everywhere. If anything, it is about time a game has been made for it, though this one just so happens to be centered around the remake. Even then, that should be a good thing considering how grandiose and ramped-up the 2010 version is for modern day audiences.

Playing as the movie’s main protagonist, Perseus, you will loosely follow the events of the movie while sidestepping into places and battles unique to the game. You’ll bash monstrous heads through numerous environments including arctic mountains, craggy wastelands, citadels spewing lava and other settings found in (and expanded from) the movie. Filling these areas will be all sorts of creatures bred straight from the pages of mythical Greece with the developers claiming over a hundred different types will make an appearance. Cyclopes, centaurs, sandworms, succubi, frog men, even Medusa and the Kraken themselves, will find a role in the game, a role that will somehow involve you ending their lives in a gruesome fashion.

You will execute all this slaying with a litany of weapons and skills (over 80) along with the ability to steal an enemy’s weapon and then siphon their soul once they are dead to power your attacks. A co-op feature will let a friend in on the bloodshed, bloodshed that will purportedly last upwards of fifteen hours in story mode. Independent of the narrative will be Quest mode, in which you will take on over a hundred missions when the story-telling has run dry. And after all this has been released, Game Republic has promised downloadable content after the game’s been rolled out.

An Age Old Dilemma

With its completion in sight, Clash of the Titans has more than a few things going against it, the vast majority of them simply being preconceived notions. Games based on movies have been less successful than a dead-baby joke at a baby shower, representing one giant hurdle the public will be lobbing at the game before its release. And though some will give it flack for looking too much like God of War (remember, the God of War series drew huge inspiration from the 1981 flick) the argument, weirdly enough, boils down to the chicken/egg-egg/chicken scenario.

Is Clash of the Titans riffing off of a recent classic or simply following in the steps its cinematic big brother laid down years ago when the project began in 2002 (roughly a year before God of War began its own development)? It should be comforting to some degree that Game Republic has treaded through the action-adventure genre before with the likes of Dark Mist, Genji: Dawn of the Samurai, and Folklore, so the hacking and slashing of evil minions is nothing new to them. Even the company’s president, Yoshiki Okamoto, has stated he’s been involved with Clash of the Titans since the movie was in its early stages, making the game seem more symbiotic with the movie than a mere cash-in. But even if Titans is revealed as a clone, does it really matter? A game based on not just a movie but a movie remake should never be heralded as a bringer of innovation, whittling the question down to that basic tenant of digital entertainment everywhere: gameplay. Perhaps the gods of gaming will grant this one a chance.