The original God of War is fantastic for a lot of reasons, the most notable being its high level of violence and its gameplay, which is very much a mixture of old meets new. David Jaffe and his very talented team of developers managed to create this awesomely fantastical world populated by swarms of imaginative creatures and a bad ass with a penchant for destruction, which is why we're eagerly anticipating God of War II. The game isn't coming out until next February, but after walking through a rather lengthy demo we're salivating at the chance to wrap our blood-stained hands around a PS2 controller.

God of War II picks up immediately after the conclusion of its prequel. Kratos has been declared the God of War, but numerous enemies are conspiring to toss him from his throne. After much foul play these evil forces succeed, and to get revenge, Kratos hops atop a Pegasus and heads off to this island to visit the mysterious Sisters of Fate, though at this point, we're not exactly sure how they tie into the story and even more importantly, what they can do for him.

Rather than creating some sweet CG footage for this flying sequence, the developers elected to make the scene interactive, and the end result is spectacular. While in the air, a small group of demons riding griffons surround Kratos and attempt to kick his ass, but we were actually able to bust out his twin blades and cut our foes to bits, sending them plummeting to their deaths. Furthermore, after pressing Circle we hopped atop one of the griffons and cut off its wings in a truly over the top and intensely violent sequence. Thankfully, the carnage didn't stop there.

Upon arriving at the island Kratos encounters Medusa's Temple, and as we predicted, we couldn't just walk through the front door. Said door actually has on it a large stone carving of Medusa's face, and whenever Kratos approached it the face's eyes glowed green and emitted beams that turned things to stone. To make matters worse, while exploring the area these menacing skeletons popped up that, when smashed to bits put themselves back together again. They're really cool and we thoroughly enjoyed beating the hell out of them, but they're still quite bothersome.

Since we couldn't enter through that door (at least not yet) we continued on our way and were impressed with the game's high level of destruction. We happened upon a group of enemies standing atop a ledge supported by a few pillars, and instead of attempting to hit them from afar we just walked up to one of the pillars, yanked it out and watched as the entire structure crumbled to the ground. Furthermore, Kratos has a bigger move set this time around and the game's developers have given him a plethora of deadly maneuvers. We stole weapons from enemies, beat the holy hell out of them, and at the very last second brought axes down upon their spines. Wicked indeed!

Kratos' homicidal rampage continued when he encountered a giant Cyclops. Dodging its attacks was stressful enough, but while we battled the beast a much smaller creature climbed atop the Cyclops' back which further pissed off our adversary. Luckily, it's possible to knock the little guy off. Doing so doesn't stop the Cyclops from attacking but it does make it less aggressive, though we had to be careful, because as soon as we knocked off one monster another took its place.

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