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Expected to announce release date at this summer’s E3 Expo in Los Angeles

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – The gods must be crazy. Why else would they continue tormenting Kratos, a bald warrior who is as brutal as he is well-armed?

Sony has unveiled the third and final chapter in its blockbuster “God of War” game franchise, a PlayStation 3 exclusive that finds its anti-hero battling chimera and cyclops on top of massive Titans.

Kratos enlists the Titans in his quest for revenge against the gods, particularly his father Zeus, who masterminded the family tragedy that drives his rage.

He’s got a new set of switch-on-the-fly weapons, game director Stig Asmussen said at a preview this week. They include the Sestus, a set of lion-headed gauntlets that allow for more powerful brawling than the traditional chain blades. Asmussen said Kratos also gains the ability to ride and control certain enemies, and to mount new attack combinations in larger-scale battles.

Sony expects to announce the game’s release date at this summer’s E3 video game expo in Los Angeles.

Designers are still deep in the development process, but showcased gameplay that demonstrated the sense of scale they’re aiming for. Kratos interacted with Titans the size of the Sears Tower, and Asmussen promised that players would be controlling the character as he climbed the bodies of the massive creatures.

“It truly is a moving level. These guys are about the size of mountains,” Asmussen said. “We’re kind of moving mountains right now.”

Violent gameplay — a hallmark of the series — is even gorier this time around. In the demo, Kratos killed a chimera by ripping off its horn and using that to stab the creature in the eye. He tore the guts out of a centaur, a visual created using, as Asmussen described, “what we call zipper tech.”

Finally, Kratos ripped the head off Greek god of the sun Helios and held it up. It became a flashlight of sorts, needed as the character enters a pitch-black cave.

Yes, “God of War III” will earn its ‘Mature’ rating, but Asmussen notes that he doesn’t want the violence to veer into comedy, as Sega appears to be attempting in its upcoming black-and-white, blood-soaked Wii game “MadWorld.”

“Kratos isn’t going to take out a lawnmower and start carving guys up,” Asmussen said. “He’s all about doing things quick and it’s to the point. He’s ripping the guy’s head off, but you know what? He needs it!”

Guru games aim to improve our math skills, culinary competence and more

By Winda Benedetti

I don’t want to sound paranoid or anything, but I’m starting to suspect that Nintendo has secretly hidden some sort of spy camera in my home.

I say this because there are two things in life that I’m especially awful at: math and cooking. And rather suspiciously, Nintendo recently launched two games that seem aimed specifically at me: “Personal Trainer: Math” and “Personal Trainer: Cooking.”

I’m telling you, it’s like they know.

They know that I use my fingers and sometimes my toes when faced with solving particularly taxing math problems (problems like: what is 15 plus 7?)

They know that when I say that I’m going to go “cook dinner,” what I really mean is that I’m going to go nuke some macaroni and cheese in the microwave.

I suppose I must not be the only person with these kinds of deficiencies in my cognitive powers and basic survival skills, because in recent months video game publishers have taken to offering humankind all kinds of ways to improve our deeply-flawed lives … primarily by offering us throngs of personal trainers, life coaches and gurus dedicated to fixing our many flaws.

Ubisoft wants to help us shed a few pounds with “My Weight Loss Coach.” It wants to help us improve our vocabulary with “My Word Coach.” And it wants to help us kick that cancerous habit with “My Stop Smoking Coach.” Meanwhile, its “Dog Whisperer Game” promises to help us tame our problematic pooches … no kicking involved.

Nintendo, with its “Wii Fit” and “Brain Age” games knows a thing or two about self improvement and has, most recently, launched “Personal Trainer: Cooking” and “Personal Trainer: Math” (both for the Nintendo DS). And — I’m not making this up — they plan to launch “Personal Trainer: Walking” in the near future. Yes … walking.

It seems that video game publishers have discovered that human beings are imperfect creatures. More importantly, they know that we know that we’re imperfect and are desperate to fix the situation. So while I am fairly confident in my ability to put one foot in front of the other, I succumbed to my deep-seated arithmetic and culinary insecurities and decided to find out if Nintendo’s personal math and cooking trainers really could fix my most glaring personal flaws.

Math is fun again!

Or at least that’s what “Personal Trainer: Math” promises. I actually shuddered when this game arrived on my doorstep. For as long as I can remember, math has been the bane of my existence. When I was in school, math homework reduced me to tears on a nightly basis. Even as an adult, I get flustered when suddenly confronted with a numbers problem — calculating change at a store, or dividing the restaurant bill among friends. What did this aversion to numbers get me? A career as a journalist. Sigh.

But after I got over my initial revulsion to “Personal Trainer: Math,” I thought that perhaps Nintendo really might have found “a fun and rewarding way to improve your math abilities.” After all, I have enjoyed their “Brain Age” games — games that have turned tackling brain-challenging puzzles and problems into seriously addictive fun.

Like “Brain Age,” “Personal Trainer: Math” presents players with a daily trio of challenges designed to put basic math skills to the test. Here you’re presented with a variety of simple addition, subtraction and multiplication problems. You may be given flash cards with objects that you have to count. You may have to complete a sentence such as: (blank) is 7 plus 5. All of this you have to do as quickly as you can as the game rates your speed and accuracy, increasing the difficulty and tracking your improvement over time.

When you’re not being tested, you can try your hand at the “100-Cell” math method, a technique that has you add, subtract, or multiply numbers in a 10-by-10 grid.

But here’s what I want to know: Where’s the part where they make math, you know, “fun”? Day after day, this game had me doing nothing but tedious arithmetic problems over and over. Yes, I did get a bit faster at coming up with the correct answers. But the problem is, I don’t want to keep playing. With “Brain Age,” the activities were diverse and interesting enough to keep me coming back. But with “Personal Trainer: Math,” the prospect of running through a new set of multiplication tables day in and day out just isn’t compelling.

Perhaps they need to sell a peripheral that goes with “Personal Trainer: Math.” It’s called a “M.O.M.” — a device that makes you do your math homework every night under threat of being sent to your room without dinner.

Speaking of dinner…

The last time I tried to make dinner for my husband, I concocted a tofu dish that looked like something you’d find on the sidewalk outside a bar after a particularly drunken Friday night. He choked it down and tried to act appreciative. But later, he admitted that it tasted as good as it looked.

So you should have seen the look on his face when I told him I was going to cook dinner for him again … this time under the guidance of a video game. Panic. Horror. I believe he briefly considered divorce.

But “Personal Trainer: Cooking” is no “Cooking Mama.” That is, it’s not a game. Instead, it’s an interactive cook book that streamlines and simplifies the process of selecting and cooking a dish. And much to my surprise — and my husband’s — it works.

“Cooking” comes with 245 recipes from around the world. It also includes numerous tips on how to do things like julienne carrots (I had no idea what “julienning” was) and videos demonstrating things like preparing squid (yeeeuck). But most importantly, it gently holds your hand through the process of selecting a recipe, purchasing the ingredients and cooking them up.

Using the game’s fantastic recipe selection process, I was able to find a main dish to cook by asking it to give me “easy” recipes that took less than 30 minutes to cook and used meat as a main ingredient. Based on my requirements, it narrowed the recipes down to five, from which I chose the sautéed lamb chop recipe (based solely on the fact that it sounded the simplest to prepare). The game then compiled a shopping list for me.

With ingredients at the ready, “Personal Trainer: Cooking” then walked me through the cooking process, giving me easy-to-follow verbal and written instructions. Since it has a voice command function, I was able to tell it to repeat instructions as I needed without putting my greasy hands on my DS.

My husband took one bite of my chops and actually said, “Wow, I would eat this again.” And I’m almost positive he wasn’t just saying that to be nice.

I can’t say that “Personal Trainer: Cooking” has inspired me to take up a ladle and become a regular in our kitchen. But I can say that it’s proven to me (and my husband) that I can cook a meal that doesn’t look and taste like barf. And that’s saying something.

Sure, games offer more bang for the buck — but 60 bucks is a lot these days

For 60 bucks, you get 400 TV channels for a whole month. You can buy three cases of Budweiser. Or, you can buy one video game.

Yes, yes. I know you’ll get 20 hours of quality gaming entertainment for your “Killzone 2” purchase versus 200 hours of “Iron Chef.” But times are tough, and consumers are spooked. 60 bucks is 60 bucks. Why should game publishers expect to get top dollar when General Motors can’t move SUVs? Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets, says it’s clear that pricing pressure is happening on second tier and older games now, and the pace of price cuts seem to be rising.

“EA, for one, had to increase its return reserve in order to account for price discounting at retail, and other top publishers, including Acitivion and Ubisoft, lowered prices over the holidays,” he says.

And that’s a big problem for developers, who are spending upward of $20 million — and often more — to make the most graphic-intensive, most immersive and longest-playing games that they can, says Greenwald, who covers the Internet and digital media for Signal Hill.

“These budgets are sustainable when they’re attached to good projects and the games are a hit,” he says. “It’s become more of a hit-driven industry, because there’s more risk involved.”

“One of the big concerns in the game industry is that the $59.99 price (for top titles) will go away,” he says. “It won’t go away. I think it’s here to stay for 2009.”

That’s great news for Capcom, which hopes to make a mint on “Resident Evil 5,” or Sony, which is betting the farm on “Final Fantasy XIII.”

But not every triple-A title kicks butt at the cash register. And the margin of error just might be getting slimmer.

Bottom line: Because people are still buying games. The most recent report from the NPD Group shows that despite the recession and the cratering retail environment, game hardware, software and accessories were up 19 percent in 2008. Even if their wallets are light, says analyst Todd Greenwald, this data shows that gamers will pay retail for their favorite titles.

In a survey conducted by Frank Magid Associates last spring, just 17 percent of gamers said they’d be willing to pay $59.99 for a next-generation game. (Those are games for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii consoles.) “What that data shows you, is that it better be a damned good game for $60,” says Mike Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors.

A much larger number, 30 percent, said that they would buy more used next-generation games versus new ones. And 43 percent said that they would wait for price drops on their favorite games before buying. Remember: This survey was conducted last March. Imagine the response if the polling were done today.

In most cases, says Greenwald, these companies’ financial forecasts are pinned to next-gen games selling at a $59.99 price point. If they don’t, the business model doesn’t work — and that’s when you see poor quarterly earnings, layoffs and studio closures.

Game companies in general, he says, aren’t the most efficient organizations in the world. “They’re not cranking out cars on an assembly line, they’re trying to make unique and innovative games across several platforms,” he says.

And that’s been another crucial problem for publishers in this console cycle: The leading platform, far and away, is the Nintendo Wii. And as I wrote in my column last week, publishers have figured out — and how — that making a game for the Wii is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.

In the old days, game-makers could crank out one game and port it to multiple platforms without too much trouble or expense. Not so with the Nintendo Wii, which has such a different control scheme — not to mention a different audience. Publishers — like EA, Ubisoft and THQ — that went the cookie-cutter route learned a tough lesson.

“Price is a challenge,” says Greenwald. “But the rise of Nintendo and the dominance of Nintendo is a bigger challenge.”