God of War III: Graphics, From the Demo to Retail

Last year, people said that the demo of God of War III from E3 looked pretty damn good, but not mindblowing. Well, as it turns out Santa Monica wasn't just using the time between then and release to polish up gameplay.

When the E3 demo of God of War III came out, the reaction seemed to be "Yeah, it's cool, but it's not as mindblowingly good-looking as I'd have liked it to be." It seems that Sony Santa Monica used the time between the demo and next week's release to good effect: As a piece on Eurogamer's Digital Foundry shows, the final review build of God of War III looks much, much better than even the demo.

Well, it looks better in motion, anyway - one of the effects Santa Monica added was a movie-esque motion blur that looks really awesome in action, but makes capturing still frames a bit less clear-cut. Even so, the screenshots where you can actually clearly see what's going on look markedly better than the rest: textures, lighting, et al have all been improved.

Nor has this improvement come with a performance hit: A side-by-side video reveals that the launch code of God of War III actually runs better than its demo brother. So, suffice it to say that GoW3 is pretty technically robust.

Hit Eurogamer to see the rest. It's out next week, and we can't wait.