A common refrain from many (including us!) about God of War III is: "It's God of War ... in HD." And, as our last preview attested, that's not such a bad thing. In fact, while the demo was impressive in its own right, the game's director tells us they've added depth of field, motion blur, and high dynamic range lighting to the finished product. Too technical, right? We'll just use our fallback word: awesome.

For this hands-on, we went all the way up to the first boss and beat him ... err, after several tries. It's none other than a certain God of the Sea, and he's pretty moody on account of Kratos and a bunch of Titans trying to scale Mount Olympus. In fact, there's a gathering of the Gods up there and they're all pretty miffed: Zeus, Helios, Hermes, Poseidon, Hades, and a mysterious someone else. Based on this preview, they're going to do everything they can to try and make sure Kratos doesn't play king of the hill on their precious mountain.

Read on for our experience with the opening of God of War III up to, and including, the first boss battle. If you're hoping to go into this game spoiler-free next month, you might want to stop here; otherwise, press on!