 There are times when one's imagination doesn't do justice to reality, and the opening of God of War 3 was one of those times. The end of God of War 2 promised an epic clash between Kratos the Titans and the Olympian Gods, and the sequel immediately over-delivered, riding on the back of Gaia, ascending to meet Zeus atop the famed Mount Olympus, the tale commences. And so the game just thrusts you right into it, walking atop a behemoth fighting enemies, getting acquainted with the controls, when suddenly, Poseidon jumps from atop the mountain, taking a Titan with him into the water below, spawning appendages that start pulling at Gaia. The camera is fixed, as old God of Wars were, to frame the scale of this conflict in full, other Titans climbing in the background, when suddenly, a horse-like water creature with scorpion legs breaks through her body, and the first boss fight begins in earnest. As you attack it a few times, the camera pans back to reveal that you are on Gaia's arm, a puny speck amidst this apocalyptic battle. The camera returns control to you, dangling on for dear life as you fend off this hybrid creature from the bowels of the Lord of the Seas. Kratos overcomes this of course, with the aid of trusty quick-time events, and lands on Mount Olympus proper. As you make your way up, Gaia is still entangled with Poseidon's minions, so you rush to her aid once more. However, this time, it's Poseidon himself who appears, one of the three main Gods of Olympus, and the battle commences. The fight is relatively straightforward from a mechanical perspective, it is still the beginning of the game, but the sheer visual splendor here is astonishing. You have to dodge claws, aerial attacks, and electrified ground, but the hardest part of this is simply not staring at awe at what the PlayStation 3 is rendering. Gaia, although reeling, lends you her assistance, and you find a way to snatch Poseidon's body from within the watery chaos. The next part, quite graphic, is Kratos' maims Poseidon and the second person. After this, of course, you reach Zeus, who kicks you off the top of the mountain, and Gaia betrays you as you cling on, saying you were only a tool for the Titan's retribution. Thus concludes the opening 30 minutes of God of War 3. Part of what makes this opening so enduring isn't just the scale or the cinematography or pacing, but the sheer spectacle of it all. The God of War games are known to start off with a bang, but this was on another level entirely. Incidentally, the rest of the game never quite reaches the heights of this opening, perhaps with the exception of the Kronos fight. Regardless, few games even today I would argue can match God of War 3 in terms of pure epic spectacle. The word epic is somewhat superficial nowadays, more associated with memeing and internet slang, but there was a time epic referred to foundational stories in the midst of cultures. The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the first stories in Mesopotamian culture. The epic is viewed as a core text in the evolution of storytelling, myth and heroic sagos. The epic used to be about universal stories of heroism that invoked the creation of cultures and civilizations itself, and now we associated more with pure spectacle. Beowulf, the inade, Mahabharata, these transcend cultures. Now we have the epic fail. Somewhere between these two poles lies a game like God of War 3, invoking the clash of gods and titans and archetypical story structures, whilst also being about pushing the PS3 to its limits to sell hardware. Kratos is hardly a heroic figure though, at least he isn't yet in God of War 3. He is an angry rage-filled maniac hell-bent on destroying the gods for tricking him into killing his own family. He is trying to defy fate itself, tearing asunder institutions and the world in the process. Every god he kills leaves the world in a more perilous state. How are we to read this story from an epic perspective, a tragedy, surely? Maybe in God of War 3 and games of this ilk, we see a new meta-narrative about our relationship to gods, deities and foundational institutions, a kind of want and disregard for authority of any kind. Let's take another game in my newly coined tradition of epic spectacle, Bayonetta. In it you play as a witch who is supposedly the unholy spawn of the lumen sages and umbra witches, which is of course historically persecuted in movements of mass hysteria, but here the marginal is rendered as heroic. Who are the antagonists? Why it is the church of course, angels and servants of God, an inversion of moral categories. Bayonetta has to topple a repressive dogmatic religious order, with the flamboyance and flair of witchcraft and demonic power. Spectacle also defines the opening of this game, as you take control of our witch atop a falling piece of debris descending from the heavens, being attacked by the legions of heaven. The game sees fit to inform you about the lore at this point, not that it's easy to pay attention to. The set pieces only escalate in sheer absurdity as the game progresses, fights against literal cardinal virtues. Like this one, jumping from pieces of geometry as a weird tentacle atrocity flings debris at you in the midst of a tornado it is creating, followed by a set piece that takes place on a highway, where you jump from vehicle to vehicle, and then take control of a motorcycle yourself, a clear homage to games of the past. Who can forget this boss against a creature reminiscent of a metal gear, as you surf across the water attacking its weak points, and then get dragged into a vortex that you have to surf around to finally incapacitate this behemoth. Perhaps the most memorable parts of these bosses is how you dispatch of them, using giant demonic summons to torture them into oblivion, clearly invoking the imagery of some well-known sadistic practices, Bayonetta herself, expressive and flamboyant, and as extra as you would expect a person doing these things to be. The game however saves the best for last, as you not only take on creatures of unimaginable scale, but ride atop a motorcycle going upwards before transitioning into an animal form, gravity be damned to reach it. Then after your climactic fight with this symbol of religious disorder, you literally take control as you fly him into the sun, truly a spectacle. Maybe I'm using the word spectacle too loosely though, much like the word epic. I could talk about Guide the Board's book, The Society of the Spectacle, where a critique spectacle is a force that replaces authentic human life with its representation. The media, commodities, these distort our perception of ourselves and the world around us. We are mediated by images and not reality. How does this relate to games? Games are a representational mass media form, yes, but they have been co-opted by industry and technology. New consoles are sold on the promise of spectacle that only cutting edge technology can provide. Rendering technology in polygons and ray tracing, spectacle has been commoditized and is used to sell immersive experiences to the masses. How does one overturn this? Perhaps by a process called the Tourne-Mont, turning expressions of the existing system and its media culture against itself. Or recuperation, the process by which politically radical ideas and images are twisted, co-opted, diffused and incorporated into a socially conventional perspective. I suppose you see where I am going with this. Kratos and Bayonetta are not conventionally heroic. They are heroes of a society of epic spectacle, anti-authoritarianism directed at the status quo of their respective times, the Greek pantheon, religious hierarchy. The epic has been co-opted by these games to sell spectacle, but spectacle in turn has been co-opted to reinstitute a new kind of epic. Enter Asura's Wrath, a game that almost strips gameplay away entirely in favor of pure spectacle. This wasn't instrumental in selling to the masses, the game didn't sell very well. But what it was was ridiculous in the best possible way. We play the demigod Asura who seeks vengeance against the gods who have wronged him, which sounds very familiar. Instead of Greek or Christian ideas, we get Hindu and Buddhist mythologies instead. The gameplay switches between arena style combat, on-rail shooting segments and quick time events, an experience that is often described as an interactive anime. These games all seem to want to start with a bang. Here you guide Asura through space as you lock onto enemies in space to be alike, a cacophony of screams and explosions lighting up the screen. To say this game has set pieces renders the term useless, the game is a set piece. Genres blending, cutscenes frequently interrupting, but the spectacle never abating. If it wasn't clear, Asura is angry. Of course we move towards destroying Deity's reminiscent of sacred figures and mythological text, but it's what happens on screen that is more of note. On the surface of the moon, against giant elephants and a space armada, I have never had as much fun mashing buttons and doing quick time events as I did in this game. It is unapologetically spectacle driven, that there is an earnest story amidst the chaos about a grieving father might make it more likeable. One part sees Asura laying on the ground when he is powered up by a mantra reactor and repeatedly mashing a button. Then you fight falling from a platform in aerial gymnastics to then proceed to space. See talking about what happens in this game is almost incoherent in the best way, you simply have to experience it. What is more readable, ironically, are planet sized enemies that use their finger to squash Asura, only to have his rage ignite the behemoth from within. Like stated, Asura's wrath is more anime and manga than it is game to some perhaps. As an experience though, it is way more than the sum of its parts. An epic about loss and wrath, couched in the symbolism of ancient mythology, but ultimately an interface experiment in handing spectacle to the player. It is interesting that God of War and Bayonetta are sometimes referred to as spectacle fighters. Their gameplay is spectacular in a different way. God of War and how you can brutally dismember enemies and chain combos using the blades of chaos, and Bayonetta with its instant dodging and witch time slowdown effects. Asura's wrath has combat but it is much more muted in terms of player interactivity. The thing is this might distract from the spectacle. The most pronounced set pieces in these games minimise interactivity because it can mess with the pacing it seems, on top of facilitating bespoke mechanics for different scenarios. This is also true of Final Fantasy XVI and its epic icon battles. Its mythology is far more wide-ranging than the aforementioned games, drawing from Middle Eastern, Asian and European myth, Bahamut, Shiva, the Freight. It tells the story of Clive Rossfield, a man who is betrayed by his mother and witnesses his father and brothers die before his eyes. This starts as a quest for revenge, but turns into a journey to destroy the mother crystals. The icon battles bid two creatures of mythological proportions against each other. You play as Clive slash Euphryd, or sometimes as the phoenix. Once more we see battles of unimaginable scale come to life. The battle against Titan is a standout to many, but decidedly uncharacteristic rock score starts playing as you run at this Titan. Then you climb upon this monster and do battle with him as a sandstorm blusters around you. You make your way to a more stable platform and fight this boss in a more conventional fashion, but then you get launched into the sky and have to shoot at debris being thrust at you. Using his body against him isn't enough, and a final phase of you falling through the insides of this colossus takes place as triumphant orchestral music starts playing. Then there's Bahamut, which starts as a grounded fight in an illuminated arena, which then takes the skies in an on-rails shooter section, before literally taking you to space. The abilities of Euphryd and the phoenix combining, allowing you to choreograph your fight in the middle of nowhere. Again, the interactivity is somewhat minimal, dodge and attack, but that's almost missing the point. Spectacle isn't informing interactivity, as much as interactivity is in service of spectacle. What is the point of the spectacle, though? What are we actually doing here? Clive is taking down icons and mother crystals to change the complexion of his world, a world of corrupt politics and blight and slave-owning and discrimination. He has lived in suffering as a slave for years after the death of his family, only to find renewed purpose in challenging these icons of divinity. I'm not trying to argue that there is some hidden profundity to the spectacle in these games. They are just glorious to look at and play, but it is fascinating that there is a common motif across these. Anti-heroes driven by rage to topple a corrupt order of some kind, but invoking the symbolism of epic myth to represent that which must be torn apart. We side with the marginalized, the vengeful spirit and revel in the epic spectacle of games.