"Our combat guys told me about the Kim Possible game. They just said that it's a really good game. And they were right! It's a very well designed game. And the other thing is that we were also saying that the Barbie GBA game was a really good game--Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission. Eric, the other guy, was saying it was awesome. He was like, 'Seriously, I know you're laughing at me, but it's a pretty good game. They've got some cool ideas in there.'"

So spoke God of War II director Cory Barlog, as we sat in the after hours food court of San Francisco's Metreon last night. Barlog and his team had recently finished up the anticipated sequel at SCE Studios Santa Monica, and the game was set to launch in a few hours. Addressing a crowd of journalists and developers, Barlog had just let slip that rumble will come to PS3, and had essentially confirmed that the inevitable God of War III on PS3 would feature 1080p graphics and the newly added rumble functionality. Naturally, the designer wanted to talk about about Secret Agent Barbie.

"Then it turns out one of the girls who was a designer on God of War I--Ashley, she also did level design on God of War II--actually worked on that Barbie game, she actually designed some of the stuff that they were bringing up and saying is really cool. She designed the little litstick rappel thing, and the compact secret gadgets and stuff, it was wild. So it was kind of funny that it's this very small world."

Throughout the evening, Barlog was constantly talking about his team. A few hours earlier, following a brief God of War II documentary screening, the director called up some dozen team members to the stage and introduced each by name and role on the project. He had a personal anecdote to tell about each one. Many had worked alongside Barlog at Backyard Wrestling franchise developer Paradox Development--later Midway Studios Los Angeles--and it was clear Barlog did not consider that period the highlight of his career.

"You know what, is that everybody working on this game pretty much all worked on games that weren't that successful. Prior to God of War, we'd all been making fairly subpar games. We just all clicked and came together. It's very wild. I love those guys. Clearly it's one of the best teams I've ever worked with, because I got a lot of the guys I used to work with and said, 'You need to come over here and do this.' We created this super-team. I hope we continue to make many, many games."

I asked Barlog if there were specific factors that converged as the team was being assembled. Something must have come together, as--despite the rather inauspicious beginnings he described--the team in question was responsible for one of the most well received games of the last several years, with a promising sequel just being released. The scenario he described in reply was almost one of trial by fire.

"I think it was the passion," he answered. "Each one of these guys was frustrated with the jobs they were at, making games that weren't so good--but they loved what they did. They would stay until 3 A.M. to make something really good, when somebody had already said it's good enough. They said it's not. That's been the mantra of everybody on this team. I'll even say something is done, it's good, and I'll see the guy stay until 3 or 4 in the morning because he wasn't happy with that one aspect. That kind of attention to detail, that kind of pride in your work is not seen in a lot of places."

Original God of War director David Jaffe, who has become a famously outspoken game industry figure since the release of the game in 2005, stepped away from the role for the game's sequel in order to develop other ideas. Since then, he has ended up fostering Calling All Cars!, an upcoming downloadable game for PlayStation 3. In Jaffe's absence, lead animator Barlog became director. He had never worked in a directorial capacity on any game, much less one so highly anticipated as God of War II.

"It was unbelievable," he said about the transition. "The producer, who's now the director of the studio--she oversees everything--came to me in the beginning of December 2004, right before God of War I was going to come out, and she said, 'Hey, Dave's thinking he's probably not going to want to continue on doing this. He wants to move on and do some other stuff, and we've been kicking around some names of people who could potentially step in and direct the game, and your name keeps coming up.' I kind of laughed, and looked around to see if there were any cameras, 'cause I thought it was part of the documentary and they were making fun of me or something like that."

It soon became clear that the offer was serious.

"So that's when I started playing it really cool. I was like, 'Let me get back to you. Give me 24 hours. I'll stew on that. I like the proposition.' Then inside I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, this is awesome.'"

After a week of stalling fuelled by indecision, Barlog accepted.

"I thought to myself, 'Can I do this?' Then finally I thought, 'Yeah, I can!' I didn't know what I was getting myself into--at all," he said. "If I had known what I had gotten myself into, I probably would have questioned it even harder, and not have ended up doing it--but I'm so glad I was an idiot, and didn't know what I was getting into because it has been amazing."

Still, there must have been some reason an animator with no prior design credits would have been chosen to head up such an incredibly important project. I asked Barlog whether he had worked closely with Jaffe on the first game in any capacity beyond his job description, and he painted a picture of a game that seemed surprisingly unfocused early on.

"When I came in, he was looking for somebody to take over the animation so he wouldn't have to worry about it. The animation wasn't there; the combat wasn't there," Barlog explained. "The game--when you hit the button, random things would happen. That was the idea, that [Kratos] was so full of rage that when you hit the Square button, random moves would happen. You couldn't do combos, it was just random. They didn't have a combo counter, they didn't have anything."

Barlog was offered the lead animator job, but he didn't jump in full steam. In reality, he had signed onto the project expecting a relative vacation, and was reluctant to accept too much responsibility. Though he thought the game might turn out relatively well, he didn't see huge amounts of potential in what he had been shown.

"But then, once I got really into it and started animating Kratos, I said, 'No, this game could be amazing. This game could be great.' Then I just threw myself into it like crazy," he described. Barlog started becoming involved in every aspect of development, offering opinions and engrossing himself in the work of his colleagues.

"Maybe some people got frustrated with that, but overall it was for the contribution of making the game great," he admitted. "Day one, I was thinking, 'Whatever, I'm on vacation.' Then I stayed all night and animated, and on day two I became this huge proponent of the game."

Barlog began to converse on a regular basis with Jaffe, bouncing ideas back and forth and perhaps unintentionally positing himself as a key member of the design team. "I started talking philosophy with Dave early on," he said, "and I think he dug that. I think he was into my ideas and thought, 'This guy has a good head for this.' When the time came for the transition, he was 100% behind me."

When I observed that even from Barlog's own recollection of the events, his ascension to director would have seemed like a given, he remained modest. "Yeah, I guess," he replied. "But still, I asked, 'Are you kidding?'"

Turn the page for Cory Barlog's thoughts on the PS2 hardware, David Jaffe, and developing for Sony.