God of War: Ascension live-action trailer attempts to portray Kratos as a human being

An extended version of Sony's Super Bowl commercial for God of War: Ascension is now live for nerds around the world to view, so they don't have to watch sports to get their video game fix on Sunday. The commercial is live-action, featuring Kratos' wife and daughter prominently, along with plenty of symbolic ashes and rage as well. Watch the two minute trailer below now, as we're going to break it down.

First and foremost, it takes a lot of guts to try and portray Kratos in live-action. while Sony has done this before in other commercials, this is Kratos' first commercial all to himself. As a result, we see much more of the actor's portrayal of Kratos. Even the visual representation of Kratos is an unnatural thing, as Kratos is a 6-7 foot tall embodiment of war and rage. Covering him in tattoos and ashes just makes the whole scene odder. Then, this actor is now meant to portray Kratos as an empathetic character, like the protagonist of the movie Gladiator, a role we've never really scene Kratos fill. Overall, the video comes across quite awkwardly.

Still, it's rather interesting (and terrifying) to see Kratos smiling and in full battle armor, if only for a brief moment. His daughter is completely adorable, so it's definitely poignant to see her turn to ash in her father's hands. At the same time, my first thought was that Kratos had picked her up and melted her with his rage, and her smile was potentially a silent scream. This is God of War we're talking about, everyone. He killed Gods, and people -- all brutally. This whole prequel thing is a really weird idea.

God of War: Ascension will be released on March 12 exclusively for the PlayStation 3. Tune into the Super Bowl this Sunday for a one-minute version of this live-action trailer. Of course, the trailer also mentions the sexy limited edition red PS3 bundle that will be offerred with Ascension, too.