The days of free game demos may be heading into a rapid decline. If you’re looking to get your hands on the one for God of War III, you’re going to have to lay out some cash. Fortunately for you, we put our staff on it, and they’ve returned with some good intel on how to get your hands on it without breaking your piggy bank.

First, when you click the pre-order links from the God of War III page, it takes you to the Ultimate Edition, which you can pre order for a mere $99.99, and they promise not to charge your card until the game actually ships sometime in March or April. They will then mail you a code for the demo. The date the game ships and the length of time that it takes your code to arrive all depend on which retailer you choose to order it from. Second, bypass all of that. Go to your local GameStop in person.

Normally I wouldn’t recommend a particular retailer or method of delivery, but in this case it’s your best bet. Amazon will allow you to pre order your copy online for a mere $56.95 (roughly $3 less than the retail for the regular version), but it will take approximately 10 days for your code to arrive by mail. GameStop online and for in store pick up charges the regular retail (again with assurances that they won’t charge your card until shipping), but codes will arrive by mail in 2-3 days. Now you could pre-order, get the code, and then try and cancel the card transaction if you decide that you don’t like it, but who needs that kind of wait and hassle? The best option we found was to stop by GameStop, lay down $5 cash for the pre order and walk your demo code out the door. That way, on the off-chance it sucks, you’ve only paid the price of a latte for the demo.