God of War: Chains of Olympus

God of War is now one of Sony’s AAA titles. The two games on the PS2 were stunning, beautiful and epic. And these games were hard to match, or surpass. So, following along with Sony’s master class titles such as Ratchet and Clank, Metal Gear, Tekken, Jak and Daxter, Final Fantasy and WipEout, it is about to take the transition to PSP. But how the epic scale of the game fit on to a portable console?

Chains of Olympus is set ten years before the original God of War. The Gods have sent Kratos to defend the city of Attica from the incoming Persian Army. Upon entering the city, Kratos comes face to face with the fearsome Basilisk. After defeating the Basilisk, it runs away. And you give chase. After running through the city, killing Persian soldiers, defeating the Persian king (yelling a very epic line while doing this) and admiring the pretty graphics, you finally meat up again. After killing the Basilisk, Kratos witnesses the sun falling from the sky, and the world is put into darkness. And it all kicks off from there.

So if you didn’t already know, this installation of the series isn’t being developed by Santa Monica Studios, they have bigger and better things to worry about (God of War III obviously). No, this is being developed by the fantastic Ready and Dawn Studios. Behind the surprisingly good Daxter and the upcoming Wii port of Okami. And my god have they done a good job on this game. Chains of Olympus plays exactly like the previous two games, except with rolling. As there is only one analogue ’stick’ (or stub), you have to hold down R and L then move the analogue stub. To do a light attack you press square, press triangle to do a heavy attack, circle to use a grab attack, X to jump, the d-pad to change what spell you use, R to use that spell and finally you use L to block. These controls work very well for the system, simple yet effective.

The game practically retains the same Gameplay as the previous two games. The over the top, vicious, but yet very satisfying battles remain. As do the puzzles which involve pushing a massive box around. These are very tedious and really should be replaced with something that is a bit quicker. And then there is the quick time events, which generally worked well in the previous games. It’s just that the analogue nub isn’t really cut out for the quick time events, you will have to redo them many times, which can be very frustrating. And the tight-rope walking parts, have been reduced quite a lot for this game, which is for the best. The game still contains Gorgon Eyes and Phoenix Feathers. When you collect 5 of each, your heath or magic meter goes up. Get 5 Gorgon Eyes and your health increase, and get 5 Phoenix Fathers and your magic increases. The game also contains excessive amounts of overacting, on Kratos’s part. But oh well, his lines are pretty epic though. The game also has the levelling up system from the previous games. Basically, when you kill things, you get red orbs, and these orbs can be used to level up your weapons or magic. When you have levelled up something, whatever you have levelled up gets stronger, and you learn new techniques. One major gripe I have with the game is the longetivity. On medium you can compete it in 6 hours, which isn’t a long time at all. You can do challenges and replay the game, but they should have made the game longer.

There are some new weapons for Kratos to play around with aswell. He still has his trademark blades of chaos, which are the weapons of choice, as they are just so fun to use. Chucking a helpless Persian soldier into the air, then unleashing a ruthless Hurricane of Chaos has a sick sort of charm to it. And then we have the Gauntlet of Zeus, a big magical gauntlet, that packs a lot of punch. While being more powerful than the Blades of Chaos, the gauntlet is slower, and at the end of the day less fun to use. The Sun Shield is a very useful item indeed, the Sun Shield can block most attacks, it also lets you parry an enemies attack which stuns them. You can also deflect projectiles fired by the enemy. Along the way Kratos will gain some spells, the best out of the spells you acquire in called the Efreet. And to be honest it is the only one worth using. The Efreet unleashes a giant, ghostly fire demon that punches the ground and takes out any nearby enemies. You also get the Light of Dawn, which lets you throw balls of light and lastly we have Charon's Wrath, which lets you hit multiple enemies. But as I said before

At the very start of the game you are plunged straight in to battle, and you see the shear beauty of the game. The vast environments, the war ships that are spread out in to the distance and the characters all look phenomenal. And the bosses look stunning, especially the Basilisk, This looks like no PSP game, more like a PS2 game. Ready at Dawn have done an immense job making the game look this good. Daxter looked good, but this is on another level. It is an amazing technical achievement. The soundtrack keeps to normal God of War standards. It’s pretty damn epic. But the high pitched signing can get very irritating though.

So God of War Chains of Olympus is a very good game. While retaining the same Gameplay, and basically everything else from previous games, it still manages to be a excellent technical achievement. While being the worst game in the series, it is still one of the best games on the PSP. Ready and Dawn have out done themselves with this, you wouldn’t have even thought it was made by them. So, if you’re a fan of the series, or interested in playing God of  War, buy this game.