God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP) - Review

from:http://gaming.masemware.com

God of War: Chains of Olympus is a prequel to the God of War series, moving from the PlayStation 2 to the PSP by Ready at Dawn studios. Despite the change of platform and developer, the game retains the great flavor that the other two God of War games in both action, setting, and presentation, with the only major mar being the poor PSP controls that the game requires. It is also a bit on the short side, but it definitely is fun while it lasts.

Part A:

The game takes place ten years before the first God of War game; Kratos, recently renouncing his service to Ares, has begun doing tasks for the other Gods, hoping to get forgiveness for killing his wife and daughter in cold blood. After freeing Attica from an attack, suddenly the sky goes dark, and Kratos learns that Helios, the sun god, has been pulled from the sky, and without him to light the day, the god Morpheus has taken hold of mortal and god alike. Only Kratos is immune to the spell, and he must go to find out what happened to Helios and return him to the sky.

The story is pretty good; while the plot is loosely tied overall to the other games, it does provide some necessary glue and suggest the possibly of more prequel adventures to help fill in the gap between the main game in the series. The game is fully voiced including the same actors for Kratos and the narrator as from the previous games, which definitely helps with the game.

Gameplay: A

Chains pretty much is exactly as you’d expect a God of War title translated to the small screen of the PSP without losing anything critical. You control Kratos as he runs, fights, swims, scales walls, and solves puzzles, and collecting special magical powers and abilities along the way. Many beasts when close to death require special killing moves, using reactive button sequences to be successful in finishing off the foe. You gain red orbs from killing enemies and destroying the environment, all used to help power up your weapons and abilities. Pretty much, what makes the God of War series as fun as it is is there in the PSP version.

However, once again, the crappy controls of the PSP raises its ugly head, and though Ready At Dawn did a fantastic job at capturing the spirit and excitement of the game, the controls leave a bit to be desired. For one, the lack of the right analog stick to do fast dodges (instead put to a shoulder/button combo) makes it difficult to avoid several attacks. Some of the killing sequences use the analog nub rotation as done in the PS2 version, but trying to get exactly the action the game was looking for took some time to achieve. Fortunately, movement and other combat skills were not as hampered with this, though obviously with fewer buttons, the number of different combo attacks you could unleash was rather small. There’s also a few points that I accidentally hit the “Home” button in my attacking furor, though this was more an annoyance than a problem. I think that Ready At Dawn did try to minimize the inconveniences that the PSP controls possess, but they are still there.

The other aspect of the game that’s not quite there is the fact that it felt that there was too much separation between fighting monsters and solving puzzles, and that a lot of levels felt rather bare. Mind you, to make sure, I did play some of the other two games to get the feel, and while there is the “fight, then puzzle, then fight” approach, things felt a lot closer together than in Chains. It could be that there was loading in the background that was going on, which I will applaud because I only hit a few “loading” screens while progressing and never hear the UMD spinning up, however, if there were that many loading points, I think I would have rather seen a longer game.

Outside of the game, there’s additional challenges and of course additional difficulty modes that give you a bit more of a challenge, as there is with the other games.

Graphics: A+

Undoubtedly, the biggest achievement here is how good and comparable to the PS2 games that this one comes of as. The largeness of the landscapes are still there, at times you control Kratos as he runs along a long bridge, the camera pulling out well away just to give you a scale of things. There’s not a single slowdown to be seen despite how much is going on. If there is anything to nit about, some of the selected camera angles don’t to the combat justice, but these are few and far between. And as noted, the fact that there are no loading screens between any of the levels is an impressive feat.

Audio: A

The music is inline with the other God of War games, epic and engaging for battle. Voice acting is superb, with the same actors from the console versions reprising their roles here. I think the lack of deep reverb here from the PSP creates a lacking feeling when a huge beast is roaring at you, but otherwise, the game sounds fine.

Overall: A

Ready at Dawn must be applauded for the rather impressive port of the God of War series to the PSP; visually and audibly the game is great, and most of the game’s proven features make it to the handheld well; the game only suffers from the poor PSP controls, as well as being just a bit shorter than expected. However, any fan of the series will do themselves a favor by picking this up, giving them the necessary taste of the game until God of War 3 is out.

Additional: A

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