Home Gaming God of War: Chains of Olympus – Reviewed – PSP

God of War: Chains of Olympus – Reviewed – PSP

3 min read
1

By Philip Dunkley

Fear me

God of War is a franchise people either love, or really love, and I have never met anyone who has played the God of War titles and not enjoyed them. When I heard that a PSP version was going to be released, with a whole new story and set before the events of God of War, I was a little apprehensive. The game was given to Ready at Dawn Studio’s, a studio that kind of burst onto the scene with Daxter, a spin off game from the Jak & Daxter Universe, and was inherently a fantastic game, with great visuals and really fun gameplay mechanics. In fact, I lost my PSP to my wife for about 3 weeks due to that game. Even though they had successfully accomplished this feat with Daxter, I was still nervous to see how they would bring the God of War series across, and hoped they would not get it too wrong.

Tortured SoulThe story starts before the events of the first game. Kratos is already fighting for Olympus, after being saved by Ares, and start off in Attica, with Kratos doing his usual thing by slaying as many people as possible and protecting the city from all sorts of evil, including one hell of a large beast. I don’t want to delve too much into the story as I would spoil it, but be assured that the standard God of War formula has been applied here.

The game plays almost identical to the PS2 versions, and a sense of familiarity hits the player immediately if any of the other games have been played, with all attacks mapped to the same keys and the combos almost identical. A few of the mechanics have changed, but this is due to the lack of L2 and R2, but nothing deteriorates in the process. It feels almost perfect. A few new weapons have been added, and a few more magical attacks, which are really good cause I found myself using almost all of them in this version of the game, more so than I did in the PS2 versions.

Graphically, the game is a masterpiece, with every single detail taken into account, and every texture and structure created with more artistic value than I have ever seen on this platform. It manages a great frame rate, and just looks amazing. There is no better looking title on the PSP.

Slice and DiceThe sound is just as good, and all sounds will be familiar to any player who has played the series before. Once again, a sterling job done by Ready at Dawn.

The conversion of this title has been seamless, and excellent in every way possible. How these guys managed this on a portable system is beyond me, and to come out with such a great title, as their second mainstream title, is truly a magnificent feat. In fact, except for wanting this game to have had a few more boss battles and a longer lifespan, preferably 72 hours of gameplay would have been cool, this game is the platforms best by far, and if you never had a reason to own a PSP, this is that reason.

I apologise for this review for being so short, but I really don’t need to say anything else about it.

Go and buy the game now!!!

Scoring:
Gameplay: 10/10 (Unbelievable)
Presentation: 10/10 (Best on the PSP)
Sound: 9/10 (Almost identical to it’s bigger brothers)
Value: 9/10 (I want more Gameplay!!!)
Overall: 9.5/10 (Simply the best title on the platform)
Better Than: Everything
Worse Than: Nothing

Last Updated: May 30, 2008

One Comment

  1. ocelot

    May 30, 2008 at 19:18

    Without a doubt, this is the best game I have ever played on a hand-held. And yes, I do have a DS.

    Reply

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