Developer: Ready At Dawn
Publisher: SCE
Available On: PSP

Brutal - the best way to describe the God Of War series. The first two titles have been some of the PS2’s best sellers, with God Of War 2 being a defining milestone in the end of the consoles era. The series has been well received for not only it’s addictive and frantic combat but also the unrelenting character of Kratos, the extreme violence and action with huge scale combat and an involving story against a well presented mythological world.

Developing such a large scale and successful title mustn’t have been easy for Ready At Dawn, there’s a lot of fans (including myself) who wanted a faithful chapter of Kratos’ history and would accept nothing less. This has obviously been kept in high regard - God Of War Chains Of Olympus is not only a significant title worthy of rivaling it’s console counterparts, it is also one of the most impressive titles on the PSP to date for it’s sheer size and ability to push the PSP’s hardware more that we’ve ever seen before.

Set before the events of the original God Of War, Chains Of Olympus is another tale of deceit, revenge and a whole bunch of inner turmoil and subsequent vengeance on Kratos’ behalf. The story is fleshy and relevant, but still it feels like more of a spin-off title. Those who have played the original titles and know the story will always know well the eventual outcomes of the saga, but it’s still interesting to play out an earlier stage of Kratos’ history, and an epic stage it is. This is also certainly an upside for anyone who hasn’t played a God Of War title. Not only do new comers not need any past story knowledge, but they’ll be exposed to an earlier stage of the God Of War saga. If you’re a fan of the PSP title there’d be no excuse to not play through the existing PS2 titles, as they are very very similar from looks to controls to gameplay… which can also be a down side.

The PSP does such a competant job of delivering God Of War, but don’t look for any formula changes. Gameplay is near identical to previous titles, with a few new weapons / abilities to spice things up. All the frantic and fluid hack n’ slash action is still in high abundance, huge scale boss battles - even the quick time events and environmental puzzles are still as present as ever before which is sometimes a questionable up-side. Enemies vary but can tend to look quite similar after a while, with many still supporting unique ways to quick time combo a uniquely gory and rewarding death.

Every line of dialogue is supported with convincing voice acting, the huge scale theme music is still present, and with such great sound against some of the best visuals on the PSP, Chains Of Olympus is a very convincing multimedia package filled with pre-rendered videos. The most significant downside of CoO would be the overall length, with an average of 7 hours to get through the story. Compared to the console titles this is a lot shorter, and perhaps even a chunk easier, but considering the level of content already crammed into one UMD it’s hard to complain.

It’s not perfect though. The frame rate drops could stand to be less frequent, again it’s easy to see why when and how the PSP struggles with certain large areas of the game but compared to the potential of full frame combat in CoO the lag can be a let down.

Either way it’s still pretty and gory as hell, shorter but still satisfying, as brutal as ever and a worthy addition to any PSP owner or God Of War fan’s library. The story is a solid chapter of significance in the Kratos time line - Ready At Dawn have done a great job of delivering God Of War on the PSP to create what will surely be one of the consoles best sellers.

God Of War - Chains Of Olympus

91%

The Good -

* Gore, brutality and violence by the buckets.
* Some of the shiniest visuals on PSP.
* Addictive combat returns with some new changes.

The Bad -

* Frame rate drops a little too often.
* Substantially shorter than the past titles.
* Being a prequel, the story is a little thin.