PSP Review- God of War: Chains of Olympus

April 7th, 2008 Posted in Games, Reviews

God of War. Damn that’s a mighty fine game. Full of testosterone. It’s a balls-out, beat-the-shit-out-of-weaker-blokes action game, loosely based on Mythical history. And what a game it is. The two that were released on the PS2 went gangbusters (get them if you haven’t played them), and a prequel to these adventures has just been released onto Sony’s smaller black box. And if you have one of these little black boxes, you need to go out and buy yourself the best damned PSP game thus far.

Yep, God of War: Chains of Olympus (Olympus for short) is a worthy addition to the God of War family. In fact, it is almost indistinguishable from the others - it’s virtually impossible to notice that you are playing on Sony’s handheld system rather than on the PS2 (well, OK, it’s pretty friggin obvious considering… but you get my drift). Sure, the graphics are a little chunky (jaggies abound), and there can be some minor slowdown when it really gets hectic- but DAMN! Way to go! Looks and feels like the real thing (the real thing being PS2 GoW). Some of the “Wow” factor is lost due to screen size, but the awesome bosses and the gargantuan statues don’t lose their charm- in fact, some really clever techniques have been utilised in order to maintain the illusion- considering the transition to the small screen, Kratos still looks and feels like a little spanner in a very large clockwork.

The sounds are much the same fare as we have seen before- the clangs and clashes, bangs and whistles, and the same eerie music is used to good effect, but the voices are new for me… I played GoW on PS2 in Japanese… The voices used in the English version suit the characters far better than those I encountered in the Japanese versions… Some of them were … hmm… overdoing it a little… to put it nicely…

Now we come to the nitty gritty… Gameplay. Yep- Olympus pulls it off without a second stick… But only just. Evading is mapped to the use of the Left Trigger and the O button, along with the direction in which you would like to evade using the left stick. It works, but it’s not as simple as just using the right stick. Everything else is A-friggin-O-friggin-K. Kratos attacks, uses magic, and combos just the same as before- in fact, you’re pretty much instantly in a familiar place.

However… The area that Olympus fails in… QTE’s. Now, I don’t mind QTE’s personally- in fact, I think they were a good idea, and used properly, as they usually are in GoW games, can enhance a gaming experience. But not here- at least not for me. Perhaps in order to draw the player into the game, there is a lot of focus this time round on rotation of the stick, and on repetitive button presses, etc. (as is usual in GoW), but the problem- perhaps only for me- is that my PSP is old. I got the bastard a couple of weeks after its release in Japan, so the hardware was pretty new- you may remember there were quite a few complaints about crappy buttons and LCD screens (my PSP had a dead pixel, but a program found on the old webberoonie fixed it up for me- thanks code-writing person!)… Herein my problem lies. Much of the button-pressing focuses on the use of the O button… and my O button is on its last legs. Stupid O button. Not only that, but all that “stick rotation” (clumsy term, but makes me smile) brings on the fear of “stick breakation”. Yep, breakation.

Storywise, its the usual stuff, Kratos is walking around being cool, some statues talk to him about gods- which PISSES him off- and the gods need his help. So he helps them. Neato. However, it’s a short game- MUCH shorter than the other GoW games… but I’ll be damned if I don’t think GoW is worth it. Hell yeah.

Looks like GoW, sounds like GoW, plays like GoW- my God, it IS God of War! Olypmus is a SUPERB handheld action game, only mildly affected by its relatively poor use of QTE’s (although you do get to “bang” some chicks- I have no idea who OKed that one… damn, dude- you gotta get out more). In short, get it, dust off your PSP, and shut the hell up for a few hours of gaming bliss.