God of (portable) games
God of War: Chains of Olympus is set as a prequel to the existing games, at a point where all-around tough guy Kratos has already been saved by Ares. As the game opens, you’re defending the city of Attica from the Persians, a battle which culminates in the first boss battle of the game, against a basilisk. Still doing the dirty work for the Greek pantheon, Kratos soon finds himself mixed up in yet another god’s scheme to take over the world, or at least the heights of Mt. Olympus. The plot is remarkably engaging for what’s effectively the franchise’s third time around the block, and still manages to pack in a few surprises.
What won’t be a surprise to experienced GoW players is the game’s battle system – thankfully, it’s still set up to use the same combos and quick-time events as finishing moves, and seems to be exactly the same as that used in God of War 2, right down to the button combinations for special moves. Developers Ready at Dawn have obviously put the effort into making sure that the moves look and feel exactly the same, and despite the slight control differences (the PSP, is, after all, missing two shoulder buttons and an analog stick), the game handles very easily. In fact, the change to controlling your magic (R + a face button instead of having to use the D-pad to switch magic types) means that players who rely on button-mashing to get their game on won’t waste as much magic energy by accidentally hitting the wrong button.
Even the sound effects seem to be exactly the same as those in the earlier God of War games – thumping enemies is incredibly satisfying, regardless of the amount of damage you’re doing. During combat, the action is made to seem even more larger-than-life by pulling back the camera from the fight at certain times; this does have a somewhat bewildering effect the first few times it happens, but any hint of planned cinematic effects is usually enough to counteract that. Controlling a main character who’s little more than two or three millimetres high can be disconcerting to start with, but that more than makes up for the problems that cropped up in games like Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, where the fact that you couldn’t see more than a few virtual metres past your character only exacerbated the lack of a second analog stick.
Chains of Olympus moves the story along in three quite different ways – in-game cut-scenes, pre-rendered full-motion video, and what looks like animated concept art. I’d have been a bit taken aback by the concept art, but it probably saves space or processor power for the rest of the game, and whatever has been done has had the beneficial effect of completely removing loading times between and within levels. Add to that the side effect of making some of the cut-scenes narrating the interstitial action seem like dramatic retellings of ancient Greek myths, complete with slowly animated two-dimensional pictures, and it all adds to the overall (weighty) impact of the game.
I only have two main gripes with Chains of Olympus, and for once, they have nothing to do with the PSP not having a second analog input. What’s actually the problem is that certain quick-time events require you to twirl the thumbstick around to register a certain move – something easy to do when it’s a full analog stick, but slightly more difficult to do with the tip of your thumb when you’re trying not to drop your console at the same time. Second on my list of gripes is the slight screen tearing that kicks in when the on-screen action gets too intense, or when you’re moving through the environments too quickly. Granted, it doesn’t happen very often, but it’s enough to be noticeable, distracting, and kind of annoying by the end of the game. As a side note, the time it takes to finish the game could also count against the game – six to eight hours should see you comfortably finish the whole thing – although six to eight hours is about as long as I’d want to spend on a portable game anyway, to be honest. Built more for a slim profile and ease-of-putting-in-a-pocket, those consoles aren’t exactly made to be comfortable to hold for too long at a time.
These distractions aside, if you hook up the system to your television set (only possible with the newer, slimmer, PSP model, mind), you’ll almost believe that you’re running the game on a PS2 – it’s only very slightly behind the quality of God of War 2, which itself is probably still the best action / hack-n-slash game for that home console. Keeping that in mind, if the only counts against this title are the small amounts of screen tearing, difficult finishing moves and the length of time it takes to play through the main quest, then think about what you’re getting – an epic game that hits the high mark set by previous titles in the series, and all running on a piece of machinery that weighs less than 200g. Now that’s epic.
Despite the minor flaws, Chains of Olympus is hands-down the most impressive game on the PSP, and if future developers take as much care with their games as Ready at Dawn obviously did with this one, there’s still a long lifespan ahead for the handheld.
