God of War: Chains of Olympus is the first game I picked up for my PSP following my post regarding Sony’s high-tech paperweight. (Check it out here if you missed it.) I have been looking for a reason to justify owning a PSP, Chains of Olympus was great choice. This game does everything it can to show the capabilities the PSP has to offer to gamers. The game kicks off throwing players straight into the gore filled action one would expect from a God of War game. Chains of Olympus is a prequel to God of War games released on the PS2. The story takes place shortly after the death of Kratos’s wife and daughter. The game starts with Kratos in the ancient city of Attica where he is fighting off an onslaught of Persian forces. In the mythological world of the game Helios, the sun god, has been weakened giving Morpheus, the god of dreams, the power to put ancient Greece to sleep disturbing Olympus’s rule over the nation.
The art in the game is absolutely beautiful. This game has the epic look and feel found in its console counterparts. The controls are very similar to the PS2 games so within the first twenty minutes of gameplay combos started feeling instinctual. Overall the controls work great but there were times that magic spells were accidentally cast during combat but clumsy fingers may be more at fault than the controls themselves. Playing the game felt so smooth I hope that other developers took notes and use Chains of Olympus as a template for making action titles on the PSP. Kratos’s weapons complimented the control scheme so well they gave me the feeling of being the ultimate bad ass throughout the entire game. Most of the time I was wielding the Blades of Chaos to rip apart every enemy that came across my path. The weapon feels very video gamey, enough so that players who haven’t played a God of War game before should be feeling at home in no time. Armed with the Blades of Chaos, Kratos also has an ability called Efreet. When Efreet is used a demon is summoned that sends out a fiery blast across the ground surrounding Kratos delivering damage and shoving enemies back a few steps. More weapons become available as the game progresses and I enjoyed using each one but my favorite weapon was called The Gauntlet of Zeus. Its sort of like a giant metal boxing glove that gives Kratos a super charged punching ability. It sounds lame but when I was using it every attack felt so powerful I didn’t want to switch back to any of my other weapons unless the situation called for it.
Chains of Olympus is a great game, possibly one of the best PSP games available, but it does have a few faults. There were a few puzzles that left me hanging around with that, “What do I do now?” feeling. They weren’t overly difficult but the fixed camera position hid the visual cues that were supposed to lead me in right direction. After a few minutes of running around the camera would adjust the angle enough that I would see the the little ball of light that shows me what I am supposed to be doing. I completed the game on the Normal difficulty finishing the story just shy of eight hours. I don’t have a problem with the length of the game but it may be disappointing to some. The story was good for an eight hour game but it did not come across as strongly as the PS2 games before it. Beating the end boss doesn’t mean that there is nothing left to do in the game. Once the credits are completed both a God Mode and Challenge Mode are unlocked giving the game some replay value. When I read the list of challenges they didn’t seem hard, but attempting to complete them proved that things don’t always sound as hard as they turn out to be. Completing challenges unlocks new gear for Kratos so if that’s your thing there is still plenty of game to played after story is completed. The difficulty from Normal to God Mode left me feeling like I am not as good at God of War games as I thought I was. The point I am trying to get across is that the story may be relatively short but the UMD is still packed with plenty of game to play. God of War: Chains of Olympus has a lot to offer. Everything works well enough that veteran players as well as newcomers to the series should have a lot of fun with the game. If you are like me and you have been looking for a reason to use your PSP, Chains of Olympus is a great place to start.
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