Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by
Sony

Price: £29.99 Players: 1 Widescreen: Yes Vote and comment on this game: God of War: Chains of Olympus is the first title in the series that I've played and before I get into the rather bizarre plot, my first impressions were that it's bloody amazing. And as I've continued through the levels I've been equally impressed throughout. I understand that the first game, Gods of War, saw your character, Kratos, being deceived into killing his wife and daughter and then being forced to go through a series of crusades as part of his redemption for this act. Chains of Olympus is set 10 years prior to this, and shows your journey to give a right royal bashing to all the "Mr Big"s of Greek Mythology - even all the way to the very edge of Hades, the ultimate aim being to either find personal redemption and peace of mind, or stop the end of the world through certain destruction. Hmm... tough choice.

As I got into this game, I thought this was incredible and that it felt like what Dragon's Lair would be like if it was made today, dodging and jumping out of the way of baddies. Stick the PSP headphones on and let the sumptuous graphics, the atmosphere and the powerful music feed into you. In fact, think back to the Bonestorm game in the Simpsons where Milhouse is playing and being blown away, and he says, "And all I've done so far is enter my name! Thrillhouse!" (although it can only fit 'Thrillho' on the screen). It's that fantastic! Okay, in a way, the gameplay could be seen as being a bit linear because you can effectively only take one path and you're guided with indicators about what you need to do next, but this is not to detract from the game in any way because it feels like you're playing a movie and far more often than not the camera angles are worked out nicely so hardly ever does something get in your way.

Some random observations about the game: 1. Get the "Efreet", which is one of the big "fuck off" weapons in the game. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mean that in any derogatory way. What I mean is, that when baddies come up to you, this thing turns into a raging fiery demon to wipe everyone out - or if they're heavily defended then it'll severely cripple then. It's damn cool! 2. There's even an off-camera match-the-buttons sex scene! However, it's impossible to get the last button in time as you get less than a split-second to do so - and I thought that men were often accused of doing things too quickly in the bedroom? ;) 3. There's a good selection of automatic checkpoints 4. Quite often there'll be baddies who shoot some weird arrows at you, so it's good fun to try and position another baddie inbetween you and the incoming arrows, if you can, so they cop for the pain! 5. From time to time you'll come across CGI sequences as the game takes over and plays out a scene inbetween 'levels', so to speak, and in terms of how this works with the game itself, this is practically seamless.

Also, some baddies, when they're about to die, will have an 'O' appear above their heads. Going up to them and pressing 'O' then gives you either an X, triangle, square or circle to press before finishing them up. This needs to be pressed far more quickly than any human can react, so I just press the circle again and keep retrying this if that's not the right one. However, some of these require two lots of these choices, so just keep hitting them and hitting them until they die in a puff of red magic! Overall, and quite frankly, if you have a PSP and want to show it off with one of the best titles available for it, God of War: Chains of Olympus is the one to get. It's and outstanding piece of work and kudos to all those involved for bringing such entertainment to such a small console. It's very rare that I'll give full marks to a game, but I can't fault it!

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2008.