God Of War: Chains Of Olympus... IN HD!!!

One more title off the list! Not that it was ever ON the list, as it came from Lovefilm, but you get the idea. This is the High Definition PS3 port of the original PSP game, and I gotta say, it translates wonderfully. 

Also: Now with ART! Terrible drawings improve everything.

Chains Of Olympus is set sometime before the first God Of War, and initially shows Kratos dealing with an invasion of Persians in the city of Attica. The tutorials are blended in nicely as always, and its very simple to pick up the basics of combat. Soon, you meet the monstrous Basilisk, a huge beast who can (and does) eat a giant cyclops in a single bite! After chasing it across the city you finally take it out, only to for your next job to begin. The sun, literally falls from the sky, plunging the world into darkness. Kratos is charged with restoring the sun to the sky, and to take care of those responsible.

Fairly standard for a God Of War game so far, big opening, big enemies, big task at hand. You always get a sense of scale playing a GoW title. The environments are contained, but vast. The camera pans out from time to time, and you see Kratos getting smaller and smaller, once again emphasizing the scale of the environment. For a PSP game, there's a big emphasis on, well, big.

Kratos has a holiday. There were no survivors.

The same can't be said of the plot. Kratos is working for the Gods, and lacks any real motivations of his own until a good way through the game. It feels like the plot is going through the motions in the early levels, fabricating a series of large scale events to keep the player interested. While the challenges are grand, the story behind them feels forced. Its nice to see Kratos in a mood other than blind rage, but he's just a man doing a job for most of the game.

It has upscaled well, functional but not razor sharp. You won't be seeing PS3 level graphics, but that really won't be an issue, the artistry on show is stunning. It just looks right, you could never tell that this wasn't made by Santa Monica. Ready at Dawn had made the PSP sing, and the HD update only improves upon the style. Some of the texture and enemies can appear a tad lo-res, but only when you look too hard at them. For the most part, you really won't notice the graphical shortcomings, as it rattles along at a speedy pace.

Yeeeeah, bump mapping isn't your prime concern right here...

The pacing brings us to our next point. It's fun, there's no question there, but I worry that it was too short. As previously stated, the plot advances quickly from one locale to another. The game was over for me in about 4-5 hours. For me, that's not quite enough. There's the "Challenge of Hades", a set of tough challenge rooms, but they don't add anywhere near enough to the package. I wanted one, maybe two more areas out of the game, but this was more of a short story in the overall plot of the series. You can tell that the original scope of the game was limited in what it could achieve on one UMD. A great achievement, just a tad short.

Of course, we have missed an obvious point. Swinging around the Blades of Chaos is just as damned fun as it has always been. Its a death ballet, a murder dance, an grand extermination waltz. I took that metaphor too far, but the gameplay leaves an impression on you that just won't go away. Getting up close to the smaller enemies, and wailing on the O button to instant kill them, it's satisfying to the point of embarrassment.  There's a manly sense of pride in nailing a perfect 200 hit combo, whirling and slashing like a deadly spinning top.

In summation, a great fun game, looks great if a little rough round the edges, but just a bit too short.

My Rating: 7 / 10


Next Time: God of War HD Style Part 2, Ghost of Sparta

Metal Gear!?