Porting franchises over from the PS2 to the PSP seems to be the rage nowadays. In recent times Rockstar has successfully managed to churn out PSP versions of both GTA III (Liberty City Stories) as well as GTA: Vice City (Vice City Stories), and both have been extremely well received. In fact both these games did so well that Rockstar decided to port them back to the PS2... with not-so-favorable results.
While this sort of franchise milking does sicken all of us to a certain extent, I’m glad Sony decided to port God of War (GoW) to the PSP, since this not only allows the game to attract a larger audience but also lets us rabid fans get a quick glimpse of the events that transpired before the first GoW game.
We already gave you the gist of the game in our hands-on preview but if you’ve come in late, here’s a quick recap. The game takes place before the events of the first GoW game, and we have Kratos loyally serving the Gods of Olympus in exchange for freedom from his messed-up past. As in most GoW games, the story unfolds via well made cut scenes and flawless Oscar-winning voice acting executed by series veterans TC Carson (Kratos) and Linda Hunt (the narrator).
Chains of Olympus (CoO) plays out exactly like its elder brother(s), which means nothing's been compromised during the transition to the small screen. Kratos can deal out severe pain through light as well as heavy attacks courtesy of the blades of Chaos, and mix it all up with magic and hyper-violent context-sensitive actions that generally involve tearing someone or something in two, stabbing Cyclops in the face, ripping heads off, and so on.
Though there aren’t many boss fights in this game, the few that do exist are pretty epic in scale (especially the very first one).




