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| Source // PlayStation |
This 1001 list has been rather eye-opening, as you would hope. I haven't made a count of how many titles have come out of nowhere to impress me, but there are some series that I hadn't touched at all back in the day, for whatever reason, that I now can't get enough of.
Two notable examples of this happening are the Yakuza series, where I'm finally getting around to Yakuza 2 after going through Yakuza 0 and Yakuza (and can't wait to continue playing 3, 4, and 5 when they get a PC port at the end of the month - by God I hope this PC can run it), and - if it wasn't obvious by now - God of War.
The other thing I've been caught out by is just how good portable consoles were, even back to the Game Boy Advance. Naturally, being firmly found in camp Sony, I had a PlayStation Portable and then PlayStation Vita. I used them. I enjoyed them. But if God of War: Chains of Olympus is anything to go by, I've clearly not used them as intended.
Kratos is back, furious as ever. What's pissed him off this time?
Fun Times
In Sony's infinite wisdom (read: utterly annoying anti-consumer attitude), the PlayStation Vita required it's own kind of extortionately priced memory cards if you wanted to get anything done on it. There were two paths to making the most of this unpleasant situation.
Either you bought one humongous memory card for the lump sum of at least £1.50 per Gigabyte (for a dirty back of the envelope calculation reference, a memory card for a digital camera will give you a Gigabyte for 30p), or you bought some PlayStation Vita Mega Packs, a smallish memory card and some download codes for a handful of themed games.
As starters to a collection, they were appealing. I know, because I bought most of them. From action games to racers, LEGO to indie titles, there was something for everyone, though it wasn't a perfect solution by any means. I got some great games in these packs and, because the Vita was young and capable of playing PSP titles (digitally, of course), some classics of that handheld were part of these packs too.
Enter Chains of Olympus. I've owned this game for 6 years now, and haven't touched it once. As you may know, I just wasn't that interested in the God of War series when it came out, and by the time this Vita pack came out, Chains of Olympus was five years old and wasn't Killzone Liberation, the only other game of this Action pack that I know I played.
Knowing how much of a fan of the series I now am, it's time to scrape off the digital dust to get a glimpse of what I've missed. Again.
Chains of Olympus is the fourth God of War title by this point in history, but the second chronologically, sitting between an as-yet-unreleased God of War: Ascension and the first God of War. Got all that? I'm not sure I have, either.
A little bit of timey-wimey storytelling was probably bound to happen, and Chains of Olympus plonks us somewhere in the time period of Kratos working for the Gods but not quite to the point of being thoroughly annoyed by them, though he's close, I'm sure. He's angry, as always, as he is sent into Attica to help defend a Persian invasion.
If you've played a God of War game before, you'll be instantly familiar with what's going on, though some actions have been mushed together to fit with the PSP controls. The square and triangle buttons see Kratos swing and slam his weaponry into any Persian in sight, and they're the first buttons you'll be making use of as the action gets going within seconds.
The series has been somewhat cinematic, with the action often flowing from one set piece to the other that you're never quite sure when you want to call it quits for the day. Like God of War II, I don't want to play through too much of Chains of Olympus until I've gone through the previous games.
Like those games, though, there is the option of hunting down a copy of the PS3 port of this, along with the other PSP title, Ghost of Sparta, which is certainly one to look out for, if only to save old hands from handheld cramp.
That port comes with a graphical bump, of course, but let's enjoy and appreciate what we have here, which so far seems to be the expected God of War experience but playable on a bus, assuming you don't have to get off it anytime soon.
The same combat is here, the same chests full of orbs, the same button-mashing to open doors, though in a neat touch the first door you come across gets smashed in by a cyclops as you're trying to open it.
The early stages are heavily tutorialised, of course, with simple enemies to fight and simpler puzzles to solve. Kratos' grab attack seems to kill anyone in a single move if you dare to get close enough to your target. Given that you're the God of War and my health bar hasn't been scratched, that's easy enough to accomplish, the reward as bloody and violent as you expect.
It's around here that I wondered if I'd miss the second analogue stick to control the camera, but it seems like the stages and the camera are constructed to not annoy you too much. Hidden areas are there to seek out, and hidden enemies might make you a little miffed, but you can consider that a reason for Kratos' frustration and a justification of his actions, or something.
What I'm trying to say is that it's a PSP game, there are going to be some grumbles, but from what little I've seen of Chains of Olympus, it seems the system's limitations have been dealt with, making for a bit of an easier, simpler game. Well, simpler, I have no idea about easier yet.
Frustrations
Yes, it's a great adaptation of the console games onto a new, smaller platform, and yes the design decisions made to account for the lack of buttons are smart, personally, you can boil the game down to a series of corridors and hallways full of enemies and capped off with a light puzzle, from what I've heard.
Unskippable cutscenes before difficult boss fights are another delight to put up with if you want to experience all of Chains of Olympus, so set your difficulty accordingly.
For the most part, the story of a God of War game has been ridiculous and over the top, involving the killing of Gods by the angriest slab of meat to have every walked the ancient world. I don't doubt that Chains of Olympus will change that, which is another argument of "just why play this when we've played through two already?"
As Kratos finds a Persian of importance taunting some locals locked behind bars, he engages in the kind of conversation where every sentence feels like it is designed to be a one-liner or a defining quote. This isn't a conversation, but a contest. This isn't a story to learn from, but a fantasy to enjoy, and God of War games know that (or knew, perhaps, until the PS4 game).
Further Fun Times
Not all bosses are gargantuan basilisks, and not all systems display a message when there might be some slowdown. I played Chains of Olympus for a little bit before playing it again through emulation for these screenshots. I'm not how I'll continue to play it. I guess if I can transfer saves it wouldn't matter, but I'll have to look into that.
For now, though, we can get some practice with the dodging, which has moved from the right analogue stick to a press of both shoulder buttons. Not sure if I like that yet. I get the feeling I would because it's quicker to get back to the face buttons when your thumb doesn't have to leave them in the first place...
No good screenshots of it, though, but again, the necessity for a minimised control scheme makes these magical attacks easier to pull off and cycle through, and they're upgradable as they have been in previous games. More of the same, but tweaked, you see?
Right, let's free these locals.
Final Word
Engaging in the sex minigame only for the sake of grabbing a tasteful screenshot of this allegory and to top up my reserves of red orbs, I decided to call time on Chains of Olympus right there, just some twenty minutes in at most.
The reason, as I say, is that I don't want to spoil too much or play things out of sequence with this God of War series. I'm still going through the first game, where I've just climbed a mountain if I recall. It's been a while. After that is the sequel, and after that, we go back in time for Chains of Olympus, and I'm looking forward to it.
No, not for the boobs. I think the reason I enjoy it is that it knows what kind of game it is and just gives you that. Insane action? You've got it. Slaughtering your foes in grizzly ways? You bet. A sweeping story through ancient Greece that you can't put down? It seems so.
Even if it's repetitive or doesn't really raise the bar, it does what it says on the tin, and we can find comfort and entertainment in that. If you know what you're in for and you want that, great. Dive in. I'm going to.
Will it change the way I see third-person action-adventure games? Nope, probably not. Is it a must-play? Well, I guess it serves as an example of what the PSP could do, but we've got plenty of examples already, haven't we? Will it entertain me enough to be satisfied with my purchase all those years ago? I sure hope so, and that's probably all I care about.
Time is precious. Spend it being happy.
Fun Facts
The PSP originally ran slower than it was capable of, and Ready and Dawn were one of the developers that pushed to increase the clock speed to enable Chains of Olympus to shine - with better blood particles, obviously. A few months later, the PSP sped up, and so did the rate at which the battery drained trying to accommodate all this blood.
God of War: Chains of Olympus, developed by Ready at Dawn, first released in 2008.
Version played: PlayStation Portable, 2008, via PlayStation Vita and emulation.