"The highest compliment I can give this," said a friend of mine as he hovered over me, watching me play God of War: Chains of Olympus on PSP, "is that it's God of War on PSP."
It's a simple enough compliment, but it's true: picking up this game for the first time, it all feels natural. The high-tension combat, the surprising mid-action cinematic moments, the button-pounding minigames... this isn't some God of War knockoff, this is the real deal.
The brief E3 demo begins inside a small room filled with guards. Kratos has the same combos as always; tapping Square and Triangle will unleash weak and heavy attacks. Unfortunately, the weaken-an-enemy-then-finish-him gameplay mechanic from GoW 2 seems to be gone, or not yet implemented: rather than attack enemies, I found it easier to just run up to each of them and hit Circle, which at this point just results in an instant-kill with a dramatic camera angle.
God of War games have always had an entirely computer-controlled camera, which is this game's saving grace on PSP: I hate pretty much any PSP game that makes me control a camera even though there's no right stick, and God of War removes that burden entirely. It's impossible to overstate how much this makes God of War's design, in particular, work for a portable platform.
If there's any one complaint I could lodge it's that things just don't feel as over-the-top in this demo. I don't know if it's possible on a portable to cause that same kind of dramatic feeling that you get when watching the game's cut-scenes and dramatic gameplay on a big screen TV. But if it is indeed possible, this will be the game that does it.
Author: Chris Kohler
Source: http://blog.wired.com/
Source: Hands-On: God of War Plays Well With PSP
