No love for Chains of Olympus yet? What gives? I got ahold of the new PSP God of War the day that it dropped and plowed through it as fast as I could, which didn't take too long. There was absolutely nothing about this game that screams 'portable' except for the increase in save points scattered through-out. The game plays beautifully on the PSP, Ready at Dawn did a fantastic job on just about everything. The game is the most gorgeous thing i've seen running on the PSP to date. It took me under 6 hours to finish Chains of Olympus which is both a curse and a blessing.

As noted, everything God of War is packed into its PSP iteration but the game has been directed by a different team, a team that tried to keep portability in mind. Making God of War into a portable game is an interesting task but Ready at Dawn's implementation falls into the pit of repetition rather quickly. Whereas the previous GoW games felt like you were exploring, and progressing through a lengthy quest, Chains of Olympus turns into an arena fight with artificial boundries popping up to keep you in place to fight some rather annoying enemies. Nearly all of the enemies have attacks that follow the 8-bit dodge, block, attack, repeat formula. While I realize that almost all the enemies in the series tend to follow this, the lack of the option to parry attacks until 3/4 through the game turns fighting from fast and easy to a near slog. All the great things about God of War are here, but seem hampered by pretty small design changes. It's still a great game, but shoehorning portability into the mix doesn't yield anything of value. If you're looking for a 'portable' game, something you can turn on for 5 minutes here and there, then you may be frustrated, but if you can enjoy full-size games on a small screen, you'll love it.