All of Kratos' rage in the palm of your hands.
Chains of Olympus starts out like any typical God of War game with Kratos killing people. Lots and lots of people. Things change very quickly, though, and a blanket of darkness envelopes the land. To his surprise, Kratos sees the sun being shot down out of the sky. Helios, the god of the sun, is now missing and the god of dreams Morpheus begins to tighten his reigns on the world. The gods do not favor this sudden shift of power, so they call upon Kratos yet again to use his undying rage and ferocity to set things right.
God of War: Chains of Olympus plays out exactly like you'd expect a portable God of War should. Kratos lashes out with his Blades of Chaos, collecting souls from slain enemies, smashed objects, and chests. The more consecutive hits you make, the larger the combos get and the more souls you'll be rewarded. As you level up the blades, they'll do more damage and you'll be granted new moves.
Every new God of War game gives Kratos more toys to play with, but Chains of Olympus seems a little light in this department. The only other real weapon given to Kratos is Zeus's Gauntlet, a very nasty glove that stops just about every enemy in their tracks with its blunt force. Kratos will find Helios' shield that lets him absorb and fling back energy projectiles, as well as cast his own light-based missiles. After defeating the ferryman Charon, he'll also be able to use Charon's Wrath, which stuns enemies giving Kratos precious time to deliver a quick beat down.
If you're familiar with the series, you'll also be familiar with the QTEs, or Quick Time Events. If you don't know what these are, they're a series of on-screen button icons that prompt you to press them in time while a scene of Kratos executing a monster is unfolding. If you fail to press the prompts quickly enough, the monsters will shake you off and you'll have to try again. There is a love/hate relationship with these, though, and the QTEs that have you rotating the analogue stick in half circles become frustrating as they're easy to fail, and you lose energy with each failure.
There are other God of War staples such as wall climbing and block puzzles. This is where the series begins to show some war fatigue. The settings aren't quite as interesting as previous titles, and one level in particular is nothing more than a set of stairs that leads into carbon copies of hallways and more stairs. It's almost as if they had to scale down the scope of the game to have it fit on a scaled down gaming device. Still, the gameplay remains to be fun, even if it isn't as challenging as the other God of Wars.
Graphically, it rivals its PS2 brethren. It shows off a great deal of special effects, from the glowing of Kratos' blades as they slam into the ground to the horrific gore as he renders flesh from bone. Characters and environments are built very well and detailed nicely, but there are a few occasions where things are too dark to really see what's going on. It's unfortunate that neither the PSP or the game has display settings to offset this. Still, Chains of Olympus is one of the better looking PSP titles.
Audibly, it sounds just as good as any God of War before it. The smashing of Kratos' weapons sound very loud, and the blades as they whisk through the air and rip into flesh sound viciously sharp. Other sound effects such as the grinding of stone and the crumbling of rock are pretty good as well. The music has always been terrific in God of War games, and it's no exception with Chains of Olympus. It's orchestrated fantastically. The voice acting all around is decent, but depending on your preference, you may still find Kratos to be overacting, pushing his gruffness a bit too much.
Chains of Olympus doesn't offer very much new in terms of gameplay. In fact, it actually offers less than its console counterparts, but what it manages to keep intact is the brutally of tearing apart enemy after enemy. You'll most likely manage to breeze through the game in about four to six hours, and you won't have the same amount of breathtaking moments, but the game's still worth checking out for the story. It further fleshes out the origin of Kratos and ties some key events that leads up to God of War 3. By now, you can find Chains of Olympus for cheap and if you have a PSP and are looking for some mindless hack-and-shalsh fun, go ahead and add this title to your collection.