It's alright...
Story wise, it's just a failure. Many of the critics such as GameSpot have somehow identified a so-called 'story', but I've not come past that at any point of the game. Yes. It suffers the same issues as Chains of Olympus did. Until the very end, there was almost no story. To put it simply, Kratos is on a quest to find his brother who got separated with him as children. That is all. So you end up killing a few hundred messed up creatures and then end up becoming disappointed with the climax. There were however some engaging scenes in which we get a better insight into Kratos' past and why he's constantly pumped with rage. The music compliments such moments as it does create a sense of interest between the characters and the gamer. Generally speaking, the story is nothing new and as the previous games, touches on the subject of 'family' where Kratos is trying to recover parts of his past. Although there are such scenes in which the gamer shows sympathy for the characters, it still isn't quite related to the quality of the story. I really wish to find some sort of a script in a game like God of War as you're going to have to fight loads of demented creatures, and at least some sort of story needs to justify this excessive amount of loss of life.
Gameplay is no different to Chains of Olympus - it has pretty much the same sort of style, with the cameras panning in and out depending on the size of the room or what sort of situation you're in. There are some moments in which you can see Kratos jump on to a enemy in a cinematic manner and end up brutally killing it (and you require to tap the button appearing on the screen) - so these moments are refreshing. Not anything special. Everything is smooth though which I am impressed with seeing as the game has some very good graphics.
Speaking of graphics, the visuals technically look brilliant. All the cutscenes are well modelled, and the creatures and characters look nice and sharp, especially on the PSP screen. There is a satisfying amount of blood to be spilled, which beautifully animates before your eyes as you rip through the bodies of your enemies in a brutal fashion. As mentioned before, the frame rate manages to keep up with the amount of action taking place which is a true achievement on this portable device.
Voicework is generally good, but some dialogue sounds a bit corny and very cliched.
The game forces you to explore a bit and take different paths so that was a good element for me as I enjoyed travelling around the well-designer interiors/exteriors to collect orbs from the chests and so on.
Ghost of Sparta does very little to stand out in the series, and it just feels more like an expansion to Chains of Olympus than an independant venture. God of War fans are likely to be disappointed, and I can assure you that its not worth buying a PSP just for this game as many have stated amongst comments of God of War related videos. It's quite a disappointing game but if you haven't played Chains of Olympus, its worth checking out as it offers a longer campaign and better visuals - but when you compare it to the previous games, it comes out as a bit of a 'mixed reactions' sort of game.
Thats about it. I usually don't review games so blandly, but GOS totally annoys me to the core. Pretty much 4 God of War games have come out, and not a single one actually brought anything new to the series. The first game was refreshing and awesome, the second game lived up to the expectations although not offering much new, and the third one - although a bit tasteless - was graphically brilliant and inclusion of new elements of gameplay and new creatures made it fresh. But GOS just recycles all the things we have seen in the past once more. Fans of the series would at least hope for something different, and since God of War is based in a time where all these godly figures existed, you'd at least expect the story to be good. GOS fails at that part too. God of War and God of War II had some good stories, and there was the inclusion of challenging puzzles to give the gamer a pause from the violent action. GOS on the other hand has very few puzzles, and most of these are very straight forward, resulting in the gamer not receiving any sense of challenge.
The game is longer than Chains of Olympus so thats a good thing seeing as God of War Chains of Olympus was too short (but atleast it didn't suck in terms of content in comparison to Ghost of Sparta) so thats all I can really say. Ghost of Sparta is a good game, which is worth playing but I think the God of War series is pretty much dead now seeing as the developers are not offering anything new now and just constantly recycle elements off the previous games in the series.