God of War Chains of Olympus Demo Impressions

BY Saad Zafar | POSTED: 22 October 2007

Meet the friendly God of War...



Naah I am just messing with you. None would want a friendly Kratos, now would you?

If you had been lucky enough to find or import a God of War II disc you’d have already seen the COMING SOON on the ‘other leaflet’ included in the box. Even otherwise they had been pumping the whole thing up very much for some time and now that it is dated in March (fingers crossed) they sent out a tentative demo disc to all Underground registered users. We had a few importing issues but we’re here and we’ve played that too and listened to the sound track, seen the commentary walkthrough of the ATTICA and we’re certainly looking forward. Here’s our side of story if you don’t mind.

The game starts with as much ease as anything on the PSP no hiccups. The first screen meets with the customary half face zoom in likewise the first GOD OF WAR. Very nostalgic but there’s a slight feeling here that Kratos isn’t as dark and as pissed as he used to look. Start on though and those worries would wipe off your fro, like you wipe a fly off your nose.

The first phase of clearing and swiping sees a very PART 1 feel where you’re fighting on board of a ship only this time it’s on top of a Greek building. Movement stick is the analog and very responsive. I personally was worried about the analog stick but I must say it’s really precise for itself.  Using the customary square and circle and triangle you can pretty much nail the whole thing. Then also the L1 and attack is very much working and very clearly those level 1 upgrades of blade swinging like fans on the top of your head is there as stock. The red orbs were there but we couldn’t use them on the start menu since that was not available for the demo which is fair enough, no grudges there, we’d like the new moves to be kept secret.

In the background you can see a significant amount of chaos going on and arrows flying. It’s that where you realize that this scene is the depiction of the 300 scene of the boats rising up to the Empire of the Spartans and trying to reach ashore. On the side, Kratos finds a big Cross bow lit with fire to engulf a whole ship and guess what?! You shoot one at sea to blow the booms of a sail.

Kratos climbs down and you meet another regular bunch, but once you’re clear of that and move to the gate of that building, the one eyed monster, Mr. Cyclops bursts in with a stone pillar as a club to bash Kratos’s shiny bald. You do your button mashing of the circle button to push that pillar back onto him and as soon as he stumbles backwards he’s swallowed by a Basilisk. Now this Basilisk is not as human sized as the one you’ve seen the son of the captain take down with a single arrow to his eye, in 300. This guy’s huge as a fort … well, almost.

This becomes a very similar instance to the first game where you fight the dragon in the mouth of a door way for the first time. You do just that and here is where you learn how to roll. You press both R and L shoulder buttons and move the stick to either side to roll. It obviously takes some time to get used to. Clear him, dodge roll, hit and repeat, but he’ll escape and you’ll find him climbing a wall to break into the city.

Kratos follows his lead, bashes a few more dudes, swings his blades of chaos breaks a door get’s a check point, clears more bow and arrow dudes, clears more bad guys, opens a door with a small rotate-that-stick-to-open-a-door puzzle and you’re finally facing the boss. A Persian servant to the Lord who’s come to take over the Roman Empire. This is your first boss battle I believe and pretty much feels like one with foot soldiers every now and then and the Persian bearded guy trying to break you. Like all boss sequences you get him in a trance towards the end and do some context sensitive kicking butt and then finally mash circle and break his head with a black box. You also get your first magic here and a nice COMING SOON right after that.

Phew! What a ride! The most awesome fact is that it still retains the whole GOW feel so well that it doesn’t feel different on the PSP at all. I am not much of a roll user anyways (I like to jump) so it just felt seamless and made for the PSP. Also the frame rates were top notch and it was really wonderful to see the details tweaked. The blood stays the gore looks brilliant, the lanterns swayed when the Basilisk attacked, the fires blew out sparks and it was cool of them not to use undead monsters but actual foot soldiers. However even when I didn’t want Kratos to change I did want newer enemies which was not the case except for the two bosses we saw.  They just had skin over the undead and they did the exact same thing. In any case the game looks very ultra uber sweet (excuse my fanboism) and we are glad that the emotional connection has not been lost. Kratos has in no way gone sweeter but yes he’s not as dark and in the small amount of dialogue it seems he is not overly consumed by power and loyal to his masters. This is definitely an interesting chapter in Kratos’s life and a game that is looking up to be a must buy!