Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Zero Punctuation Reviews: God of War - Chains of Olympus

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The downsides? Not show-stopping, but notable. The sex minigames, for instance, are incredibly silly and, unless you're a male adolescent, maybe even a little insulting. I'm all for sex in games, but how about a little more aesthetic intrigue and less with the towel-snapping puerility? That aside, it's impossible not to be disappointed with the game's astonishing brevity. It's almost like Sony got its demographic signals crossed. Casual gamers (mostly female) won't be interested in the subject matter, while the franchise's hardcore fanbase (mostly male) are going to grouse after swinging through it in a casual afternoon. Let's face it, a God of War game isn't Peggle. There's no (good) reason the PSP version shouldn't have been twice as content-packed as the original.

Otherwise, if all you've ever wanted was a gorgeous, manly slice of David Jaffe's God of War mythos in totable format, this is it. Graphics wonks, set the rest of your PSP collection aside, because this one's a portable bellwether. While it lasts, anyway.

The blurb on the back of the game's case suggests that you can actually choose between Kratos' "personal redemption" and "saving the world of man and gods from destruction." That's not really true. You can either trudge forward until the game's over—something easily achievable in six or seven hours—or you can turn it off and choose not to play. Redemption doesn't really figure.