God of War: Chains Of Olympus

PUBLISHER: SOE
DEVELOPER: Ready At Dawn
Played on: PSP
Initial impression: Hack & Slash & Gods (& Sexy Ladies)!

Liked:
- Environments
- Storyline

Disliked:
- Quick Time Events
- Some Camera Angles

On The Fence:
- Challenge Modes
- Length vs Price

Despite having never played any of the previous installments of GoW, I found this PSP version to be quite an amazing adventure. Thankfully I already knew some backstory, or else certain segments would have made little sense. Kratos, the big, tough, god-hating slave of the Greek pantheon of deities makes another attempt to gain his freedom and seek his revenge. Long story short, Kratos needs to rescue the sun from the underworld and beat the piss out of Persephone for a number of reasons, mostly having to do with the fact that she's an asshole.

You're helped along the way by Athena (and some Persian slave girls early on) and become this very well armed, unstoppable killing machine only to give it all up to see your daughter again. Persephone decides to be a bitch and torment you into doing what she wants. Turns out that's not such a hot idea, but it's your only choice, and the only way to fix the mistake you've just made is to beat down Persephone's alter-demonic form. Yeah - no real spoiler alert needed there. You've played any of these types of games, you know what to expect. The big boss will always have another 'form' to beat down.

On to the meat of the article:

Environments
Man, this game is pretty. The places you end up look awesome, and at times I just couldn't believe the PSP was showing the stuff it was. Hades looks great, with fire and lava all over. The water temple really shows the power of the processor nicely.

Storyline
I may sound like I hate some of it, but really the story is top notch. Knowing little to nothing about the previous games didn't seem to phase me in the least with enjoying how it played out. Yeah, I hate Persephone, but you're SUPPOSED to (by the end at least). The fact that she was a bloody whore through most of it was fitting and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Quick Time Events
These are moments in the action where the game pauses for a second and flashes a button you need to press to perform a finishing move. Imagine you're beating down a large Basilisk and as you're carefully thrashing away the game stops and a large X appears. You have about 1-2 seconds to hit X before it has you fail and you need to essentially start that segment over. It's a pain in the ass because it's never the same key twice (X O [] square /\ triangle) and I'm not SO familiar with the button placement that I can instinctively hit those. I have to take a moment and glance right to see where the O key is (I know where X and /\ are, it's the other two I mix up). I'm a PC gamer first, so PS controls are somewhat alien.

Some camera angles made jumps or knowing where to go next difficult. Overall it was fine, but I found that the only time I was ever lost it was because of bad camera angles.

Challenge Mode
You can unlock alternate costumes by going through Challenge mode. I tried playing the Stage 1 Challenge and failed it probably about a dozen times before I gave up. Despite having a really good grasp of what I was doing and what needed to be done, I kept failing. Most 'challenge' modes will start the difficulty low and build up. This one seems to start somewhere around 60%.... and for what? Costumes? Bleh.

Value
Had I not paid $20 for this I would be crying from the rooftops how it wasn't worth the price versus the content. That said, $20 might still be a tad steep in the Quality v. Quantity fight. Yeah, I got a few days (at about 3-4h a day) worth of entertainment out of it, but had I paid more I'd be pissed.

Final Thoughts
This is a great game that really earns the Mature label for its use of gore and softcore porn. Oh yeah, I didn't mention that, did I? There's only two things you need to really hear in regards to that aspect: Tits and Off-Screen Sex laced with a visual inuendo that may stay with you longer than you want. For part one: This is a Greek Mythology inspired game, so it's expected to see some perfectly sculpted goddesses with their bare torsos waggling in your face. Well ok, maybe not waggling, but there she is - Athena - and her large (yet oddly firm) breasts taking up half the screen. Granted it's supposed to be a statue come to life, but whatever. The artist in me can appreciate the level of detail they decided to attain by staying true to this artform. The giggly teenager in me says 'heh heh... boobies' like Beavis and Butthead, which I'm sure they planned on.

As for the second thing, after pummeling a Persian King, Kratos is pretty uptight. Cue the two slave girls (actually you can skip them altogether if you don't explore a bit). They're both topless, one on her back, the other on all fours (on top of the first one... did I walk in on them making out?) and they want to please you. No, really. I can't make this shit up.

Someone say "tits"?

Enter the Quick Time Event sex. The camera pans left to show a lit white candle on a crate that gets bumped as you 'utilize' the girls. The finale of this little side-quest has you bump the crate so hard that white-hot wax spurts all over and extiguishes the candle -- oh and you get a large boost to your XP (used to upgrade weapons). Again, I can't make this shit up. I'll try to find a YouTube video on it. (No luck, though the goddess Athena is topless too in the whole game.)

All in all, decent game. Replay value? Very little. I beat it, and don't see a point in doing the challenge missions for some goofy costumes. 7/10

Hype Machine

A co-worker brought up a very good point today. These days, when a game is coming out, you know about it for weeks, months - hell even years - beforehand. The hype builds and the masses pore over every last tidbit of detail until the day finally arrives. The game rarely lives up to all that fanfare.

His point was that it wasn't always like that, and he kind of misses being in the dark, so to speak. He said "it used to be that you never heard much, if anything at all, about a game until it hit the shelves. Usually any prerelease info was a gaming magazine reviewing the completed game about a week before it came out."

He's right. When something's on its way out, you know. You get 50% complete build playtests from magazine writers and complete websites updating every couple hours with new screenshots, concept art, soundtrack snippets, wallpaper, buddy icons and news. I've been frothing at the mouth for nearly a year now over Beatles: Rock Band and I have this new style of coverage to blame.

Sure, we can just ignore it by not seeking out the specialized websites, reading the articles detailing every last minute item, or just not looking at gaming sites or magazines altogether but let's get real. Half the problem here is the coverage. Half the reason there is hype is because companies PUT that much crap out there and most of it is unavoidable.

Beatles: Rock Band will succeed, even without the visceral advertising flowing out of every orifice of the interwebs. Other games may not be so lucky.

Two come to mind that share different sides of the spectrum.

Brutal Legend's advertising may be its own worst enemy. Jack Black's over-the-top "RAWK AN ROHL" shtick is only tolerable for so long. Unfortunately he's been out there in full force since the announcement of the development of this game. Tim Schafer *is* a great game designer, but to idolize him like he's a god on earth is just asinine and the display at the VGA's was too much. To a point - Schafer's work has never been akin to a blockbuster-style money maker. Being a critical success doesn't pay the bills, but games like Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle are awesome - hell they're some of the best games in existence. I just don't think that translates into "Brutal Legend = Instant Success" alone.

Wet is a game that banks on the Tarantino style. Mix 70's exploitation film with Grindhouse and Kill Bill and you're coming closer to what it's about. The main character, Rubi, is an assassin who chooses guns and a katana as her main implements of disposal. This game looks like it has a lot of potential, but who has heard of it? Unless you have your fingers on the pulse of the game-o-sphere, no one. Thing is, the game was announced, and then cancelled. Then quietly picked up again. It's due out in September and aside from an article I read back when it was under development the first time, the only advertising I've seen for Wet is a countertop card at EB. Oh yeah - and it comes out September 15th.

Hopefully they both live up to the expectations.