God of War: Chains of Olympus

God of War: Chains of Olympus is a third-person action-adventure video game developed by Ready at Dawn and Santa Monica Studio, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It was first released for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld console on March 4, 2008.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Great graphics that exploit the PSP's capabilities.
 * 2) Great soundtrack.
 * 3) Great voice acting.
 * 4) A nice prequel story that shows Kratos' first mission given to him by the Gods.
 * 5) The game manages to clear up a plot hole from God of War II. That being what Atlas meant by the fact that Kratos is responsible for him being in the core of the world. As it turns out, Kratos made it so Atlas is forced to hold up the world for all eternity.
 * 6) Smooth and responsive controls despite the PSP's button limitations compared to the PS2.
 * 7) Awesome bosses with Kratos fighting a Basilisk, Charon (the ferryman of the River of Styx), and Persephone (the wife of Hades).
 * 8) Beating the game on specific difficulties will reward you with three different costumes.
 * 9) *McKratos - Kratos is dressed in a kilt, and sports a red beard and red hair. His Blades of Chaos are replaced by a pair of large axes. Wearing this costume increases Kratos' strength four times as much as normal and in exchange, it gives Kratos the half amount of Green and Blue Orbs that he collects and double the damage.
 * 10) *Spud of War - Kratos is dressed like a giant potato, and parts of the potato's skin are peeled away to resemble his red body tattoos. His Blades of Chaos are replaced by a pair of potato cutters. Wearing this costume gives Kratos infinite magic also grants him to resist the damage four times the normal, although his strength remain the same.
 * 11) *Mime of War - Kratos is dressed like a mime. The Blades of Chaos, Gauntlet of Zeus, and Sun Shield are rendered invisible, showing only gloved hands instead. Wearing this costume increases the value of any Red Orbs Kratos obtains four times as much as normal and twice the value of any Green Orbs or Blue Orbs.
 * 12) Some new weapons, magic, and relics.
 * 13) *Weapons
 * 14) **Gauntlet of Zeus - Can deliver devastating blows to opponents and shatter solid stone and iron (when possible, the materials glowed blue, like the gauntlet itself with every attack).
 * 15) *Magic
 * 16) **Efreet - Kratos can unleash a fire spirit which attacks all surrounding enemies.
 * 17) **Light of Dawn - It allows Kratos to summon orbs of bright light and hurl them at his enemies.
 * 18) **Charon's Wrath - Kratos can blast clouds of ravenous flames at his enemies, which do relentless damage for a brief period of time, and can also spread to any other enemies nearby.
 * 19) *Relics
 * 20) **Sun Shield - This game's Golden Fleece.
 * 21) A pretty heartbreaking scene where upon reuniting with his daughter Calliope, Kratos is forced to abandon her to save the world. The scene where he must push his daughter away is made even more tragic as it is interactive, forcing the player to mash on the circle button to ditch poor Calliope as she tries to hold on to her beloved monster of a father.
 * 22) *If that wasn't bad enough, Kratos' actions causes him to be permanently banned from Elysium and thus will never be able to see Calliope again, even after he dies.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Persephone is the worst villain of the series. She could have succeeded her plans easily if she didn't tell Kratos important information about her plans (he never had a clue Persephone was the one behind the events). What's more annoying is she decided to pick up Kratos after he was falling due to Atlas' attack and throw him to her arena instead of letting him fall to his death and she did the same mistake again after Kratos chained Atlas using Zeus' gauntlet instead of letting him fall.
 * 2) Ass Pull: The game builds up Morpheus as the villain for most of the game, then you meet Persephone, and five minutes later, out of nowhere it's revealed that she's behind everything.
 * 3) The game is the shortest in the franchise with it being 1/3 of the length of a typical GoW game.
 * 4) Some framerate issues in the game, fortunately it's only in the cutscenes and in the PSP version.
 * 5) The game is lacking in some areas where the other games didn't.
 * 6) *Other than Zeus' gauntlet, you don't get any more sub-weapons unlike in God of War 2.
 * 7) *This game has no rage mechanic or something similar to it. In fact, this is the only God of War game to not feature such mechanic.
 * 8) *The number of costumes is pretty limited compared to other entries.
 * 9) *There are only four bosses in the game. Although, this is likely due to the hardware.

Reception
God of War: Chains of Olympus received "universal acclaim", according to review aggregator Metacritic, achieving the highest composite score for a PlayStation Portable title. The game was praised for its graphics and presentation. Matt Leone of 1UP claimed Chains of Olympus is "a technical showpiece for Sony, and arguably the best-looking game on the system."

Several reviewers praised Ready at Dawn's solution for the controls and gameplay. Because the PlayStation 2 (PS2) controller has two analog sticks and the PSP only has one, GamePro stated "the lack of a second analog stick could have been problematic but it's not." Modojo.com similarly stated that despite the lack of a second analog stick, "Kratos handles superbly on the PSP" and that the weapon and magic attacks are "mapped out perfectly around the PSP's control set-up." IGN's Chris Roper even claimed the control scheme "works better than on the PS2." Roper further claimed that Ready at Dawn "has done a stellar job of keeping Kratos' move set intact," stating that "combat is extremely responsive." Matt Leone of 1UP similarly praised developers solution for the control scheme as well as the game's "fantastic" pacing. However, GamePro criticized the relative lack of variety in enemies. The puzzles were criticized, and G4 claimed that some "are so maddeningly difficult to solve", while GameSpot's Aaron Thomas noted the lack of puzzles, claiming that it "could have used more". GamePro also criticized the fact that "You still have to lug boxes around to solve environmental puzzles". Kristan Reed of Eurogamer also criticized Ready at Dawn for cutting some puzzles, as well as cutting co-op play, multiplayer, dialogue, and characters.

GameSpot and IGN criticized the short length and minimal boss fights, although GamePro stated that it has "the same epic feel" as the previous installments and claimed that if it was the only God of War title, "it would still stand on its own merits." Cheat Code Central claimed Chains of Olympus is "one of the best games ever made for the PSP." They claimed that it is "definitely a must-buy game for all current fans" and that it "has everything you've come to expect from God of War, just in a little disc and on a smaller screen." GameTrailers went on to praise the replay value for being able to "bring your powered-up methods of destruction with you."

Awards and accolades
In IGN's Best of 2008 Awards, Chains of Olympus received the awards for "Best PSP Action Game", "Best Graphics Technology", and "Best Use of Sound". In GameSpot's Best Games of 2008, it received the "Readers' Choice Award". Diehard GameFAN awarded it "Best PSP Game" for 2008. At the 2008 Spike Video Game Awards, it was a nominee for "Best Handheld Game". It was Metacritic's 2008 "PSP Game of the Year". In September 2010, GamePro named God of War: Chains of Olympus the best PSP game.

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