God of War: Chains of Olympus

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God of War: Chains of Olympus
North American box art
Developer(s)	Ready at Dawn Studios
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment Capcom (Japan)[1]
Engine	Proprietary "Ready At Dawn Engine" 2.0[2]
Platform(s)	PlayStation Portable
Release date	JP July 10, 2008 NA March 4, 2008[3] EU March 28, 2008,
Genre(s)	Hack and slash, action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player
Rating(s)	BBFC: 18[4] ESRB: Mature OFLC: MA15+ PEGI: 18+[5]
Media	UMD

God of War: Chains of Olympus is a hack and slash, action-adventure game developed by Ready At Dawn exclusively for the Sony PlayStation Portable. The game is the third title of the God of War video game series and is a prequel set before the original God of War. The game was released on March 4, 2008 in North America and March 28, 2008 in Europe.

This game is the second project developed for the PSP by Ready at Dawn, who was responsible for making Daxter, another handheld spin-off of a console series.^[6]

Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Story 3 Development 3.1 Engine 3.2 Demo 4 Reception 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The gameplay of Chains of Olympus is similar to its predecessors; it is a third-person action adventure game that focuses on gruesome and violent enemy death scenes and protracted boss fights. Also familiar to the series are box-based puzzles and the quick time events that the player can execute to display a close up kill of the enemy. There are fewer tightrope walking sequences in the game that was prominent in previous games of the series.

Kratos still collects red orbs to power up his weapons and abilities. He also collects Gorgon eyeballs to increase his health and Phoenix feathers to increase his magic. The game's controls remain mostly unchanged but because of the PSP's reduced amount of buttons the game uses both shoulder buttons and the analog stick in order to dodge.

God of War's weapons include Kratos's trademark Blades of Chaos, the weapon that was given to Kratos by Ares when Kratos agreed to serve him and the Gauntlet of Zeus, a magical gauntlet that allows Kratos to unleash devastating punches on his opponents. There is also a Sun Shield that Kratos picks that allows him to block most attacks, parry an attack that stun the opponent and also deflect projectiles back at enemies. Kratos also acquires magical spells throughout the game that helps him deal with the amount of enemies he faces. This includes the Efreet spell, which knocks out all nearby enemies, the Light of Dawn, which allows the player to throw balls of light, and Charon's Wrath, which can inflict damage on several enemies.

[edit] Story

Set half way through Kratos' 10 years of Godly service (unlike God of War 1, which is set at the end of the 10 years),^[7] Chains of Olympus begins with the gods sending Kratos to the city of Attica to help defend the city from the invading Persian army. Spotting a basilisk climbing over the city walls, Kratos gives chase through the city. While chasing the basilisk, Kratos confronts the Persian King inside the city and kills him. After defeating the basilisk he witnesses the sun fall from the sky, plunging the world in darkness. Following the dim remaining light on the horizon, Kratos fights his way through the city of Marathon, along the way encountering the black fog of Morpheus which now covers the land in darkness.

Eventually Kratos makes his way to Temple of Helios (source of the remaining light) and the Sun chariot. He encounters a statue of Athena who tells him that Helios has disappeared and Morpheus uses this to his advantage using the absence of the sun to cause the gods to fall "into a deep slumber." Athena wants Kratos to retrieve Helios so he can release Morpheus' grasp on the other gods and his power over the Earth. Along the way, Kratos is haunted by a strange melody, which he later recognizes as the song of his daughter Calliope. Kratos fights his way through the Temple of Helios and is sent to the caves within the temple of Olympus by Eos. Meeting her in the caves, she tells Kratos that she will guarantee the gods promise of relieving him from his nightmares if he will help her save Helios from the Titan Atlas. Kratos does not believe her (having been lied to by the Gods before) however he reluctantly agrees to help save Helios. Kratos then retrieves the primordial fire needed to awaken the fire steeds from the cave and returns to the temple.

After restoring the fire steeds back to life, the horses lead Kratos into the underworld. There he meets Charon on his ferry in the river Styx. Denying Kratos passage, they fight before Charon knocks Kratos unconscious and broken chains of Atlas in the pits of Tartarus, Kratos eventually fights and climbs his way out of Tartarus, this time defeating Charon. He takes the ferry and follows the light of Helios (currently illuminating the underworld) down the river Styx eventually coming upon the Temple of Persephone. He sees his daughter Calliope on the shorelines of the temple and follows her inside. Unable to find her, instead he meets Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.

Persephone tells Kratos that Calliope is in the fields of Elysium and that the only way to see her again is for Kratos to "release" all of his past evils and become worthy of Elysium, giving up his powers given to him by the gods. After transferring his power into the Forsaken Tree, Persephone reveals to Kratos her true plans.

Bitter at being betrayed by Zeus and being tricked by Hades, Persephone was the one who had freed Atlas. While Kratos was disarming himself Atlas was slowly carrying out her plan to destroy the pillar that holds the world, and with it, Olympus. Persephone plans to kill everyone, including herself, to free her from her situation. Kratos realizes now that if he stays with his daughter it would mean the end of the world for everyone including Calliope and himself. He eventually sacrifices seeing his daughter again in order to regain his power.

Kratos has a final battle against Persephone atop the pillar. After chaining Atlas to the roof of the underworld and sealing his fate, Kratos is able to defeat Persephone and prevent her plans from coming to fruition. He returns Helios to the sky but weak from battle, falls from the sun chariot and crashes on a bluff overlooking the Aegean Sea (the same bluff Kratos would later jump from in God of War I). Athena and Helios talk over Kratos's unconscious body before taking the Gauntlet of Zeus and Sun Shield away from him.

[edit] Development

There was already speculation about the existence of the game when in early February 2007 Ready At Dawn posted a teaser for an upcoming PSP title with the words "Coming Soon" using the font from God of War.^[8]

More information was leaked when an editor from 1UP got an early copy of God of War II and posted the game's instructional manual with a one page teaser for a God of War PSP game that was "Coming 2007."^[9][10]

At the God of War II launch event on March 13, 2007 at the Metreon, God of War II director Cory Barlog officially confirmed the existence of a PSP God of War game in development. "It is its own story that connects to the overall story. God of War, God of War II, and then if all the stars align God of War III will be the telling of a trilogy. This PSP story will be a further fleshing out."^[11]

The game had already been in the development stages just before the completion of Daxter. Ready At Dawn pitched the idea of a God of War game for the PSP to SCEA's Santa Monica Studios.^[12]

In an interview after the game was completed, director Ru Weerasuriya stated that several things had to be cut from the game given time constraints. These included multiplayer and co-op aspects as well as other puzzles, characters and dialogue.^[13]

An initial teaser trailer for Chains of Olympus was released on April 25, 2007 coinciding with the announcement of a UMD demo.^[14] The trailer depicts Kratos in a couple of areas, mainly the city of Attica, showing a fleet of ships in the background. The Titan Gaia (voiced by Linda Hunt^[7]) narrates the trailer.

[edit] Engine

God of War: Chains of Olympus uses a proprietary, in-house engine referred to as the Ready at Dawn engine. Their work has expanded on the engine they had created for Daxter while additionally including a fluid and cloth simulator.^[13] The lighting system was redone in order to match the increase in the realistic graphics.^[15] The camera system in the engine had to be heavily modified in order to change from the free camera aspect for Daxter into the fixed cinematic camera for God of War.^[13]

The game was originally designed for the PSP's restricted 222 MHz processor. Ready at Dawn had repeatedly asked Sony about increasing the clock speed of the PSP because of the difference it made to the game and had actually developed a version of the game with the improved speed.^[16] During the middle of game's development, Sony released a new firmware upgrade that allowed games to use the full 333 MHz processor on the PSP. Improvements with the faster processor allowed for more realistic blood effects, lighting effects and shadows as well as improved enemy intelligence.^[17][16]

[edit] Demo

The game was scheduled to be released during the fourth quarter of 2007,^[18] but the release date was pushed back to March 4, 2008.^[3] Because of the delay, Ready At Dawn Studios instead offered to those who had already signed up for a playable UMD demo a "special edition" version of the demo.^[3] One developer from Ready at Dawn has stated that this demo took up to 40% of the team's production time. ^[15]

The demo was released on September 27, 2007 officially titled God of War: Chains of Olympus – Special edition: Battle of Attica. In the demo, Kratos faces off against a number of Persian soldiers and a giant Basilisk, who is the first boss Kratos has to battle. The demo progresses through the city of Attica as Kratos chases down the Basilisk, ending with Kratos fighting the Persian King. ^[19] The disc also includes a developer video that commentates on a play through of the demo as well as a lanyard in the shape of the Greek letter Omega. Since the UMD demo's release, a downloadable demo has been made available through the North American PlayStation store.

Shortly after the release of the demo, Ready at Dawn also decided to send users who signed up for the demo a song titled, "Battle of Attica." Composer Gerard Marino has stated that this was the first cue written for the game basing it on concept art and screenshots of the game.^[20]

[edit] Reception

Reviews
Publication	Score
1UP.com	9.5/10[21]
Allgame	4.5/5[22]
Edge	7/10[23]
Electronic Gaming Monthly	9.4/10
Game Informer	9/10 [21]
GamePro	4.75/5[21]
IGN	9.4/10[21]
X-Play	5/5[24]
Compilations of multiple reviews
Compiler	Score
Metacritic	91[25]
Game Rankings	91[26]

God of War: Chains of Olympus has displaced Lumines as the highest composite score for a PSP title on both Metacritic^[27] and GameRankings^[26]. The game received an average score of 91% based on 73 reviews on the review aggregator Game Rankings^[26], and an average score of 91 out of 100 based on 72 reviews on Metacritic.^[25]

IGN gave the game a score 9.4/10, citing its unprecedented graphical achievements and improved control scheme.^[28] Similarly, GamePro rated Chains of Olympus 4.75/5 praising the game's "fantastic" graphics and "tight and responsive" controls. The review criticized the game's relative lack of variety in enemies and the fact that, "You still have to lug boxes around to solve environmental puzzles." The reviewer still concluded that, "Chains of Olympus is the best PSP game yet."^[29] 1UP.com gave the game an A saying, "as a God of War game, Chains of Olympus is slightly lacking, but as a PSP game it's fantastic, and as a technological achievement it's off-the-charts phenomenal."^[30] X-play has given the game a perfect 5 out of 5, making only the second PSP game (after Lumines) to get a perfect score from that publication. The game has sold 340,500 copies in the first month it came out.^[31]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Website
• GodofWar.com
• Island of Rhodes
• God of War: Chains of Olympus at the Open Directory Project

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