God of War needs no introduction to its legions of fans, but for those not aware, it’s one of the most successful franchises as far as PlayStation go. Here, the series portable entries, God of War: Chains of Olympus and God of War: Ghost of Sparta have been ported to PlayStation3. And boy oh boy, they do pack in some punch, with bumped up HS visuals, full stereoscopic 3D support, 5.1 surround sound with DTS support, PS network trophies and the unabashed glee in killing something 12,72,639 times your size with your bare hands. A solid storyline was never a forte of the games in this series. The story, it seems, is merely in place to give a semblance of logic to the mindless button mashing, chronologically. Chains of Olympus takes place before God of War, and Ghost of Sparta takes place before God of War II. Kratos is his usual self-angry, seeking revenge and murdering gods. Although, who gives a hoot about the story as long as you have hordes of baddies to butcher?
That brings us to the villains; we don’t see any variety in the bosses. Nevertheless, everything that Kratos does on screen – be it puncturing a Cyclops’ eye, beheading a Minotaur, strangling a Medusa, de-winging a harpies or harpooning a hoplite – feels epic. There are also some puzzle elements involved, which are reminiscent of Prince of Persia at some level. On the whole, the gameplay is more than satisfactory. Kratos gets a wide arsenal of weapons and magical abilities in both the games, with the Blades of Chaos being used merely when the story or environment expressly calls for them.
Quick-time events feature in both the games and are mandatory as far as bosses are concerned, where once weakened, a prolonged quick-time event will lead to Kratos gutting said foe in a deliciously gruesome manner. A few quirks present with the PSP versions are also ironed out. Dodging or rolling, which earlier required the player to hold down both L1 and R1 and then use the left analog stick, was a tad difficult to grasp. These controls are now mapped to the right analog stick, making game-play a breeze. But one complaint is that we need to make it all the way back to the XMB to switch between games.
Graphics are re-mastered in razor-sharp High Definition for PS3 in 1080P at a comfortable 60fps, but they still let you down in some places. The cut-scenes have also been re-rendered in full HD, which was much needed after the creators had missed doing that in the original God of the War collection. As far as sound goes, Kratos seems to think that everybody he encounters, including us, are absolutely deaf, so he literally shouts out his dialogues. The background score is opera-ish with a focus on vocals and heavy orchestration. Two gods of war games for fewer than 2000 bucks in not a bad deal at all. The added DLC that were released for the original games on PSP and support for PSN trophies are icings on the cake. Each game provides a decent 6-10 hour game-play for and average gamer, which increases after you unlock arenas after completing the game once. God of War fan or not, this game definitely needs to be a part of any self-respecting PS3 gamer’s compendium of gamers.
Author Bio : This post is written by Raj who writes for CasinoClap .
