Hands On With God Of War: Chains Of Olympus: Special Edition: Battle Of Attica
Well that title has enough colons in it, doesn't it? I think I'm good on colons for about a week now. Anyway, Mr. Postman finally delivered my copy of the special demo disc for God of War: Chains of Olympus, affectionately subtitled "Special Edition: Battle of Attica." It didn't take me but two shakes of a Toots' tail to pop the little bugger into my new PSP Slim and start thwacking away against Persian footmen.
The demo begins with the same scene that earlier, less meaty demos did - fighting the head of a big ol' dragon-type critter who pokes his snout into a room for Kratos to attack. The battle went silky smooth (the same battle was a little sluggish when I played it at Comic-Con), but instead of ending there, carried me through the city of Attica, turning levers and giant crossbows and lifting heavy doors - just the way you'd expect from a God of War game.
Then I was thrown up against a much tougher opponent, the king of Persia himself (who looked nothing like Xerxes from 300, I'm sad to say). With a massive AoE attack and a bottomless supply of goons, the Persian king took more than a few tries to bring down. Finally I settled for the time-honored strategy of jumping and mashing light attacks to keep myself airborne while avoiding the worst of the enemies' blows, while jumping far away whenever the Persian swelled up for his area-of-effect magic attack. When he was finished, no fewer than two familiar minigames spelled his doom - one to end the battle, another after a brief cutscene that ended the king's life.
With the Persian king dead, Kratos absorbed his AoE attack, gaining his first magic attack in the demo, Efrit - swelling like a giant, fiery djinn before smashing his enemies with an omnidirectional blast of fire. One open rampart later and I was kicking down ladders with O and fighting off swarms of Persians while turning a giant crossbow to face the dragon-thing rampaging through Attica. I shot off the enormous arrow, which hit the beast square in the throat - and the demo ended. So soon, so delicious.
Make the jump for controls, the game's fitness for the PSP and more!
Controls for God of War: Chains of Olympus remain very similar to the PS2 games, and work neigh flawlessly on the PSP. Jump with X, grab and destroy enemies with O, while attacking lightly and heavily with the square and triangle buttons, respectively.
Holding the left shoulder button blocks attacks, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a counter mechanic make it into the final game. Holding the right shoulder button and pressing the triangle button executed the Efrit flame attack, which looked beautiful and deadly. Hold both shoulder buttons to dodge.
While the game did take a bit longer to load on the old PSP than the new, which is to be expected, it seems perfectly suited for both a handheld game and the PSP specifically. The graphics are gorgeous and don't stutter even when the screen is filled with dudes and effects, and there's no sense of dumbing-down or oversimplification. Kratos has always been friendly to both button-mashers and players who look for a little more strategy - and have a little more patience. So GoW is everything you'd hope for - immediately playable, quick with the potential for depth when desired, and unreasonably good to look at for any game you can hold in your hand.
Appetite, consider thyself whetted. And since there were relatively few demo discs shipped, this little baby could become something of a collector's item. If you were lucky enough to get one (I only vaguely remember signing up for mine at GameStop), keep it safe!
Ooh, also: there are a number of unlockables in the demo. The only one I managed to snag was a walkthrough of the Battle of Attica with video footage of the game designer - it also looked fantastic on the PSP, and seemed to fit on the handheld better than commentary ever did on a console. Go figure.
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 3 October 2007
· Comments (4)
Other stuff like this: battle of attica, chains of olympus, demo disc, god of war, psp, sony, special edition
Haven't gotten mine. I wonder where they're mailed from...
Damn, I wish I knew about this earlier. You can't get the demo any more. Oh well...
I believe they are going to have a version of the demo available for download.
I have my confirmation email from a while back but still haven't received my UMD.
Yeah. I signed up for the demo WAY back when, and got the confirmation E-mail reminding me that it was on its way. I guess Kratos got lost on the way to Brooklyn. I'd hoped to write up a hands-on impressions article about it, but Tiny beat me to it. Blast him. I always knew Kratos liked him better.
My mailbox is still Kratos-free, Sony... Whudupwidat?