Developed as a joint effort between Sony Santa Monica Studios and Ready At Dawn, God of War: Ghost of Sparta is the second title in the God of War franchise on the platform. Ready At Dawn’s first title, God of War: Chains of Olympus showed us that the PSP was a capable platform indeed, the sound and visuals being particularly impressive for a portable game. Chains of Olympus is also considered one of the best on the platform, so the developers had to go all out to make its successor even better than the first game. Well, did they manage to? Is Chains of Olympus yet another sequel released this year that manages to surpass its predecessor in every conceivable way, or is it simply just another ‘made-for-PSP’ compromise that gamers have to live with? Read on to find out.
The events of Ghost of Sparta take place following the conclusion of the first God of War game. Kratos kills Ares and takes his place as the God of War on Mount Olympus, but despite that job sounding cushy, Kratos seeks both vengeance and knowledge... knowledge of his past. He is haunted by
visions, not of his dead wife and child, but of his brother, Deimos, whom Zeus and Ares abducted and tortured, believing him to be the ‘marked warrior’ who will bring about the utter destruction of Olympus according to a prophecy. We all know that Kratos is a ‘hands-on’ kind of guy, opting to get down and dirty himself, so he chooses to explore his past against the advice of Athena. The story takes Kratos through locations that you would expect to see in a God of War game, with a large portion of it taking place in the underwater city of Atlantis. The game also sees Kratos journeying back to Sparta and the Temple of Ares. Through his journey, there’s a lot of vengeance-unleashing death that is rained upon all those who dare to stand in his way, or happen to be taking a stroll in the surrounding areas. Expect epic boss battles, old school hack-and-slash featuring gratuitous violence and the odd jumping puzzle — stuff that fans of the franchise will never tire of.
The narrative itself is solid, packed with tight voice-acting and cutscenes that nicely fill the gaps in the frantic action sections. It was always going to be hard to fill in the gaps between the story, but Ghost of Sparta does so admirably. The flashback scenes give us a sense of Kratos’ past, a lot of which was left unexplored in other games. The game-carrying vengeance theme is all but ubiquitous once again, and this is a good thing, for we would have no Kratos if he wasn’t pissed off with everything and everyone.
Gameplay remains identical to previous God of War games. The hack-and-slash
mechanics remain unchanged, as do quick time events, environmental puzzles and magic attacks, but there’s some new stuff as well. Most notably, Kratos can now combat-rush his enemies, an attack that is similar to a Rugby tackle, the only difference being the limb-tearing, pummelling and tossing-without-regard that often follows the tackle. ‘Thera’s Bane’ is a neat attack as well, adding fire to Kratos’ Blades of Athena weapon. The fire damage caused is substantially more than your regular attack and is capable of dispatching foes swiftly. There’s also a ranged weapon in the form of a spear (accompanied by a shield), but this hardly does any damage — the only use I could find for it was to get rid of pesky archers. Combat tactics are pretty important as well and there is always the ‘best’ way to get rid of a particular enemy-type, and Ghost of Sparta can be quite unforgiving to players who mash buttons mindlessly. Overall, the combat is solid and sports a fairly reasonable number of additions that make the gameplay feel less repetitive.
Like its predecessor, Ghost of Sparta sports superb production values. The visuals are great for a portable game, audio is fantastic and the presentation is also top-notch. However, the PSP’s age has begun to show. The disparity in terms of visual fidelity and processing power between the PSP and Sony’s current-gen console, the PS3, is huge. Having played God of War III on the PS3, it was probably unfair of me to have had a lot of expectations for Ghost of Sparta, but I did and was disappointed in the process. The game is probably one of the best I’ve played on a PSP and spraining my wrists mashing buttons was probably entirely justified, but I wanted more... more than the PSP was
capable of giving. Sony, it’s time to release the PSP 2. Seriously.
Verdict: 8/10
Thanks to great production values, epic battles and a solid story, Ghost of Sparta pushes the PSP to its limit. While the game itself is fantastic, the platform is in serious need of reinvention.
— videep@gmail.com
