Joystiq hands-on: God of War: Chains of Olympus

When Sony said they were unleashing the full power of the PSP for God of War, they weren't kidding. God of War: Chains of Olympus plays and looks gorgeous beautiful amazing gorgeutifulzing. The fact that its a hand-held game on a small screen should not turn people off to this title, it's like a normal PS2 game in a little package and there is no denying it gives the full God of War experience. So much so, that before finishing the demo level in the game, we had to hand it off to somebody else or we'd have ripped the PSP out of the station and walked away to play the demo version until the game released this holiday season -- on the bright side, the demo releases this September.

Developer Ready at Dawn has done a great job at capturing the controls of God of War. Thankfully you hardly used the second analog stick (only used for dodging) in the PS2 version, so the PSP's one nubbin along with planned button mashing brings it all together. The animation is smooth -- so very, very smooth. Smooth to the point where we'd almost believe the PS2 GoW titles could hopefully one day come to PSP. All you really need to know about GoW on PSP is that everything you've come to expect from a PS2 version is here. This Kratos ain't watered down and he might even help sell some PSPs. This is a true God of War experience in a hand-held package that no fan can miss.