Ready at Dawn turn back the clock to deliver a stirring prologue to Krato’s story
Format: PSP Dev: Ready at Dawn Pub: Sony Out: 05/11/10 Players: 1
There is always one commonly used adjective in reviews: an ideal get-out clause for those of us who face the inevitable writers block and need a quick word to sum up a game’s characteristic. However, it has come to my attention that it is sometimes used inappropriately, for games that aren’t this at all.
So allow me to dissipate some of the confusion around this by putting such a word to a game that manages to pack massive vistas illustrated perfectly by swooping camera angles, while maintaining absolute ferocity in beautiful combat sections, all on a portable games console. God of War: Ghost of Sparta is epic. In every sense of the word.
The miniaturisation of such an experience shouldn’t work, but it does… 95 per cent of the time. The first thing you’ve got to give credit to is the sheer beauty of it all. This is one hell of a good-looking game, bringing all the huge scenarios and visceral combat to life with high quality animation that comes close to matching that which is seen in the cutscenes.
Bellowing orchestras and high ranging choirs strike in full crescendo as you conquer your enemies to very meaty sounding sword strikes and the juicy sound of blood pouring across the screen. Yep, I think we can call that epic also.
Gameplay is almost exactly what you’d come to expect from its console counterpart. No compromises have been made to the game’s design in the face of the PSP, its merely God of War pint-sized, just how it’s predecessor should’ve been. Button layout will be instantly familiar to veterans of the series, and yet also easy for newcomers to dive into, and game interaction is razor quick and has no lag between button press and character movement.
The flaw in the game, no matter how minimal is still easily recognisable, and that is the difficulty of the game. Compared to all other titles within the series, this one is just too simple. It would be acceptable criticism if you place it within the context of the PSP and say it was the game’s first perusal into the portable space, but the same developer got it right with Chains of Olympus. How can they then fluff it up?
Bring it altogether, and we have a game that is epic. A game that tries to be epic a little too much at times, but it makes for one hell of a portable action game.
Jason England
Tags: action, god of war, hack-n-slash, handheld, sony
