The Princess is in another Castle

Yesterday, a friend brought his PSP to school. I asked him if I could play, and started playing God of War – Chains of Olympus.
I have 5 Words for you.
This. Game. Is. Fucking. Great.
I love hack and slay games, and this one totally make me addicted from the very first second.
The game starts after a short loading period with the main menu. You see Kratos face, and the usual options New Game, Load Game, Settings and Challenges. The first thing I noticed was the bgm . It was simply epic.I couldbt wait to start playing.

After I pressed new game, a short Story-Sequence started, which made me familiar with the basic story of God of War. Then, the game switched smothly from Cinematic to game, where I got to kill some Persians.
And trust me, the Spirit of Sparta, the nickname of Kratos, is not playing Mr. Nice-Guy with his enemies. His two swords were able to cover up the whole screen, and an unhuman amount of blood quickly covered the ground. Eventually, I got tired of using the Chaos Blades, and I used the Circle, button , which is a grab/throw move. Kratos impales the enemy with his sword, or rips them apart. With his bare hands. God of War is not a game for an average pansy. With just a few breaks, you will impale bodies, rip heads off and break necks nonstop.
The controls are easy to get used to. Cross is jump, Circle grabs an enemy. Triangle is a heavy attack, while quare does a normal attack. L and R blocks. If you hold L and R , and push the analog stick in any direction, you will make an evasion move. Holding R and pressing a button will result in using a magic attack. And of course, combos are possible.
After some time, when you get mightier, you will be able to do murderous combos. High combos will give you a lot huge amount of Orbs. Green Orbs recover your life, white ones your magic energy, and red ones are used to upgrade your weapons.
Shortly after the first combat, you will jump down into a building, where a Cyclop jumps in and tries to crush you under a pillow in his hand. In this sequence, you will get used to GoWs unique ATB control. If you grab a strong enemie with Circle, they will not just let you tear them apart, they will struggle and try to counter your attacks. You have to perform an action which is randomly chosen. Press one of the four action buttons, smash L and R very fast, or rotate the control stick clockwise or counterclockwise. Every hand to hand combat gets unique, and it is always a challenge, especially when youre not familiar with the Playstation controller schematic.
So, this Cyclop tries to crush you with his pillow, and to prevent that, you have to press Circle very fast. You prepare for further combat, but a giant Monster (a basilisk) appears and eats the cyclop. Prepare to battle this huge beast. Grab does not work from the start, you have to weaken it first. After you beat 3/4 of his live bar out of his body, the beast gets dizzy, and you can press circle. After another ATB, the beast runs away. However, if you fail, the basilisk will regenerate until 50% life energy and the fight will start again.
When you play this game, prepare yourself to get one thing : infinite action. Sometimes, the gameplay slows down for a puzzle passage.
Every situation is underpinned by a great music. The orchestralic soundtrack really catches you and makes you wanna hear it loud. And I mean, loud.
The sound effects are great to. Every enemy does his own unique sound and battle-cry, and Kratos voice actor did very well, too.
The cutscenes are great. The german translation is very well done. The voice actors do a great job, even though there are a few cutscenes where their acting is just not realistic.
Overall, this game is great. I recommend andy of the Playstation ( Portable ) owners to get GoW. If you dont own a PS2 / PSP, then go and borrow one. Now. Why are you still here?