Ready At Dawn News

What starts out as a pretty slow, actually not so funny take on God of War Chains of Olympus, turns to typical gold after Yahtzee seems to find his stride and knocks it out of the park again and again... as usual.

The Escapist

Ready at Dawn certainly achieved their goals, but they didn't do so without a bit of stumbling.

Loved:
Channeling God of War: This pocket-sized God of War is an amazing reproduction of the big screen version. Everything from the epic scope of the backdrop, to over-the-top battles, to the hidden sex mini-games is packed into this excellent title.
Pacing: As with the original, Chains of Olympus keeps you enthralled with a storyline you care about and the perfectly paced blending of battles and puzzle solving.
Graphics: Miniaturized, Kratos is just as much a bad-ass as he was in the original games. The detail of animation is at times awe-inspiring, and the character design at times almost surpasses the first two in the franchise.
Controls: With the exception of a few quick-time boss battle kills, the controls are flawless, allowing you to hammer out 40 to 50-chain attacks on a screen full of enemies.
Weapons: From the Gauntlets of Zeus to Kratos' mainstay Blades of Chaos, the portable God of War comes packed with an amazing selection of boostable weapons, a half dozen all told.
Bonus Material: While the game's five hours or so of campaign play was more than enough to satisfy my God of War bloodlust, it's nice that the game also includes five challenges that unlock silly bonus material, like being able to play as Kratos in a dress, and a God difficulty.
Addictive: Because of the vagaries of early builds and demos, I managed to play through chunks of Chains of Olympus three to four times, and it never got old. In fact, I had a lot of trouble putting it down. It's rare that a game gets its claws into me so deep. Even rarer that it would be on the PSP.

Hated
The Thumbstick: There are a number of big monster, quick time event kills in which you have to do timed swirls with the thumbstick and often it just doesn't register. There's nothing as annoying as failing in a boss battle or creature fight because of the hardware.
Save Points: There are a couple of unforgivable save points in the game. Why on earth would you put a save point right before the unskippable cut-scene that introduces an incredibly hard boss battle?
Story: This prequel to the original God of War has a wonderful, potentially emotional plot marred by disjointed delivery. There are moments in the game that could have truly touched gamers, but felt too forced to work.

God of War: Chains of Olympus delivers more to the Playstation Portable than I thought was possible. The game is nearly flawless in its production value and what minor issues it does have has more to do with the irritating difficulty than any real design flaws. My only disappointment lies in the story, which had such great potential for evocative gaming, but never fully delivers.

Set aside a chunk of one day to sit down and enjoy this experience uninterrupted from beginning to end. If I could only buy one game for the PSP, this would be it.

God of War: Chains of Olympus, developed by Ready at Dawn, published by SCEA, released March 4, for $40. Available on Playstation Portable, played to completion.

If you didn't get the free Demo on UMD when it came out, you can still grab it directly over on the Playstation Store. I point this out because the downloadable demo isn't exactly easy to find and some of you may not have realized it's out there.

God of War: Chains of Olympus Demo [PS Story, thanks Brad]

The RAD team also says that after a short, post game launching break, they'll be working on new projects that aren't for the PSP, with Chains of Olympus being their "last PSP game." What's next? "Other projects and other ideas on other consoles" is all they'll say. Who wants to make some guesses?

Two Rumors, One Stone [Ready At Dawn]

Considering rumors are pointing to a 2009 ship date for God of War III and Sony has a habit of showing these games a year (or more) in advance, we'd say that if you want a Kratos fix in 2008, it's probably going to be on UMD.

God of War III Ad [IGN]

The bundle ships, as we said earlier, in June for $199.99. For a look at the reverse side, with a lovely Kratos silkscreen, keep on clickin'.

Oh, I'm absolutely bringing this thing to my next threesome. (Just kidding, honey!)

The God of War package will come bundled with God of War: Chains of Olympus, a UMD version of the hit comedy Superbad as well as a gift certificate for a PlayStation Store downloadable game. Pricing is said to be set at $199.

Note: The image shown was one we created and does not depict the final color of the PSP.
Note 2: Turns out we were pretty damn close, here's the first look at the new PSP.

[Thanks, Cadaverine]

Here's something you should've seen coming a mile away—a nipple-filled threesome mini-game in Ready At Dawn's PSP title God of War: Chains of Olympus. Outside of a polygonal pair of boobs, don't expect much more than a suggestive candle-as-phallus bobbing about on a crate, occasionally ejaculating hot wax. Suffice it to say, it's not safe for work, if only for the banging and moaning sounds, but mostly for the digital ta-tas.

I just played through the short, but rather sweet God of War Chains of Olympus demo being shipped out to fans of the game and the PSP.

The Battle of Attica gives you a taste of what to expect from the game when the full version hits the portable next year. And from what I saw, it looks like a game that mostly lives up to the God of War name. The pacing of the game remains frenetic, but not so over the top as to be exhausting.

The game still manages to deliver the sort of heft in both movement and actions that make you feel like your watching and controlling something real. While the attacks from the console versions of the game to be mostly intact, I was disappointed to see a bit too much repetition in some of the animations. The straight grab attack, for instance always delivered the same couple of second scene that grew tiresome over the short length of the demo.

The boss battles, there are two included in the demo, are again very reminiscent of the console versions of the game. You have to carefully wear down your opponent while avoiding damage until you get them to the point that you can jump into a animated death scene that is moved along by following a series of on-screen button prompts.

While the animation is still quite nice, it does appear that the PSP doesn't quite have the oomph to deliver the goods on the last boss's death. I liked what they were going for, but the graphics didn't quite match up with the concept, I suspect.

The demo includes enough of a mix of boss battles, very simple puzzles and fighting to, I believe, give you a sense of what to expect from the game. And what I come away with is that Chains of Olympus is going to be a nice addition to the God of War franchise. One that hits all of the notes, but doesn't try to change the tune. And that's fine. It would have been nice to see a bit more innovation edge into this production, and maybe we will come the release of the end product, but that's not necessary to ensure that the game will be well received and fun to play.

PSP owners will have to make do with the UMD demo shipping later this month. More details on that tasty little bonus are available at Gamespot.

Chains of Olympus breaking March 4 [Gamespot]

As we've heard, this new game is somewhat of a prequel, focusing on the life of Kratos when he was a soldier under Ares. The title will be story and script driven with the script being written by the authors of the original two games. In fact, the developers claim this to be the best storytelling of the series. It doesn't hurt either that the graphics look just as nice as either of the previous titles.

There has been no skimping in Kratos' move to the PSP. The game was made to be a God of War game first and a PSP game second. the controls will be very similar and just because there are less buttons on the PSP does not mean there will be less control over the game. The game engine will be based on the same one used for Daxter but has been completely rewritten to accommodate God of War's robust framework. New weapons and new magic skills will also be introduced although exactly what they were was rather vague. Most of the original voice actors will be returning to lend their talents including (as I'm sure you know by now) my favorite, the inimitable Linda Hunt as the voice of the narrator.

It was confrmed that GoW:COO will be an M rated title (big surprise) and while no solid release date has been set, it will be coming out in Q4 of Sony's fiscal year.

It's no easy task bringing God of War to the PSP. Fans have come to expect these huge landscapes, complex gameplay and visceral combat that God of War I and II gave them. To bring that same experience on the PSP, we are pushing the hardware further than ever before. We're really pleased with what we have so far, but we're not done yet. We still have a few tricks up our sleeves. I'm also really proud of the story of Chains of Olympus and I can assure you that there'll be some mind bending puzzles in there for you guys.

Next up, Justin Murray, the concept and texture artist, who talks about this dandy bit of concept art below the post.

I based this design on an olive tree because I thought it had an interesting texture that worked well with the character of my concept, giving the tree a tumor-like surface and distorting its massive form made it appear even more like a petrified monster. The scarred ground surrounding the base of this monstrosity was designed to look like it had punched itself up from the depths of the earth.

Barlog's first entry on the official PlayStation.Blog hints that we'll be seeing more of the game at E3. Michael McWhertor

Inside the Developers Studio: Follow-up; Cory Barlog [PlayStation.Blog]

UPDATE: Didier Malenfant just contacted us with additional clarification on God of War: Chains of Olympus. Details after the jump.

Didier writes:

Just read your update regarding "GoW: Chains of Olympus" and Cory's comments.

Unfortunately this is completely incorrect and I want to make sure the rumors don't start getting out of control.

EVERYTHING that was shown of "GoW: Chains of Olympus" so far was runing at 222Mhz like everyone else. We are planning on having the final game run at 333Mhz but this likely won't be just to improve the graphics which we think are already pretty awesome.

Cory also makes a joke in his post about 1080p on PSP. This, ironically, is not a joke at all. We ARE able to render the game at 1080p if we want to thanks to a feature of the 2.0 version our engine. It doesn't run in real-time but the results look awesome, even with the assets we built for the regular screen size.

Look for a post shortly on our web site to address out the confusion on the CPU speed issue.

So, while God of War: Chains of Olympus will ultimately take advantage of the improved clock speed, it appears that Ready At Dawn's previously shown work is that much more impressive now.

Thanks for the Barlog-to-Kotaku translation, Didier! I guess what they say about when one assumes is true after all.

Ru Weerasuriya, one of Ready at Dawn Studios' founders, was introduced by Cory Barlog during this week's Gamers Day. Weerasuriya explained why it was that a development team that had just hit a grand slam with Daxter for the PSP, decided not to make a sequel.

He said the entire team was fascinated with God of War and decided to pitch a PSP version to SCEA. Not surprisingly, SCEA liked the idea. The PSP game takes place before the events of the original God of War in those ten years following the murder of Kratos' family and the storyline is very much tied to the other two games.

The PSP version, Weerasuriya promises, will have solid graphics that match up with the PS2 games, lots of puzzles and plenty of new places to explore.

Later on, after the presentations were all over, I had a chance to talk to Weerasuriya about the game. He said he's pretty happy with the way it's shaping up. He also said that Daxter 2 for the PSP is most certainly not out of the question.

From what I saw of Chains of Olympus (they weren't letting us play it), the game has the same look and feel of the PS2 games, which is, I would guess, exactly what most of us want.

Hit the jump for the presser and a play video. Brian Crecente

God of War : Chains of Olympus
FACT SHEET

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.
Developer: Ready At Dawn Studios
Platform: PSP (PlayStation Portable) handheld entertainment system
Genre: Action-Adventure
Players: Single-player
Launch Date: Holiday 2007
ESRB Rating: "RP" for Rating Pending

OVERVIEW
In 2005, Sony Computer Entertainment America's Santa Monica Studios introduced
God of War , which many publications considered the best videogame of 2005 with over a dozen "Game of the Year Awards." Then in Spring 2007, the original award-winning development team introduced God of War II, the second chapter of this sprawling odyssey that went on to receive critical acclaim and with a 94% rating on GameRankings, supported with the following review scores from leading gaming media outlets: IGN - 9.7, GameSpy - 5/5, 1up - 9.5/10, Gamezone - 9.5/10, GameInformer - 9.75/10, and GamePro - 5/5, and spurred more than one million retail orders prior to launch.

Now, from the creative team that brought you the Daxter on the PSP (PlayStation Portable) handheld entertainment system, Santa Ana-based Ready At Dawn Studios and Sony Computer Entertainment America's Santa Monica Studios bring you God of War : Chains of Olympus for the PSP system. Developed from the outset as an original story, God of War: Chains of Olympus delivers highly detailed graphics, incredible animation detail and yet another adventure in the dark and brutal world of Greek mythology that fans of the God of War franchise have come to know and love.

STORYLINE
In God of War, Kratos, after being deceived into killing his wife and daughter, denounced his service to Ares. In order to seek absolution from his past sins, the Ghost of Sparta pledged himself as a champion to the Gods for the years to follow - these brutal crusades, in the name of
Olympus, became legendary throughout the ancient world.

In God of War: Chains of Olympus, Kratos will journey to lands that no mortal has ever walked upon. With the world plunged in eternal darkness and the Gods rendered powerless, Kratos will face the most feared creatures of Greek Mythology, and ultimately be forced to choose between his own personal redemption and saving the ancient world from certain destruction.

KEY FEATURES
Epic Gameplay on the PSP system: Keeping true to the God of War franchise, experience dramatic camera angles and epic set pieces, offering a never before seen experience on the PSP system.

Mythological Odyssey: This story is set in a time before the events of God of War, where players will experience Kratos' journey during the 10yrs of servitude to the Gods of Olympus.

All New Combat Moves: Players can utilize new brutal combat moves along with their favorite combo attacks from the God of War franchise.

Exploration: From the Gates of Hades to the Depths of Tartarus, the journey will take players through the dark and brutal world of Greek Mythology. Face-off against all new creatures from Greek Mythology and engage in epic boss battles.

Puzzle Solving: As players explore the ancient world, prepare to navigate through a labyrinth of challenging puzzles inter-woven into the story.

Critically-Acclaimed Franchise: Brought to you by two award-winning development teams, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Santa Monica Studios and Ready At Dawn Studios.

God of War Chains of Olympus, it turns out, is a PSP game afterall. According to the Isle of Rhodes website the game will take place before GoW and GoW 2, or at least that's what I think this is saying:

"The Ancient world speaks of a mortal that slayed a god. But long before his battle with Ares, Kratos sought absolution from his past sins by pledging himself as a champion to the gods. These brutal crusades in the name of Olympus became legendary."

It sounds like were going Hercules on this prequel. Can't wait. And it looks like I won't have to for very long, at least for the demo. SCEA is offering up a free special edition UMD demo of the game on the new site. Brian Crecente

Chains of Olympus