E3 2010: Hands on with God of War: Ghost of Sparta on PSP

There's no questioning the excellent action of God of War: Chains of Olympus, which established a high bar for PSP both in terms of presentation and gameplay quality.

That alone immediately makes follow up God of War: Ghost of Sparta an alluring prospect.

Having gone hands on with the game and witnessing the fluid, visceral action and boundary-pushing graphics, I'm happy to say that God of War: Ghost of Sparta could end up reigning supreme as the new PSP benchmark.

Set in the period between the original God of War as released for PlayStation 2 and its direct sequel, Ghost of Sparta revisits the newly minted god of war Kratos in his efforts to deal with some serious emotional baggage.

Having slain his own family and fought with the gods of Olympus, he now finds himself with the powers of a god, yet without any emotional solace. Fighting a new array of mythological enemies and boss monsters is seemingly his only means of catharsis.

Thankfully so because it makes for great gameplay. As in Chains of Olympus, you're able to pull off attacks by pressing the Triangle and Square buttons for heavy and light slashes respectively. Hitting the Circle button while next to an enemy grabs him, after which either Triangle or Square instigates a devastating finisher.

Depending on the weapon you have equipped (yes, there are weapons in addition to the Blades of Chaos), you can even instigate an alternative attack with the R button.

Learning how to manipulate the combo system and defending against enemy attacks will be crucial, if the demo I played was any indication.

Arriving at the shores of the fabled continent of Atlantis, Kratos's ship meets an army of demonic forces that swarm the decks. If that wasn't bad enough, a giant sea creature squeezes the vessel with an array of tentacles to the point of collapse.

What ensues on the stormy shores of Atlantis is an all-out brawl between Kratos and the massive creature. The monster towers over Kratos, seemingly unbeatable. However, whittling away its health with cutting whips from chained blades triggers the beast to a second stage.

It's at this point that it unleashes crab-like enemies that attempt to swarm Kratos. Fail to kill them and they'll jump onto him, prompting you to jam on the two shoulder buttons to throw them off.

After dealing with a couple of waves of these while taking swipes at the big baddie, the third and final stage of the battle commences. Here you continue fighting the creature until a quick-time mini-game icon appears, at which point Kratos uses the anchor of his recently destroyed ship to gut the monster.

While there are new weapons and magical abilities, much of the appeal of God of War: Ghost of Sparta is in re-living action of the first PSP game.

Sony has cultivated a phenomenal series that honestly requires little in the way of tweaking, and developer Ready at Dawn has treated it with such reverence on PSP that it can't be described as anything other than the handheld's best hope for remaining relevant in 2010.