Once indoors, your situation doesn't improve much. After killing yet more soldiers, a huge Cyclops arrives wielding what can only be described as a massive spiked tree trunk. Only by hammering Circle can you push it away and avoid being squished to a messy pulp.
This being God of War, there are always bigger monsters further up the food chain. Next thing you know, in bursts a whopping great dragon that proceeds to eat the Cyclops and take its place in the boss battle. After trading a few blows you'll trigger one of the familiar button-pressing mini-games, which sees Kratos finish off the dragon by stabbing it in the head with his Blades of Chaos and then slamming its pained, snarling face into the ground. It's an amazing sequence, and this is just the beginning of the game.
Any fears about the slick PS2 controls not transferring well to PSP are unfounded. You still press X to jump, Circle to grab, Square to perform a ground attack and Triangle to launch an aerial attack, and the only differences are that the Left trigger is the special attack modifier and you press the Left and Right triggers together to evade.
We even got to try out two new attacks - a finishing move that starts with a leg sweep and ends with a stomp to the head, and another where you use Kratos's chains to pull an enemy in midair towards you before booting them away like they're on a piece of elastic - it's pretty spectacular.
You'll have gathered by now we absolutely love what we've played so far, and even with six months to go, it looks unbelievably good, pushing PSP harder than any other game. Ready At Dawn knows the PSP inside and out and is creating a God of War title that can hold its own against the PS2 ancestors. This should make the tortuous wait go that little bit quicker.
