If you love the smell of "locker room," in other words, you'll probably love God of War: Chains of Olympus, a portable prequel to the original God of War for the PlayStation 2. It concerns a Spartan warrior named Kratos who's given himself in service to Ares, the Greek god of war, in exchange for the power to defeat various barbarian hordes. The two series games for the PlayStation 2 cover Kratos' subsequent war against Ares and ascent to godhood, while the PSP pops back a decade—in the midst of his servitude—to cover a run-in with Morpheus, the god of dreams, who's put the gods to sleep and intends to plunge the world into darkness. Your job is to free the sun god Helios, who will then presumably toast Morpheus' backstabbing backside.

To accomplish this, you guide Kratos through several above- and below-ground levels, dispatching enemies, battling titanic end-level creatures and solving logic puzzles of the push-and-pull sort. Hewing closely to the original God of War, Kratos can jump, climb, swim and move objects around, and he comes with an arsenal of combos and magical abilities that can be extended or leveled up by collecting orbs and other items from chests and random breakable objects. Occasionally button icons flash onscreen, usually toward the end of a battle, at which point you have to tap them quickly and accurately to deliver the flamboyant coup de grace.

Chains of pithiness

To be perfectly honest, Chains of Olympus doesn't do much for the God of War mythos. It's roughly half the game the original God of War was—you could beat the original in 10 hours flat—and it adds nothing new to the functional play experience. You walk into rooms, beat down enemies, tackle large "boss" monsters that look vaguely like creatures out of Greek mythology and occasionally pause to suss out puzzles involving things like twisting levers, beams of light and enormous grinding blocks of marble.

On the other hand, the PSP's never seen a game that looked this good, thanks at least in part to a performance-boosting firmware update, courtesy of Sony, that allowed developer Ready at Dawn to boost stuff like lighting and shadows. As such, it's quite a showpiece for the three-year-old PSP, and since it's also a genuinely solid action-adventure, fans of the series or anyone who doesn't mind paying extra for what feels like half a game shouldn't hesitate to pick it up.

Before I grumble about the length, let's talk about what the portable version does well. For starters, it gets the fixed (but moving-with-you) view angles spot-on. Not once did my hands crave a free-floating and panning option. Kudos to Ready at Dawn for making the first 3-D hack-and-slash that's officially silenced my twitchy cameraman's fingers. Let's hear it (literally) for the music as well. Take a bow, Chuck Doud (the game's musical director), Chains of Olympus gets my vote for cross-platform soundtrack of the year (so far, anyway). And while the levels and puzzles all feel a smidgen familiar, I'd be remiss not to recognize them as on par with any in the main series. Every room feels battle-ready, every pathway fastidiously detailed and intriguing.

The downsides? Not show-stopping, but notable. The sex minigames, for instance, are incredibly silly and, unless you're a male adolescent, maybe even a little insulting. I'm all for sex in games, but how about a little more aesthetic intrigue and less with the towel-snapping puerility? That aside, it's impossible not to be disappointed with the game's astonishing brevity. It's almost like Sony got its demographic signals crossed. Casual gamers (mostly female) won't be interested in the subject matter, while the franchise's hardcore fanbase (mostly male) are going to grouse after swinging through it in a casual afternoon. Let's face it, a God of War game isn't Peggle. There's no (good) reason the PSP version shouldn't have been twice as content-packed as the original.

Otherwise, if all you've ever wanted was a gorgeous, manly slice of David Jaffe's God of War mythos in totable format, this is it. Graphics wonks, set the rest of your PSP collection aside, because this one's a portable bellwether. While it lasts, anyway.