It's quite inconceivable.

That is, trying to compress the blood, grit, violence and adventurous scope of a series like 'God of War' onto a handheld device.

In fact, one could almost forgive Ready at Dawn in advance for making a complete stuff up of this task.

And yet, if ever there was a handheld gaming device that could pull this off as a platform, it would be the PlayStation Portable — a fact that Ready at Dawn took full advantage of.

So let me put your anxious minds at ease: if you enjoyed any of its predecessors on the PSP's larger cousin, then you'll enjoy 'God of War: Chains of Olympus'.

The game's events take place 10 years before those of the first 'God of War', seeing Kratos doing Olympus' bidding in his normal violent and begrudging fashion, all the way from a Persian city into Hades and back. Story-wise you might lose the plot here and there, but the story was never why you'd play this franchise anyway.

'Chains of Olympus' is extremely easy to get into. The controls are easy to learn, with superb button mapping. There's no trying to figure out what to do or wading through an irritating tutorial before you can get your hands bloody, nor is there any loading times whatsoever — you simply begin to kill right away and don't let up.

Visually, 'Chains of Olympus' is easily one of the best-looking PSP games around, although it lacks realism here and there. Of course, one cannot compare it to its PS2 predecessors, but certain elemental scenes and character modulation could have been done better.

But once you get into the action, the atmosphere is palpable. Swinging, jumping and cutting his way through enemies, Kratos moves in a ballet of violence — just the way we've gotten to know him.

As great as the game plays though, it's not without faults.

Standing out painfully is the camera angle. Although there's no getting stuck in corners at a weird angle with 'Chains of Olympus', what is excruciating is the way in which the camera doesn't swing around to follow Kratos when he runs back the way he came from. It's illogical in the extreme and you'll often end up running blindly towards the edge of the screen, only to be klapped by one of Hades' cretins.

It's seriously frustrating.

Another gripe is that there's no multiplayer play and the single player campaign is slightly on the short side at about eight hours. To be fair though, it's quite a bit for the PSP.

As is the case with the first two games in the series, 'Chains of Olympus' is violent. It does come across as seemingly toned down because of the small size of the screen, but it's still plenty violent and contains plenty demonic content.

And then there's the usual nudity and the sex mini-games — something that I've never fully understood the need for, nor the lack of controversy surrounding it compared to say the 'Hot Coffee' scandal. Some would call it a selling point for the game, but the game would not have been worse off without it.

Parents need to take note of this as 'Chains of Olympus' carries an 18+ age restriction for a very good reason.

For a game that had so much going against it, what with trying to recreate the epic scope of the series on a handheld platform, 'God of War: Chains of Olympus' succeeds beautifully, even though the nudity, sex and demonic content is lamentable.

It's not 'God of War 3', but it sure does set the scene for it nicely.