300: March to Glory [PSP]

What's more, you also have quasi-magical powers which draw from a resource called wrath. As you build up wrath, you have to decide whether to use it on instant-kill attacks, or whether to save it for your battle powers, many of which heal you. As the manual notes, "Spartans don't rely on potions, ointments, or anything of the sort. The only healing instrument of the Spartan is his inner resolve and strength." In other words, there's no futzing around with collectibles or an inventory. 300 is true to itself, and a lean mean fighting game.

The battle against the Persians progresses in a largely seamless sequence of fights. There are attempts at breaking up the action with stealth sequences, boss battles, and trigger point puzzles involving slapping horses, or pulling levers, or taking out distant archers with a spear throw. These are just token interludes, but they never feel like cheap attempts to make the game more difficult. There are also occasional cutscenes, nicely drawn with stylized Frank Miller-esque artwork and written with the appropriate Spartan bluster and trash talking.

It works best as a tie-in to the movie for how it gives you the opportunity to get a better - albeit more modest - look at some of the things that were only glimpsed in the movie. You'll get to kill some of those leaping blade-fingered warriors, the executioner, the primitives with their calf-skin shields, and the grenade throwers, for instance.

You can get through the game in probably about five or six hours, and there's not much incentive to replay it. This march to glory might be short, and it's sometimes awfully low-rent. But if you want your own private Thermopylae, complete with blood, shields, and spears, you'll find it here on your PSP.