The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

King's Log: ICO

I keep having to think up these alternative side-logs to indicate that I'm also playing games that do not strictly belong to my project, and the next in line is the King's Log, named after the King Ruler who gave me a couple of his most legally acquired DVD-Rs (he bought them in a store, it's not my fault what he chooses to do with them. I only borrowed the discs!), and this has resulted in me playing one of the most hyped games of the last couple of years, ICO.

Or to be exact, one of the games that was most hyped for not being hyped enough.
Fans of the game keep clamoring that it's wonderful and a real work of art, but I am here to give the final, no nonsense low-down, and definitive opinion on this game, so don't believe anything you read anywhere else.

In ICO, you play as ICO. Think about that sentence, and you'll see it makes perfect sense. And it is your task to keep Yorda, the princess of Light safe from the Monsters of Darkness, and to safely get her out of the Castle of Darkness, free from the clutches of the evil Queen of Darkness.

If you are sensing a pattern of light and darkness, you can advance to reading on a third grade level now. Good for you. What this setting leads to, is your being stuck with a princess alongside you, and you have to safely get her out of the castle, but she is not as nimble as you are, so you'll have to open up alternative routes for her.
Now you might think, "God, not ANOTHER game where you have this stupid bitch tagging along", and you'd be right, cos this has been done WAY too much lately. But this game's from 2001 and I wouldn't be surprised if this game is what started it off in the first place.
And that's understandable, because it does by far the best job at it. Rather than putting you up with a stupid cunt who doesn't know right from left, the creators give you a Princess who's actually pretty smart.

By pressing the R1 button, you can call her to you, and she'll be able to find you no matter where she is, just as long as there's a way for her to safely cross without your help. She can climb most steps, ladders, rocks and such by herself, so your task mainly consists of placing stepping stones in the right place, lowering bridges, opening doors etc. etc.
Press the R1 button when she's next to you, and you'll be able to hold her hand and drag her along, which looks REALLY cool, they did a really good motion capturing job there. The rumble function of the controller will let you feel her heartbeat, and it will shake if you pull on her arm too hard, which I liked to do A LOT, simply because it looked cool. Princess my ass. This is a VERY welcome addition though, because it eliminates the frustration of NPC's getting stuck behind objects and such.

Gameplaywise, the game is most reminiscent of Prince of Persia: Sands of time, even though that game came 3 years later, it is the most accurate comparison I can come up with, and it still disregards the factor of guiding a princess. You have to perform acrobatics, swing along pipes, climb stuff, the works. It's also kinda like Tomb Raider in some ways, mixed in with some elements of Lemmings if that makes any sense.

But what is this bullshit about people clamoring this is a work of art? Well, I'll try to explain. As I said, light and darkness play a big role in this game, and the visual directors of the game decided to make light somewhat of an issue in this game, taking great care in creating really terrific lighting effects. The light in this game is really really bright, lens flare is without a doubt the most realistic I've ever seen and eye-poppingly gorgeous. The bright lights and the kind of surreal environment of a HUGE castle slam in the middle of nowhere on a small island in the sea somewhere create a great, dreamlike atmosphere that absolutely has to be seen to be believed and properly experienced.
There are several areas and scenes in the game that look insanely beautiful, all because of great art direction and level design. Just making great graphics is not enough, this game has the presentation and originality to back it all up.

However, I will say that this game was NOT underhyped at all. Seems to me it got exactly the attention it deserved, because behind the layer of mesmerizing graphics, gorgeous presentation and oodles of atmosphere, there's a game that is not all that special.
Throughout the game, I kept likening it to Prince of Persia, which does a considerably better job at it if you ask me, but this is not a fair comparison, since PoP came 3 years later.
There are some irking elements though, that should have been better.

For one thing, again very much like PoP, there are battles in this game that seem totally out of place. Occasionally (like, after solving every major puzzle, and then some) you will be attacked by Shadowy creatures, which wouldn't be so bad, if the combat system hadn't felt like it was thrown in at the last moment. It was like "Okay, we have a great puzzle/adventure game now, but we need something more, something to change the pace, some action bits maybe?" and they threw in a very shoddy battle system, where basically you just walk around waving your sword or stick about in a very unbalanced way. Stray too far away from the princess, and she'll be abducted to a shadowy hole (oh, I could make ALL kinds of jokes here), and if you fail to pull her out again, the whole world'll be drenched in darkness and it's game over. Like PoP, these battles are too long and annoying, and take too much away from the entire experience.

Secondly, like in most 3D games that are not the Wind Waker, the camera SUCKS, and control over the camera sucks as well. All too often I found myself totally misjudging a jump, only to plummet to my untimely death, which brings me to point 3.

And this is something I don't often complain about. Usually, I'll critisize a game for what it has and what's wrong with that, I won't often judge a game for what it doesn't have. I was once witness to a conversation between some avid Gran Turismo 3 fans, and some other guy who thought it sucked, because there were no changing weather conditions. This seems kinda like a stupid point. Sure, it would have been cool, but it's stupid to say the game sucks because it doesn't have what you would like to see.
But this time I will say that this game should have had a quick restart function, exactly like Prince of Persia. One of the things I really liked about Metal Gear Solid was that you could die without worry, because you'd get to restart at the beginning of the room anyway. This was part of MGS's great gimmick that stimulated you to just mess about with guards and see what you can do to them, cos the worst thing that could happen was that you had to restart at the beginning of the area, same as in PoP.

Not so, ICO I'm afraid. You have to restart from the last save point, meaning that if you die, you will often have to redo entire puzzles, and if there's one thing I hate, it's REDOING PUZZLES. Action bits, sure, no problem, but puzzles, NO.
Save points seem to be distributed a bit unevenly. There are plenty, but sometimes they are far between, and towards the end you won't be able to save at all.
Occasionally you'll get to restart from a cutscene, and you can always restart from the point after opening some of the green doors you need Yorda to open, but this should have been quicker and more user-friendly.

Phew. So what's the final verdict then?
Well, if you're sensitive to esthetics and great presentation, which I am, you will absolutely love this game no matter what. You'll just keep playing to see what happens next, and the ending was pretty much worth it, I thought.
Gameplay is fun, but I guess I was a bit too harsh on it, because I'd already played PoP, which does a better job at it. But it's totally unfair to make that comparison, so I won't let it affect my score.
The fact that the game is very quiet (there's hardly any music, which according to fans is a good thing, cos music would have ruined the atmoshpere. Bullshit I say, as long as you get a good composer, music'll only help the experience) and uneventful otherwise might not appeal to everyone, and controls, camera and save system could have been better.

I do appreciate the unique qualities of this game, and the presentation earns it a good score, but it's not everything people make it out to be. An 8.8, which is me being nice.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:27 AM