The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Side-log: Shadow of the Colossus

Once every decade, amidst a plethora of boring tripe and things you've seen a thousand times before, a game will come along to prove that video games aren't dead yet.

To totally overwhelm you; To show that fantastic things can be done, even with consoles that are running on their last legs. To provide proof that there still ARE brilliant game designers out there with a HUGE imagination and great originality.
To deliver an experience that is unlike anything you've ever seen before, one that can ONLY be felt through playing games, because books or movies simply can not get away with this kind of thing.

And this year, we've had TWO of those.

One is of course Resident Evil 4, which I will be getting to soon.

The other is Shadow of the Colossus.

THIS, my friends is interactive motherfucking ART. It's a wonderful experience that you have to FEEL rather than play. A dream-like adventure with monsters of incomprehensible magnitude awaits those who dare to cross the Treshold.

In Shadow of the Colossus, you play as a nameless Hero. This game was made by the same creators as Ico, and thus has a very similar look and direction. The characters speak in a made up language, although thankfully there are real subtitles this time round. You get very little information about the story which helps establish the surreal kind of atmosphere that was also present in the prequel.
All you know is that your girlfriend or some kind of princess at least, has died and there is only one way to bring her back, which is to slay the 16 Colossi roaming the Cursed Lands.

You start out in some kind of Castle with the Princess lying on an altar, waiting to be revived, like women tend to do. From the immediate get-go the graphics are ASTOUNDING. If you've played Ico, you'll know that the team in question has a real knack for displaying bright lights as if you're playing in someone's dream.
It offers a beautiful and surreal atmosphere that fits the mysterious mood of the story and the strange huge world perfectly.

At your disposal, you have a sword, a bow and a horse.
By raising your sword to sky, the reflecting light will point you to where the next Colossus is. Once you have found it, you can use the reflecting light to find its weak spot, and use the sword itself to violently stab it to death.
The bow is used for very minor damage, and is most appropriate for long distance attacks (mainly to hit certain key points on some Colossi) or just for drawing a Colossus's attention.
The horse serves mainly to make travelling across the vast plains a bit faster, but it can also be used to gain some extra height for jumps, and for swearing at.

If you've read my Ocarina of Time review, you might remember that Epona's presence in that game annoyed me to no end, but fortunately, this game is slightly better.
First of all, it looks and moves MUCH more realistically, so much so that I'm wondering if they didn't in fact Motion Capture a real horse (now that would be something to see) and it also feels like you're actually riding a horse, despite the fact that I've never done that so I can't possibly know, but it's still true.

You can jump on or off its back at any time, although jumping on can be slightly unresponsive sometimes. The good thing is that the Horse, which seems to be called Arro or something is very clever and can usually find you in no time.
The triangle button calls him, and if you keep it pressed, the camera will focus on the direction where he's at.
Even when facing a wall he won't jump off, you can just jump off yourself (you can take an amazing amount of damage when it comes to jumping from heights) and then let the horse figure out for itself how to get to you, but it will always be quick and clever about it.

The same applies for the Hero. Motion Capture is magnificent, and what's even more special is that they've gone for a believable kind of motion system. You don't get some kind of cool Kick-ass Warrior with impossible moves, no, instead you get a normal guy with a sword, who stumbles when he drops from a great height, who is knocked over when an Enormous foot is stomped down nearby and, in short, who moves as clumsily as any REAL human being would. I'm sure this is not bad programming, because they've taken great care to make his stumbling looks as realistic as possible, and it just makes the character all that more human.

When battling a Colossus, the L1 button focuses on the beast so you can quickly check where it is, should you lose sight of it, despite it's gigantic proportions.
And HUGE they are. With the exception of two or three rather small ones, every single Colossus is, well, COLOSSAL for lack of a better term. The major challenge in the game therefore, is figuring out how to get to their weakspot. Usually you have to find a way of climbing the beast, but sometimes it's just a matter of exposing its Vitals (that's what the game calls it) and stab away. The Final Boss is INSANELY big, and might very well be THE biggest living thing you've ever seen in a Video Game. The beauty is also that the game has NO loading times whatsoever. The entire world is one big whole and everything blends into everything else.
This means that if you climb up something really big, and you fall, that you will end up at the bottom, instead of getting a cheap fade-out or game over screen.
This makes the world much more believable and really gets the impressive size of the game across.

And every battle is completely different from the next too. Great care and inventivity have been put into making these battles as varied and fun as possible, and you really truely won't believe some of the things you have to do. I've battled on land, in water, and even in the air (those fights are REALLY a sight to behold).
It takes guts to make a game that is essentially nothing but Boss Fights, but Sony Computer Entertainment has done a truely fantastic job at it.
This does unfortunately mean that the game isn't very long.
In 7 to 8 hours, you should be able to finish it, and there are Time Challenges and a Hard Mode, leading to some unlockables, to increase replayability, but even if the adventure is really short, it is absolutely worth playing. There's literally NOTHING like it.

On the real downside the Camera can be a REAL pain in the ass sometimes, but as I've said numerous times before, 3D games with a good camera can be counted on the finger of one hand, so I've given up criticizing games for it.
Also, there's a rather large amount of pop-up, even when up-close, you can see that some textures or objects are pretty much realised at the last moment, which can be a bit disturbing. As a small disclaimer, this is a ridiculously big world we're talking about, with lots of eye-candy and hidden rooms so I guess we can cut the game some slack.

It's like having a beautiful girlfriend with MASSIVE boobs: Great to look at, and a lot of fun to play with, but still a girl, so that means she's gonna bitch about things.

Technical short-comings are MORE than made up for with content, gameplay and originality. The story doesn't move along very quickly, but when it does, it's great. The ending is particularly chilling and orchestrated in a truely masterful way.
NOT playing this game because of some slight technical issues WILL be the biggest mistake you make this year, even if you decided to go on a condom-less sex-tour in South Africa.

With marvellous dream-like graphics, phenomenal and epic battles, a majestic orchestral soundtrack and a HUGE gaming environment, this is one of the most unique and impressive games you're EVER likely to play.
It has rekindled my faith in video games as the best form of entertainment on earth, and it has even reminded me of why I love games so much in the first place.
THIS is why I keep playing, THIS is why I wade through cash-ins and commercial crap; to find that one true diamond amongst your grandmother's cheap pearls.

I cannot see this getting anything lower than a 9.8

posted by Ingen! @ 3:51 PM