Review: Shadow of the Colossus

Ico was the name of the game, an arty and beautiful vision of a young man with horns on a quest to save a silent princess. Like a pair of finely wrought bookends, Ico's spiritual successor sees the PS2 in its final days in the same way that the original title helped introduce the console to gamers at launch. Shadow of the Colossus is a breathtaking living canvas, with gameplay it's hard not to appreciate and a soul that everyone can identify with. Unfortunately, Shadow is not a perfect game. A few technical problems keep the title from achieving the zen-like state that it comes so close to achieving. Despite that, it's a title that no PS2 owner should deny themselves the chance to experience. Read on for my impressions of Sony's Shadow of the Colossus.

• Title: Shadow of the Colossus
• Developer: SCEI
• Publisher: SCEA
• System: PS2
• Reviewer: Zonk
• Score: 8/10

It was the summer after I'd graduated from college when I was introduced to Ico. My post-college abyss was a deep one, and beating smoke monsters with a stick was one of the activities that kept my mind away from the cruel realities of life outside of academia. The subtle and effective soundtrack, the gracefully wistful quality of the graphics, and the plight of two small souls set against the world was an experience that affected me greatly. So, it was with no small amount of anticipation that I considered the release of Shadow of the Colossus. Formerly Wanda and the Colossus, Shadow is tale of a young man on a mission. The woman he loves lies dead or comatose, and he has traveled far from the lands he knows seeking a way to revive her. In a desolate landscape he finds a seemingly deserted sanctuary. A presence exists within the shrine that, preying on the protagonist's desires, charges him with the destruction of sixteen massive beasts that roam the lands nearby.

Gameplay centers around the only real activity to be found within the game: finding and killing the sixteen Colossi. The lands you find yourself in are vast, and to travel quickly from place to place you have the use of your horse Agro. Agro is a swift steed, and sometimes difficult to control. After you've mounted, you essentially just aim the beast in the direction you want to go and then spur him onward. While he maintains a trot relatively well, you'll find if any turning is involved you'll have to continually encourage him. Once you're moving across the field the game allows you a simple way to locate your next quarry. By holding your sword up to the light, a beam appears. Focusing the beam of light until it points out a locale on the horizon tells you where the next creature you seek lies. Reaching the beast is a simple matter of navigating the beautiful landscape and locating the area that the shrine's presence indicated.

Once you've found the Colossus, a short cut scene shows the beast stirring and reveals the creature in all its majesty. Every Colossus is different, though they all share similar qualities. First and foremost is their size. The sheer magnitude of the creatures you face is awe inspiring. On many of them, your tiny form barely reaches their ankle (or whatever they use for that purpose). Some come in vaguely humanoid form, while others appear as flying or four legged beasts. No matter what shape they come in, all have a slow and graceful majesty about them that makes doing what you're there to do more than a little uncomfortable. Your tools for dispatching your prey are simple: a bow and a sword. The tools may be simple, but the task is not.

With the beast on the move, it's up to you to discover how to bring it down. Each Colossus has a weak point on it somewhere, a magical symbol that indicates it is vulnerable. The problem is their size. In order to reach the symbol you're going to have to clamber up their body and hold tight to do your work. While some creatures can simply be leapt onto, there's often some sort of trick to figure out in order to gain access to the thick fur that covers many of the creatures and provides you with a climbing surface. Clinging to their fur is draining, and a circle of energy in the corner of your screen represents how much longer you can hold on. This circle is also used for tasks such as holding your breath or keeping an arrow nocked. Most creatures have some sort of flat surface on them, meaning that scaling these enormous beasts holds similarities to assaulting a mountain. Once you reach a base camp you pause for a breath before continuing towards your goal: the symbol. At the symbol you draw back your sword, and plunge it into the creature's flesh. You can attack the titan anywhere on its body, but the only way to do a significant amount of damage is to reach the symbol. While the procedure is the same for each Colossus, the tactics are different every time.

The game is essentially a series of sixteen boss battles, and the razor sharp focus of the gameplay allows the player to appreciate every tense moment spent clinging to a shaking beast's fur. I can describe the gameplay, but words simply do not do the experience justice. Every single 'vertical dungeon' you encounter during the course of the game has a personality all its own, and despite some frustrations it never gets old actually trying to kill them. Without the distractions of a thousand little minions to kill or annoying puzzles to solve, individual moments in Shadow of the Colossus have a lot more weight. Just riding across the plains on the way to your next encounter is a joy, being able to watch the landscape roll past and enjoying the extremely adept environmental design.

Misty moors, jutting cliffs, and rune-covered ruins dot the plains that you explore. The soft, dreamlike style of Ico has been transferred successfully to a less abstract space here in Shadow. The shrine and its immediate surroundings are your first real experience with Shadow's world. Light streams in from above to illuminate the darkness of the shrine, playing over the ruins of whatever intelligence built the structure so long ago. The lay of the land comes at you in broad visual strokes, a green plain giving way to a dark slab of a mountain. A pass leads through the mountain to a secluded ruin surrounded by water. The water itself is fluid and reactive, extremely well rendered. The Colossi themselves are works of art. The humanoids evoke powerful warriors, while the animals are all vivid forces of nature. The flying creatures are particularly awe-inspiring. It's not every day something the size of a building takes to the air over your head. Whatever form they come in a gentleness emanates from the furry goliaths, even as they try to crush you under their feet. The emotional nature of the title and the beauty of your surroundings combines to create a truly unique experience. Additionally, Shadow supports 480p, widescreen, on HD screens. If you can arrange to play the game this way it is well worth it. What is already a magnificent title seems to leap off the screen due to the high fidelity of the image.

As awe-inspiring as Colossus fights are, as beautiful as the gameworld is, Shadow of the Colossus is not without its problems. Shadow was made in a world with flaws, and the title's execution reflects that reality. The camera is the primary problem. In an effort to afford you the most majestic view of your encounters, the camera will occasionally make extremely confusing decisions. While it might seem like a good idea to pull quite a ways back, allowing you to view your avatar as an ant on a beast's back, it is quite difficult to see what you're doing that way. In tight maneuvering situations the camera has a tendency to clip through the Colossus, often obscuring your view mid-leap or as you crawl around a corner. The beauty of Shadow's world doesn't come without a cost, as framerate slowdowns can be an issue during tense moments. While nothing catastrophic ever happened to me as a result of a slowdown it can marr what might otherwise be a scene from a motion picture. Finally, I encountered a few odd collision detection bugs. I managed to get Agro stuck in a pillar at one point, and despite my being able to dismount and call him he was unable to get free. Less humorously, in the middle of a fight with one of the truly majestic flying Colossi I became stuck in an upside-down crawling position. I'd been clinging to the beast's back, and somehow while I was crawling I tumbled and became stuck on my back. I fell from the Colossus and landed in a pond, where I quickly realized that I needed to leap out of the water relatively often so that I wouldn't drown. While it was amusing to swim around upside down for a minute or so, I was basically forced to reset my game. I'd gotten the Colossus down to only a small amount of health, and it was a frustrating decision to have to start all over again.

Shadow of the Colossus, then, pushes the edge of the art form that is the videogame. The story is essentially nothing more than a setup, with everything that follows simple acts that require you to make value judgments about them. The gentle nature of the Colossi would seem to make your acts violations, but the game's finale makes that a questionable assumption as well. The graphical presentation is beautiful and visionary, headily recalling the days when the PS2 was new. The game pushes the boundaries of what the PS2 hardware is capable of, and the title suffers as a result. The control scheme is intuitive, but can sometimes be unwieldy as events in the game get away from you. If you see past the technical problems, the biggest complaint you're likely to have is the brevity of the experience. The game's focus is such that only a few hours of concerted effort will be required to plumb its depths. There is replayability, in the form of a hard mode and time attack tests. The time attacks can net you new objects which you can use in the hard mode of the game, and little things like a different color for Agro.

At the end of the day Shadow of the Colossus is truly a work of art. It stands as a unique experience in the field of gaming, with intense action set pieces and hauntingly beautiful landscapes. Honesty requires me to talk about the technical problems that marr the perfection here, but for me personally they're not a consideration. Games that have the power to move the human heart are so few and far between today that most commentators are still tentative to call gaming an art form. It is titles like this that will make them see the light of day, titles that can move beyond coin collecting, monster fragging, or skull cracking. Not everyone can identify with a psycho killer or a misunderstood alien. Our common humanity binds us to the man who has traveled so far and sacrificed so much. Giant-slaying for the people we love is not merely a fairytale, after all. Shadow is a 10/10 in my book, and easily the best gaming experience the end of the year has to offer.

video review

view a video review of the game here:

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/adventure/wandaandthec olossus/media.html [gamespot.com]

Yet another 8/10

Why bother with a score if it's always 8/10?

Re:Yet another 8/10

Being honest is hard. Personal opinions and experiences color everything we do, we can't do anything about it. 75% of what I'm thinking abot when I write a review is trying to be objective and come at the game from the opinion of "everybody". Taking into account the technical problems knocks the game down from a 9 to an 8, which was what I was going to give it until I found myself swimming upside down and drowing. :)

That said, objectivity is not the only goal of a review. I'm here to give you my opinion as well as let you know what kind of game it was. If this was the Zonk show, where whatever I liked was just the way it is, Shadow would have been a 10. I am sick to death of FPSes with soulless stories, Diablo clones, and RTS games with the usability of a brick. Shadow is a very different game, and having the chance to play something different made me a happy gamer.

Re:Yet another 8/10

Parent's comment isn't insightful, it's wrong. Take a look at the last few Zonk reviews:
Serious Sam II - 5/10
Black and White II - 7/10
Ultimate Spider Man - 7/10
Dragonshard - 8/10
Burnout:Revenge - 9/10
We Love Katamari - 8/10
Sims 2 Nightlife - 7/10

So, while it's clear that most reviewed games get high praise (why waste your time writing a full fledged review for something you felt was a waste of your time to begin with); it's also clear that there is some sort of metric being applied and not just a "let's give it an 8".

It is a nice game but.....

The land is so enormous and the enemies are spread out a little too far. Graphically, its not the most beautiful game I have ever seen, but its done in a way where you don't notice the graphics so much. Movement is great and the game play is fun. Just not enough enemies.

Ico

In my books Ico is one of the most overrated games for the PS2. Sure, it's got a very special look and technically it's well executed, but the game itself was fairly standard fare and felt much like a mixture of Sleepwalker and Prince of Persia (of course it's worth mentioning that neither of those games had been redone in 3D at the time).
I guess the game just never connected with me.

I hope Shadow of the Colossus will be different, but I'm not getting my hopes up. The concept is at least interesting and fairly unique this time and the graphics are breathtaking for a PS2 game.

Hardware limitations

Games like Shadow of the Colossus are what really make me excited about next-generation consoles.

Yes, it's a work of art. Yes, the landscapes and the colossi are absolutely stunning. But the choppy framerate detracts from the great view. Terrain renders moments before you're walking on it, and characters are noticeably pixelated. When Resident Evil 4 was ported from the Gamecube to the PS2, the main character's polygon count had to be cut from 10,000 to 5,000 to support the hardware. Can you imagine if these Colossi had 10,000 polygons, or 20,000, or 50,000?

I'm not complaining; I love this game. But I can't help feeling that the creators' artist vision was constrained by the technical limitations of the hardware. Xbox 360 and PS3 games will not be better than their predecessors by simple virtue of the fact that there's more power under the hood. However, for great, ambitious games like this one, the less game designers have to worry about what the hardware is capable of, the closer we will get to the kind of epic, cinematic experiences they envisioned.

But...

Ico wasn't a launch title.

An impressionists painting

Is how I like to describe it - Yes, it is a great game, though for me, the camera was a too cumbersome - when playing the demo at E3, I had the same gripe and one of the developers assured that it would be 'fixed' for the release - It was cleaned up a bit, but not fixed - regardless of my minor issues with the game, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of the game, however the original ICO has a higher place in my heart -

Having almost finished the game

And being a fan of ICO, I have to say this game is amazing. Size is definitely the focal point of the game. There is something exhilarating about climbing onto a gigantic beast and hanging on for dear life as it tries to shake you off.
Having a horse was a great touch, as well. In fact, I love the horse.
There are some nice touches, too, when you are riding across different landscapes and you are kicking up dust or mud or sand.
The whole thing is just amazing. No other game like it.

Re:Having almost finished the game

"Size is definitely the focal point of the game"

Apparently, you've heard from my wife then.

"There is something exhilarating about climbing onto a gigantic beast and hanging on for dear life as it tries to shake you off."

And now you're calling her a gigantic beast?

Bastard.

Additional screenshots...

Here [gamespy.com] and here [ign.com].

Agreed

The game is a technical marvel that highlights the graphical refinement (and mastery) developers have achieved on the ps2. It'll be interesting to see how killer-apps like this affect 360 sales this holiday season.

games like this make me wish...

... I owned a PS2 instead of an x-box. i'd love to hear other user sentiments. this seems like an awesome game.

OBPennyArcade

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2005-10- 21&res=l [penny-arcade.com]

ugh... the "art" of videogames

I am really sick of game reviewers writing sentences like "Shadow of the Colossus, then, pushes the edge of the art form that is the videogame." about videogames. I wish people would stop looking at art-house style gaming as the only way in which the "art of videogames" can be legitimately applied. Is there really no art to Halo 2? GTA? WoW? Sure those games are commercial, but only calling highly stylized ICO-esque forms of gaming art cheapens the notion of art because it promotes a narrowly construed definition, which has never been what art was about. I just woke up. If you can follow what I just said, give yourself 10 extra credit points.

Art vs. Craft vs. Modern Art

I guess the fundamental question is, "What is Art?"

Art, as most people would definite it, must:
1) Show great skill at creating beauty.
2) Inspire a deep emotion and introspection.

Craft is merely having #1 without #2, and most people would critique much of modern art as not being art because it frequently only attempts #2 without attempting #1.

GTA is an example of good Craftsmanship, but not good Art. It doesn't really try to inspire you or challenge you mentally and emotionally. The setting for Halo 2 and WoW might construe Art when you stop and pause just to look around, breathless at how good the worlds look, but Shadow of the Colossus is just on a different level in the way it inspires a sense of wonder at the majesty of the world.

Ill-Prepared Review

A couple of things jumped out at me , having finished the game through twice now; not sure if the reviewer had played the game through for any purpose but finishing it as fast as possible.

1) You only spur your horse on if you need to achieve very high levels of speed, otherwise just HOLD down X, and Agro will maintain a permenent gallop. There's a couple of sections of travel I doubt you could have completed without realising this.

2) The Collosi don't have one magical weak spot, they have many - and several of them require you to make wounds in multiple points to down the Colossi.

3) Several of the later Collosi are not much bigger than the player themselves. Also "all have a slow and graceful majesty"; y'know except for the little ones that run a hundred miles and hour and tear you apart in a ten twentiths of a second.

4) You have camera control, if the view sucks it's your own fault.

8/10 or 10/10?

• Reviewer: Zonk
• Score: 8/10

...[much later]...

Shadow is a 10/10 in my book, and easily the best gaming experience the end of the year has to offer.

I think this proves, once and for all, that the editors don't read the articles on slashdot: even the ones they're in the middle of writing. :-)

(This is a joke, I have nothing against slashdot editors. This is actually a fairly decent review, and I'm glad it's not nearly as gushy and ridiculous as, say, IGN's [ign.com].)

Pretty Accurate

I've finished SotC the first time thru. Yes, you can continue! You can also try hard mode where the Colossi react more quickly and violently. This review is dead-on. As for the flaws, here's my rundown:
1) Game occasionally crashes (depends on which PS2 you're running--I'm using the original model).
2) Levels-of-detail "pops" at close range. Ideally, these should happen where you can't see it.
3) Some textures aren't anti-aliased.
4) Small color palette, mostly browns and greens.

Oddly enough, I don't think the camera is a problem. I think they left the control as it was because you get better and better at using the camera during battles. Of course, it also cut development time to leave it as-is. The "behind" view and zoom are instrumental. There's also Agro-view. If you call Agro and hold the X button, the camera will look directly at him. If you're battling a Colossus where Agro can't go, you will look directly at the Colossus!

Despite the game is really only 16 boss battles, the entire experience is fun, beautiful, and a bit scary. The sense of large-Colossus and small-hero is done well, right down the the inertia of the huge things. The goal of the game is really to discover what the heck killing these colossi is actually accomplishing.

Overall, a great game that would be even better using another video processor. Always save at the closest altar before attacking the Colossus. It will save you time. I can't wait to see a speed run of this game.

mainstream coverage

I don't think much of the art form debate either. Up here in Canada the Globe and Mail ran a good review today, which just called it a work of art and got on with it... http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20051104.gtgaming04/BNStory/AtPlay/ [globetechnology.com]

yeah it's an arty game.. but

Most game players should avoid this game, it's not radically hard, it's just beautifully done. Don't expect too much random killing, it's more about the journey then the destination, but overall it's a near perfect game, that proves games can be art.

Overall though this is one game that will just floor you with presentation to the point that you'll just ride instead of going to the next colossi. and that's not a bad thing either, there's a good variety in area, and it feels pretty beautiful.

Excellent review

Right on par with basically what Gamespot says.

I recently picked this one up, and I have to say that even with the odd graphical oddness it's amazingly BEAUTIFUL to play. I brought down one colossus last night, believe it or not it took almost an hour to figure out how to get at the weak part. The thing was literally the size of a skyscraper, smashing a club/sword thing the size of a building down at me.

Nothing will prepare you for battles of this scale. Every fight is truly epic.

All you do is kill Colossi

I just bought this game and defeted 3 Colossi so far and I'm a bit disapointed in the game. All the reviews I read were giving it stunning remarks. But as I play, I'm bored already. All you do is go from the temple place and kill a Colossi, then back to the temple, kill another. All the while it takes you 10 minutes to ride your horse to the next one. Just seems like the game has no other point. They should have put some other enemies in the world for you to mess with on the way...I dunno...maybe I had the wrong idea about what the game was, but that is my take on it from playing it for 3 hours so far...Am I wrong??

RE: horny youth out to rescue a princess...

Now there's a timeless theme I can identify with. But the question is, "Does she really want to be rescued?" Yes, yes, oh YES!!!

correction

Every Colossus is different, though they all share similar qualities. First and foremost is their size.

Not true - while most of them are huge, a few of them are quite small. There are two that are only about the size of a car, and another is about the size of a bus.

ICO's Ending Theme

I've never played ICO, but I've become a fan of the game's music. The ending theme, You Were There, is especially soft and sweet. And yes, the person singing it is male. You can check out the lyrics here [chudahs-corner.com].

Awesome

I've only beaten three so far, I just got it last night, but this game is absolutely breathtaking. I gasped aloud when I jumped on the horse the first time and I wasn't controlling the horse but rather nudging it toward where I wanted to go. It was so much more like riding a real horse than standard video game horse control that it took me a moment to recover from the experience. An interesting note is that this game must have some very interesting technical underpinnings. It does a lot of motion blur and level of detail changes to try and puch as complex geometry into the scenes as possible. I think when the motion blur is concerned they are pulling neat tricks like not clearing out the entire screen buffer and just redrawing some of the closer objects more often than the distance objects or something. You can see it most when you whip the camera around quickly. The best part of this game for me though, other than the collosal (literally) enemies, the awesome draw distance, and the excellent concept and play mechanics, is the animation. The animation is just drop dead excellent. Down to the point where your character has to adjust his gait from a running jump to catch his balance on landing. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn if a lot of this was AI driven, where his animation is guided by the collisions he is making with the environment, gravity's direction (important when you are scaling a collosus), and the state of all his limbs at the time. In other words, when they were putting this all together, they didn't cut all the usual corners, and it REALLY shows.

What's the point of all the killing?????

I'm afraid I don't understand all the hoo haa about this game. So...someone that I know is "dead?" and I'm supposed to go kill 16 other beings because she might revive? Why in the world would I go kill 16 beings because one being is dead? ....especially since (according to some reviews I've read) many of the colossi aren't aggressive toward me at all until I attack them. So I'm supposed to wander around and provoke fights with creatures so I can kill them....because *sob* someone I know is dead? Perhaps, after the fact, I'll find out that they colossi were really "bad guys", but I don't know many people who would kill as a preemptive strike. They want proof first that someone is a "bad guy". How many people would head out on a killing mission just because they're told to do so...because someone they know is dead? (yeah..I know...it's just a game) Anyway....the gameplay might be awesome, but what's the rationale for doing any of it in the first place?

I loved Ico, but...

I was hoping for such great things from this game. I loved Ico, it's one of those games I haven't resold because it's such a work of art.

Unfortunately...I hate boss fights. Hate hate hate. They are the lamest, most overdone cliché in the video game world.

Give me exploration. Give me puzzles. Give me suspense, fear, foreboding, thought-provoking scenarios, convoluted plots, mysteries. Don't give me some humongous robot killing machine and tell me I have to hack at it repeatedly with a small pointy thing. Grr.

Somebody obviously loves boss fights, because it seems like games are heading that way. "Ratchet: Deadlocked" apparently dispenses with the beautiful and interesting environments that made that game series so great, in favor of non-stop arena combat and boss fights. I guess combat is cheaper than having to come up with a world that's complex enough to be interesting.

Don't buy this game.

Let me start by saying I am a HUGE fan of Ico. (It is the ONLY game so far that I flat out REFUSE to sell back to the used game store) So you could imagine my excitement about Shadow of the Colossus. Well, let me tell ya, it only took an hour of play time before I bolted out of my house with the game and traded this dud back at the used game store. The sales guy at the used game store wasn't all that surprised. He told me that many others had returned the game saying that it flat out sucked. This was mere days after it was released.

You know, sometimes you hope that something like Ico was made because someone truly cared and took the time to do the right thing. Well, if Shadow of the Colusses is any indication the team who brought you Ico's either been tainted beyond all hope thanks to all the critical hype or the magic of Ico was just a fluke never to be repeated again, at least not by the well meaning but probably clueless individuals who brought it to you.

So definitely don't listen to the critics who adore this so called gem. It's a cubic zerconia at best, not the diamond they're making it out to be. :p

True work of art

I make games, I love games, and I've enjoyed many games with beautiful art, intelligent gameplay and/or compelling atmosphere. That said, ICO and now Shadow of the Colossus are in their own league as far as delivering a whole emotional experience. I've saved countless princess in as many games, but ICO was the first to make me FEEL like a hero.

Not that great

Sony sent me a demo of this game. The controls are overly complicated and the analog stick are scaled wrong. Movement is realistic but the scenery is lacking the detail needed to feel immersed. I got to the first colossus and spent like 10 minutes running around in circles trying to affect the colossus in every way I could imagine. Finally a little hint popped up that wasn't helpful. Then another hint showed up a few minutes later that made no sense -- probably assuming I took some kind of action on the first hint. I suppose it might be a good game if you got into it but I gave up. After spending the first half hour riding a horse and climbing a cliff without seeing a single enemy and then another half hour scratching me head trying to solve the puzzle of killing the colossus I got bored.

It's possible the demo was bugged. It's also possible I missed a hint, power-up, or something else. Hey, I might even be a moron. Regardless, the developers didn't make my first hour with the game enjoyable so there's not much point in continuing to play it.

UK Release

Any chance of seeing this in the UK without having to import?

ICO is the best game ever made (Game artist POV)

I'm 29. I grew up through the early arcade days of pacman, the home computers ranging from vic 20's, c64s, atari 800xl, atari 130xe, 286s, early macs, apple 2e, atari 2600, neogeo, nes, snes, genesis, sega cd, n64, turbo graphics, ps2, xbox.. you name it.

I've been there and played it all.

I'm now a video game artist, 3d animator, cinematic director, technical director... blah blah...

I've made a life of games so to speek and ICO is by far the best game ever made. I know there are a few people who will disagree but those who do, tend to fall into two catagories:

1 - they didnt like the fighting system.
2 - they were emotionally disconnected for whatever reason, perhaps distracted and not caught up in the moment at the right times during game play. Perhaps they arent as open to experiencing emotions as others. We do after all live in a world that tends to make fun of folks who do open themselves up to art, and the incredible emotional experience it can be.

ICO is THE example of what gaming can. ICO isnt incredible because of it's simple fight system, or graphical engine.

ICO is incredible because the structure of the game is laid out in an unfolding manner, yet subtle in story telling devices, it manages to connect with the player emotionally on a true level of concern, love, caring, sadness, deep loss, happiness and beauty.

Where it starts though is the player. Oh, ICO is certainly brilliant story telling and like all brilliant stories told through out time, they can often be misread.

ICO requires 1 thing to work, and thats YOU. You're soul, you're mind, your willingness to be taken emotionally on a journey. If you're trying to guess what will happen next, and "when will i get the rocket launcher and BFG" you're simply not going to GET ICO.

ICO begins with loneliness. And hopefully you feel it. If you dont feel it from the very beginning, i doubt you will truely enjoy the ending and ICO.

The brilliance of ICO is the emotions you experience as you progress through the story. The story is not simple, it subtle. The story does not belittle our intelligence by laying out plot with cliche bad story telling sentences like "I'm glad Johny killed The great demon because now it has unlocked all that is evil, and i have the power to rule the world, because when you found that whistle item, it gave me the keys to unlock my true power" blah blah. ICO doesnt TELL you how to feel, nor does it TELL you the story in such a manner.

ICO hints at a story... and your brain makes it real.

There are several factors to ICO's emotional connection (i've thought about this quite a bit)

1 - ICO (player) is abandoned by his tribe, sacraficed to the god of the castle or however you read it when you initially see the opening intro. I say "however you read it" because its not quite explained WHY they leave you. Later on in the game it becomes more known but you really never get an explaination. So in the very beginning you read into the cinematic based on your own interpretations which typically will be "they're sacraficing me to the gods" So you're left alone to die by your people, and you're ONLY a little boy. Thats powerful stuff. It's very mature for a game story. Funny because we have car jacking, sex, violence and yet THIS is what i consider to be mature story concept. And THIS is where the emotional state comes into play. This is where YOUR emotional invovlent/state becomes important. HOW do you accept such a notion?? A CHILD being LEFT TO DIE ALONE. CAN YOU PUT YOURSELF IN THE ROLE OF THE CHILD? This is not easy to answer because from an artists point of view such as myself, i'm a trained animator and ACTOR. I can easily put myself into a role. Lots of people can who arent trained actors.... BUT ARE YOU ONE OF THEM? This is where i feel ICO becomes a hit or a miss for many folks. CAN YOU let yourself emotionally grasp the concept of the game, the loniless, the rejection of your people, the sadness of being left to die by even your FAMILY. This is ve

Re:Why should we care about a Sony product right n

Because if we could only review games made for consoles that WEREN'T produced by heartless evil corporations, we'd be left with... uh... Word Challenge for the Tapwave Zodiac.

I think you missed the point

MINOR ICO SPOILER ALERT

Ummm...actually, she did talk to you. She just spoke a language that the character did not understand. This was conveyed by odd symbols instead of the English captions (at least in the English version) that you saw when the boy spoke. That was actually part of the mystery in the game for me. The boy was compelled to help her based only on her situation and reactions, rather than her saying, "Help! Get me out of here!" In fact, I'm quite sure that was a deliberate choice on the part of the makers of the game.

As for story/plot, I admit it was not filled with lots of exposition, but to me, there was quite a bit of story that you inferred from the game play. The moment of separation that you have at the bridge about half way thru was one of the more emotional moments I've experienced in a video game. It was similar to the experience of playing Myst, where the story unfolds subtly during the game, rather than being spoon-fed to you. My guess is that the parent hated Myst as well. Perhaps it's a style the parent doesn't enjoy...I personally don't get a lot out of the twitch-style FPS's. I found the original Doom rather dull, though I enjoyed Half-life because it did have a story that you gleaned from the gameplay.