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PlayStation (Games)

Review: Shadow of the Colossus 176

Posted by Zonk from the walking-with-enormous-statues dept.
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.
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Review: Shadow of the Colossus More

Review: Shadow of the Colossus

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  • video review (Score:5, Informative)

    by jacoplane ( 78110 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @12:56PM (#13951598) Homepage Journal
    view a video review of the game here:

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

  • Yet another 8/10 (Score:1, Insightful)

    by hsoft ( 742011 )
    Why bother with a score if it's always 8/10?

    • Re:Yet another 8/10 (Score:3, Interesting)

      by poodlehat ( 919902 )
      Actually, the last line of the text called it a 10/10, yet the score at the top says 8/10. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

      • Re:Yet another 8/10 (Score:4, Informative)

        by Zonk ( 12082 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:45PM (#13951967) Homepage Journal
        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.
        • Technical problems should take a back seat, in my opinion, if the game itself is compelling enough. It seems obvious, reading your review, that it'd be more accurate if the score was a 9. Games that are works of art deserve special consideration over "frame rate hitch when three demons shoot fireballs at once" types of things.

          Ocarina of Time fully deserved the 10s it got from many places, even though the game is not perfect, from a technical perspective.

          • Technical problems should take a back seat, in my opinion, if the game itself is compelling enough.

            Have you any played Final Fantasy 7 in Windows ? The game is compelling in the extreme. It has an interesting storyline, great gameplay, and still manages to look good even today (mainly because it never tried to look realistic to begin with).

            However, it is also buggy. Having Direct3D acceleration on makes it to crash about once an hour (every fifteen minutes in earlier versions). This turns the game in

        • Reviews are a good thing, and the more the better to get different opinions. I'm going to buy it in any case because it was made by the same people who made Ico, and that had to be one of the best games ever.

          I couldn't believe that Ico didn't sell well. Okay, they could/should have done away with the demons - they didn't add anything to the game, but some people need things to slash at. Once you figure out that Yorda is an asset and helps you along, it's a real gaming experience. I recommend Ico to anyo
        • 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. :)

          What's unfortunate about that particular breed of "technical problems" is that it's sort of like when you go to a restaurant that's generally very well-liked, and by random chance happen to have a bad experience, and you tell all your friends about your bad experience and so they never go, even though if they did go, there might be a

    • Re:Yet another 8/10 (Score:3, Informative)

      by timster ( 32400 )
      The score has always been 8/10 (or sometimes an unadorned "8") since the early days of Slashdot book reviews. It's just a tradition, and I presume a testament to the folly of assigning numeric scores to work of art.
    • better question: why bother with the numerical rating he's going to give it an 8/10 and then end the review by saying, "Shadow is a 10/10 in my book." which is it: 8, or 10?

      • Re:Yet another 8/10 (Score:1, Redundant)

        by iabervon ( 1971 )
        In his book, it's 10/10, but the slashdot review format doesn't allow for ratings other than 8/10. Reviewers ask for the variable rating feature every once in a while, but not often enough for it to actually get implemented.
    • I think it's part of the usual slashdot social foundation: we won't review really popular games that everyone already knows about, we won't review games so awful we'd be embarassed to admit to having bought/pirated it. It should be something somewhat offbeat, probably underrated or from a small unknown game shop. Hence almost everything is 8/10.

    • Re:Yet another 8/10 (Score:5, Informative)

      by fireduck ( 197000 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:20PM (#13951786)
      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".
      • Oh well, I've just been very unlucky with the review I read then. Every review I read had a 8.
      • I could picture the review now, especially for some big powerhouse.

        "Being a game reviewer, betimes, requires suffering for your art. Today, I played "Bob's Stupid Game," for 72 hours, endlessly, in order to write this review. First, I need to be honest, I'd rather be beaten to death with a rusty highway gaurd rail than have to play this game again..."

        5/10 ;-)
  • 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 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ninjakoala ( 890584 )
    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 fai

    • Phew! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jawtheshark ( 198669 ) *
      Glad to hear that I'm not the only one. I bought Ico some time ago and I even read some reviews before buying it. They were all soooo positive. I was really disappointed. Yeah, it's pretty, but the game isn't all that fun.
      Ico is gathering dust in my drawer....

      • Re:Phew! (Score:2, Interesting)

        by ninjakoala ( 890584 )
        I sold mine. The only thing I miss is the beautiful cover. That was truly spectacular even though it was a rip-off apparently (saw it compared with an original painting some time later)
      • I've seen original Ico games (with the postcards) go for £40 - £50 on eBay, you might want to sell you copy before the PS2 gets too old!

        As for me, I liked Ico for not being overcomplex in terms of gameplay.
        • Don't think it will get any cheaper. If anything the price will go up.

          Games from the 8 and 16 bit era are selling for huge amounts if the condition is mint. Even Saturn and Playstation games can fetch ridiculous amounts (go look for Dodonpachi, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Radiant Silvergun to see what I mean).

          I bet Ico will become somewhat of a collector's item as well.
        • Weird: I picked it up for 19.99€ in the bargain bin. It must be a re-release, since it doesn't have any postcards with it.
          • As with all these things, it isn't the game itself but the actual release I think. The cardboard sleeve version with the 4 postcards seems to be worth a lot because it was the original release. The postcards are quite cool too. I'll be hanging onto my copy.
    • ...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).
       
      Actually, there was a 3D Prince of Persia released in either '99 or '00. I don't remember hearing much about it when it was released, but it did come out.
    • I think Ico is still the single most enjoyable game on the PS2 platform. I found it perfect in almost every respect: graphics, style, atmosphere, emotional resonance, music, plot, difficulty of puzzles, balance between action, puzzle, and platform activity.

      I'm only partway through Shadow. A beautiful game, but at this point I doubt if it will supplant Ico in my affections.
    • 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 [...]
      I guess the game just never connected with me.

      I hope Shadow of the Colossus will be different,

      Since I'm glad it's not, I would recommend you keep your money for games with a less subtle appeal.

    • Re:Ico (Score:2)

      by Zoid ( 8837 )
      I've found that people who didn't find Ico to be one of the best games they played is because they didn't really buy into the feelings between Ico and the princess. A big part of the game is the sense of being alone with just the two of you and that she was entirely dependent on you. I've found people who thought she was annoying or didn't enjoy interacting with her generally didn't like the game.
    • From a pure game mechanics points of view I agree with you, the puzzles aren't so special and the fights are actually plain boring. Nothing so great in that area. So if you are looking for great game mechanics you probally won't find them in Ico. However, except the fighting, which I really consider pretty annoying and pointless, the stuff doesn't get much in the way either and in the end the game really is more about the experince and athmosphere then about the pure game mechanics. Few games before or afte

  • Hardware limitations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phpm0nkey ( 768038 ) * on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:05PM (#13951668) Homepage
    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.
    • Very true - The RE4 point was a good one, I heard rumors at E3 that it was going to be ported to PS2, though my colleagues had the same hesitant thoughts - the poly count was going to be significantly lower and indeed it is - all that said, i think capcom did a great job with the port - The latest GD mag has a great post mortem with the director of RE4 - he does not really touch the subject of the PS2 port, however he gives insights as to the artistic pipeline they worked with for the GC version
      • Good article which makes it crystal clear how working on consoles in an exercise in making every byte in RAM count. The more flexible your loading system and artistic pipeline, the better your game will look.
    • Anyone know any of the details about the PS3's backwards compatibility? If the PS3 can run PS2 games, will it be able to run them better? In other words, will the framerate issues that you see playing Shadow on the PS2 improve on the PS3? I might wait until the PS3 comes out to play if so.

      • If the PS3 can run PS2 games, will it be able to run them better?

        Probably not. PS2 games oeprate with the assumption of a fixed hardware config, and modifying the platform by increasing the speed is likely to have a number of unforseen effects.

        • In the compatibility mode for older Playstation games there was an option to activate some features that rendered a number of games better than the original PS - it did not work with all games, but it seemed to work with ones I used it on.

          Something similar might happen on the PS3 where it could render the world better. It probably wouldn't prevent the pop-in though, just make the Colossi a little nicer to look at with (as hoped for) a smoother framerate all-around.

          I too would LOVE to see SoTC re-worked for
    • The next generation is going to have the same exact problem. Imagine SoTC being ported to the Doom 3 engine, it would look great right? Well not great, the main character would be a conehead. So maybe the generation after?

      I think art also has a lot to do with realizing your vision with the tools you have. I have a high end pc, and have seen some great visuals in the latest and greatest games, yet I think SoTC looks great. The fur looks great, I was actually suprised the PS2 could be made to do that so we
      • They pulled a really clever trick for the fur/hair/grass in SotC -- they stack polygons with transparent textures that are cross-sections of a large area of fur/hair/grass. The cross-section of each individual hair is an opaque dot in the texture.

        That way you can get hundreds/thousands of hairs with only a few polygons.
  • Ico wasn't a launch title.
    • Neither was Final Fantasy VII for the PS1, but look what it did for the platform. While ICO wasn't a game that made the PS2 like FF7 did the PS1, it was a watershed game that made people look at what the system could do.
  • 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 -
  • 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 (Score:5, Funny)

      by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:19PM (#13951769) Journal
      "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.
    • The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time for the N64 had a horse that did the same thing with the dust trail. I did love the horse bits in that game. There was a mini game where you rode between two sets of targets and shot arrows at targets along the route. I had forgotten about the game until I got the ported version for the gamecube a while back. It was fun the second time as well as the first.
    • Someone mentioned a small detail to me that I'd never really thought about, and explains perfectly the difficulty some people are having while riding Agro.

      In SotC, you don't control the horse. You control the *rider*, who then commands the horse. The difference is that the horse has a mind of it's own, and only obeys your commands as far as you direct the rider.

      It's the subtle details like this that really separates Shadow from other games. If you didn't stop and think about it, it wouldn't make sense.
  • Here [gamespy.com] and here [ign.com].

  • Agreed (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ellcry ( 921662 )
    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.
  • ... I owned a PS2 instead of an x-box. i'd love to hear other user sentiments. this seems like an awesome game.

  • OBPennyArcade (Score:5, Funny)

    by schon ( 31600 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:16PM (#13951744)
    http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2005-10- 21&res=l [penny-arcade.com]

  • ugh... the "art" of videogames (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fightzombies ( 876201 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:17PM (#13951754)
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @02:07PM (#13952126)
      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.

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

        That's a harsh definition. You might get people to agree to it because on the surface it seems reasonable, but in practice it will exclude lots of things people would certainly call art. So if you are just pretty good, not great, you can't create art? Similarlly, if I have, say, a painting that I find exceptionally beautiful and skillfully created, but it fails to inspire dee

      • 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.

        My experience with Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City are too far back, but looking at GTA: San Andreas, I certainly felt challenged mentally and emotionally. Key themes in SA included community, loyalty, and maturity. That the protagonist, CJ, left SA to try and escape the problems is a big deal. His return (the start of the game) is similarlly impor

    • I thought that it was widely acknowledged that the games you mention have greatly pushed the art of videogames, although there is some contention over whether Halo 2 really does anything new besides bringing the internet-multiplayer FPS to consoles. Nobody would argue that Bungie's history doesn't include some innovative story-driven FPSes, though. GTA ushered in the open-ended environment, and WoW made some strides in making the grindy MMO world more user-friendly.

      If you've missed the praise for GTA's co

  • Ill-Prepared Review (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:19PM (#13951774)
    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.
    • 1) It's a review, not the user manual. Yes he was slightly factually incorrect, but so what? 2) Its a review, not a strategy guide. I figured some of the Colossi had more than one weak spot, its a natural direction for the design to go, but it wouldn't contribute much of anything to the review to mention this. 3) You mean half a second? Didn't you learn to reduce all fractions in grade school? 4) I'm willing to bet the camera occasionally moves on its own, or Zonk wouldn'tve had the problems he had. This is

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

      No.

      Demanding that the player to do camera control is a cop-out. For the majority of players the camera should Just Work. When I'm running around, trying to avoid getting stomped by the colossus, I have better things to do that fiddle with the camera. When I'm trying to line up an arrow shot quickly after running away from the colossus, I need it to Just Work. And cameras should never clip into objects. That's just sloppy.

      SotC is s

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

      SOTC has some camera issues that are the fault of the developers, and some camera issues that are simply the result of players not having fully adjusted to the learning curve for the game's controls and camera dynamics.

      Firstly this game is such an amazing accomplishment that I cringe at "faulting" the developers for anything. These are REALLY nitpicks AFAIK.

      But getting back to the user learning curve, I've noticed that there seems to be a cer

    • Re:Ill-Prepared Review (Score:2, Informative)

      by Froobly ( 206960 )
      4) You have camera control, if the view sucks it's your own fault.

      You had me until here. You have camera control, except for when you don't. The game grabs control away from you for split seconds at a time, causing your controls to become misaligned and making you screw up jumps in midair in the worst cases. If you ever do anything significant, the camera swings around, and sometimes gets stuck behind something. This is mostly beyond your control, although if you're psychic, you can anticipate it and co
      • So far, the insistance of the game to reposition the camera at an awkward moment is my only grip with the game as well.
        I am still fairly early on in the game (up to colossus #4), but this is already very evident. Such as when trying to lure the colossus into position, I stop moving for 3 seconds with the camera aligned for best viewing, then it swings the view around behind my character and completely away from the colossus, simply because I stopped touching the controls for too long.

  • 8/10 or 10/10? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by oGMo ( 379 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:21PM (#13951793)
    • 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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by robbway ( 200983 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:25PM (#13951819) Journal
    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.
    • Out of curiousity why do you rate the small color palette as a flaw? From my understanding it's a stylistic decision. The color palette was chosen to help give a certain feel to the world. I think for the fairy taleish setting of the game the limited color palette works marvelously.
      • It's called the "linear effect". They are game review staples that may never die. "It was a great game if not a bit too linear and the color pallette was too limited for my liking". I think it's written without really thinking about it. The fact that linear gaming and a limited color scheme might actually be a good thing just doesn't hold to popular critisms. We really haven't move far beyond Quake 2 vs. Half-Life debate jargon perhaps.
    • As for the flaws, here's my rundown:
      [...]
      4) Small color palette, mostly browns and greens.

      That's not a flaw, that's an artistic choice.
    • Got to disagree with point 4- the color pallet is clearly a deliberate aesthetic decision, not the result of a technological limit. It gives the wasteland its character as a place where no human has ever set foot for a tremendously long time, where life is just barely holding on as small animals and straggly grass, and I think it fits the rest of the game very well.

      Also, saving at altars isn't really that important- if you fail a colossus fight, you just go back to the moment you first saw it, so you don

  • mainstream coverage (Score:2, Informative)

    by Gurgeh15 ( 875192 )
    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 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kinglink ( 195330 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:57PM (#13952062)
    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.
    • I disagree. I think anyone who is more than passively interested in games should play this game. This is the kind of game that moves games to the next level of emotional entertainment. So what if there isn't random killing? Plenty of games have been successful without massive violence. Actually rereading your post, most of your points seem to contradict your original statement...
      • out of most of my friends when I told them about the game the common answers I got was

        "What there's only 16 monsters?"

        "what it's all bosses"

        "what else is there to do?"

        "What weapons do you get"

        Now a couple of them have got it and like the game but the rest just don't see the majestic part of the game. Something like GTA appeals to a large segment of gamers, there's accomplishment, random dicking around and just basically enjoyable stuff. This game how if your interested in random acts of violence or anythi
  • 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.
  • 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 ha
    • You are absolutly correct. All you do is travel and kill colossi. That is the premise of the game, and it works. I liked the game, even if it don't really meet my expectation. After the 6th colossi or so I couldn't even tell you why but I was compelled to continue playing. Spend some time just looking around the world. enjoy it. Mindless killing on your way to and from the objective is just a way to make a game seem longer than it really is. SoC is exactly what it says it is and it does it right.
  • 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 th
  • Any chance of seeing this in the UK without having to import?

  • ICO is the best game ever made (Game artist POV) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jackie_Chan_Fan ( 730745 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @12:44AM (#13956218)
    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

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