Falconv1.0
Smash Master
Link to original post: [drupal=3896]Falcon's Reviw of Shadow of the Colossus [/drupal]
As I’m sure most of you are aware, a thread came up in User Blogs titled ‘The Dark Age of Gaming’. In this thread, the OP claimed ‘depth’ is needed as a standard for most games, which is ironic to me seeing how some of the more unique games I’ve come upon in my life were about as deep as a puddle gameplay wise, and if you equate plot into how ‘deep’ a game is, do yourself a favor and **** yourself with a rake, it’s a game, not a ****ing interactive book. Shadow of the Colossus is one of these ‘shallow’ games, and yet, due to its heavy emphasis on making the first time you play it one of the coolest things ever, it remains as one of the classic examples of ‘games as art’.
Shadow of the Colossus is a simple game, seeing how all you do is face off against 16 bosses, and ride Agro, your horse, around to each one. It’s the creativity and effort put into each one that makes the game unique, and it shows the benefits of subtractive design. By not focusing on pointless elements, Team Ico made the game only about what it is, you, your horse, and 16 giants in need of slaying. Some may complain about riding Agro to each location, which I admittedly got a little lost doing a few times, but I still feel it adds to the experience. You never get taken out of the world, which in my opinion allows one to be further immersed in the game.
Adding to that would be the graphics, which were pretty impressive for the PS2. Each Colossus has a fairly insane amount of detail to them, and the way they animate helps them seem almost like real beings, which gives you a bittersweet sense of accomplishment when you bring one down that did nothing but try to avoid you, but hey at least you get laid or something later. Sadly, with such great visuals, comes to price of some janky fps, which is forgivable since there’s not a lot of ‘skill’ or ‘timing’ involved, so it never really ruins the experience. It’s pretty hard to **** up stabbing something just because the fps dipped. This being said, anyone who hasn’t bought the game and owns a PS3 should definitely get the HD version coming out along with Ico, which supposedly will run locked at 30fps, making the fps issue a thing of the past.
The music of the game is simply sublime. Each song adds a certain feeling to each fight, and often change during them as well. They help give much more emotion to the game, ranging from an epic score during a chase scene, or a more somber slow tune as you watch one of the beasts from a distance, not sure how you'll manage to topple them. To this day, Kow Otani's work is still one of my favorite video game ost's of all time, and I highly recommend all of you look that **** up RIGHT NOW.
Shadow of the Colossus is one of the few games I’ve played that truly felt original, I can’t think of anything similar to it, and one of the reasons why is because they focused on what the game was about, and nothing else, and by doing so, they made it SIMPLE. This is not a deep game, you do 16 boss fights, you watch a really awesome if not sad ending, and then you go tell everyone about it because it was the best thing ever. I wish more devs would look at what SotC does right and learn from it, because it’s a damn good game.
Also, **** weaboos.
As I’m sure most of you are aware, a thread came up in User Blogs titled ‘The Dark Age of Gaming’. In this thread, the OP claimed ‘depth’ is needed as a standard for most games, which is ironic to me seeing how some of the more unique games I’ve come upon in my life were about as deep as a puddle gameplay wise, and if you equate plot into how ‘deep’ a game is, do yourself a favor and **** yourself with a rake, it’s a game, not a ****ing interactive book. Shadow of the Colossus is one of these ‘shallow’ games, and yet, due to its heavy emphasis on making the first time you play it one of the coolest things ever, it remains as one of the classic examples of ‘games as art’.
Shadow of the Colossus is a simple game, seeing how all you do is face off against 16 bosses, and ride Agro, your horse, around to each one. It’s the creativity and effort put into each one that makes the game unique, and it shows the benefits of subtractive design. By not focusing on pointless elements, Team Ico made the game only about what it is, you, your horse, and 16 giants in need of slaying. Some may complain about riding Agro to each location, which I admittedly got a little lost doing a few times, but I still feel it adds to the experience. You never get taken out of the world, which in my opinion allows one to be further immersed in the game.
Adding to that would be the graphics, which were pretty impressive for the PS2. Each Colossus has a fairly insane amount of detail to them, and the way they animate helps them seem almost like real beings, which gives you a bittersweet sense of accomplishment when you bring one down that did nothing but try to avoid you, but hey at least you get laid or something later. Sadly, with such great visuals, comes to price of some janky fps, which is forgivable since there’s not a lot of ‘skill’ or ‘timing’ involved, so it never really ruins the experience. It’s pretty hard to **** up stabbing something just because the fps dipped. This being said, anyone who hasn’t bought the game and owns a PS3 should definitely get the HD version coming out along with Ico, which supposedly will run locked at 30fps, making the fps issue a thing of the past.
The music of the game is simply sublime. Each song adds a certain feeling to each fight, and often change during them as well. They help give much more emotion to the game, ranging from an epic score during a chase scene, or a more somber slow tune as you watch one of the beasts from a distance, not sure how you'll manage to topple them. To this day, Kow Otani's work is still one of my favorite video game ost's of all time, and I highly recommend all of you look that **** up RIGHT NOW.
Shadow of the Colossus is one of the few games I’ve played that truly felt original, I can’t think of anything similar to it, and one of the reasons why is because they focused on what the game was about, and nothing else, and by doing so, they made it SIMPLE. This is not a deep game, you do 16 boss fights, you watch a really awesome if not sad ending, and then you go tell everyone about it because it was the best thing ever. I wish more devs would look at what SotC does right and learn from it, because it’s a damn good game.
Also, **** weaboos.
