Enslaved: Odysey to the West

edit: oh god this got really long, you’d never know that I only played a 15 (or something like that) minute demo

        Have you played Prince of Persia (2009), or whatever it is they call that pathetic game? I bought it because I desperately wanted it to be good. I wish I could unbuy it and use that money for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. I’m going to rent it and finish it, but I’m having a really hard time justifying the cost of buying it :/ Not because it wouldn’t be worth it, not because I don’t want to own it and recommend it to people, but because sixty bucks is sixty bucks.

        But let me explain. I downloaded the demo and just finished playing it. The game released on October 5th for the PS3 and 360. Sucks if you don’t own either of those I guess. Here’s a synopsis of the game from wikipedia:

Enslaved is a story set 150 years in the future where a global war has ravaged the Earth. In this future, nearly all of the entire human race has been eradicated, but robots still plague the land. Although they are from a bygone era, they are still following their orders to eradicate the humans. The storyline is loosely based on the ancient Chinese novel Journey to the West.

        You control two characters in the game: Monkey, a beefy all-american manly man with an EMP staff and some sweet gloves that can make a shield I guess. He also climbs really well. Surprising, no? Your other character is Trip, a female hacker, who has to rely on Monkey’s brute strength to help her get home. But here’s what puts the game far above a simple “oh you have a hacker sidekick” gimmick: Trip installed a modified slave headband on Monkey after the crash landing of the slave ship they were on. She can control him with voice commands and put an insane amount of hurt on him if he tries to disobey. Worse than that, if she dies, the headband kills him instantly.

        Essentially, Monkey is her slave, and you have to help her and protect her from killer robots - or else. So first of all, you have a two character gameplay mechanic (similar to Prince of Persia, and different parts of the other PoP games - also featured in some shitty game that just came out called Quantum Theory and I’m sure countless others) that is actually an interesting plot point. If you’ve played the 2009 Prince of Persia game, you’ll know that the princess girl is practically just eye candy… Sure, she has her uses in the gameplay, but her main use is a terrible plot delivery mechanic (there are lots of articles about how the story of Prince of Persia failed, check the one Anthony Burch wrote for Destructoid if you care) and to revive you every time you die. Enslaved: 1. Prince of Persia: 0.

        The platforming, thanks to such innovations as the “camera angle” and “close ups,” somehow manages to be cool and, well, personal. There’s probably a better way to put it, but it’s like, you feel a lot more involved in what’s going on with the way they move the camera and shake it and generally just do things movies have done for ages. I’ll admit that I haven’t played either Uncharted game so this may not be new, but it’s just so awesome in comparison to Prince of Persia. In Prince of Persia, the platforming is very cool and you look like a badass, albeit a slow badass. But it never felt engaging, and I never really thought “hey that was cool” except for the time that I did something the game didn’t want me to do. It was just visually attractive, and basically all in a day’s work, totally mundane. Enslaved: 2. Prince of Persia: 0.

        Enslaved’s combat has pretty much the same pros, and Prince of Persia’s combat has pretty much the same cons. So that’s Enslaved: 3 and Prince of Persia: 0.

        Honestly this game gets so much better the more I compare it to Prince of Persia. I was seriously thinking of this while playing it, like wow, I really hate that Prince of Persia game, and I REALLY like this one.

        From what I’ve read, the relationship between Trip and Monkey actually develops throughout the course of the game, which is something that you might take for granted in a novel or movie, but in a video game is actually fucking noteworthy. I look forward to not having to mention that as a specific bonus in the future.

        edit for those who read all this: Jim Sterling was right to say that it’s like someone took Heavenly Sword and gave it good gameplay. I rented that game and that was a good decision, but I wonder if this might not be one to own.

        Time to go play the Vanquish demo!