Ninja Theory

The first thing I played after formally ending my hiatus from games was the Pigsy's Perfect 10 DLC for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. I don't want to say too much about it since I'm considering doing a quick review for it, but what I will say is that it was excellent from start to finish.

Recently, I read an editorial written by Tae Kim over at GamePro. Basically Tae (and a few others) are saying the same thing that I've been saying for years—most games are too long without the content to support such length, and that story-driven games in particular would benefit from being tighter and more focused. I'm glad to see that this idea is starting to pop up more and more, because it's true. However, there's a bit of a spin to Tae's piece, and this little twist is something I have an issue with.

If you ask me, the situation with Enslaved: Odyssey to the West was exactly the sort of instance when the industry should have rolled out a lower price point to reflect the relatively small amount of content on the disc, in addition to enticing more people on a budget to take a risk on something that they may or may not like. As much as I hate to say it, $60 is just too much for a game of this sort and as a critic, I would've had a much easier time recommending Enslaved if it had launched at $30 or even $40.

Monkeying Around in a New Genre

HIGH Activating Monkey's "cloud" for the first time.

LOW The end of the game doesn't seem to match the beginning.

WTF Trip shows no remorse for killing innocents in the first level.

Game Description: Enslaved is a post-apocalyptic retelling of the classic 400-year old novel "Journey to the West". Set 150 years from now, the world has been ruined by war and ecological disaster with only a handful of survivors remaining. In Enslaved, players take on the role of Monkey, a strong and athletic, yet solitary figure, who been captured by one of the mysterious slave ships, which harvest the remaining population and take them out west never to return. Trip, a technologically savvy young woman who has also been imprisoned by the same ship, manages to escape. She quickly realizes that Monkey, with his raw strength and power, is her only hope to survive the perilous journey back to her home. She hacks into a slave headband and fits it on Monkey, linking them together – if she dies, he dies… Her journey has now become his and Monkey must now travel west alongside Trip as they traverse a demolished world, under constant threat of capture and mortal peril.

I can't say that I was a very big fan of Ninja Theory's first work, Heavenly Sword, but from what little was shown in the demo, Enslaved seems to have its head in the right place. I like the overall concept in general, and it's pretty clear that the developers are going for a big-budget slam-bang action sort of thing.

Game Description: Developed by Ninja Theory, Heavenly Sword is a visually stunning martial arts drama set in a mythical time and place in the Far East.