GameLog # 2 Shadow of Colossus (Classics Game)
Gameplay
The second time around, nothing really changed much except for the colossi and I got more comfortable with the control scheme. When I first played this, the camera angles were kind of throwing me off because you control them in free motion. This I found to be a little irritating because it's hard to control the camera angle when your fighting one of the colossi. You have to get used to controlling the camera and the player at the same time. I still haven't encountered any new characters and the story is still a mystery.
When I am fighting the colossi, I kind of feel sad for killing them because when you inflict damage upon them, they start to moan in a very sad tone. Personally, I don't really even know why I am killing them. They haven't hurt me in any way and their just chillin out. I love how the colossi are now getting more complex and differently structured. Now it's just more than grabbing on to hair and climbing your way to victory. You have to jump form place to place on the colossi and your movements have to be precise because if they are not, you'll fall a couple of hundred feet and die.
I also love the fact that you just keep fighting boss after boos and don't have to deal with little enemies. Some may argue about the lack of story, and to a certain extent it is true, but the visuals and epic boss battles make up for it.
Game Design
Game development is the key feature in the game. Even though the PS2 isn't the most powerful machine in terms of graphics and visuals, this game is created flawlessly. There is a lot of detail given to the environment which mostly consists of grassy outdoors, rivers, and ruins. Tough you can shoot down fruits from trees and kill lizards, or jump objects, interaction between the environment and the player is very minimal. I do love the fact that a lot of the times you have to use the environment to your advantage to overcome the colossi. Lighting effects in the game are beautiful and give a very realistic feel to the outdoors. There isn't, however, any incentive to roam around in the environments because your not going to encounter any rewards or new weapons except for the lizards and fruits that increase your health bar.
The music in the game is another great element. When you are riding outdoors, it's mostly orchestra that is calm and adventurous. However, when you start a battle, the tempo picks up and changes depending on the stage of the battle. The developers also did a great job in avoiding the implementation of strange creatures and animals. If they would of done that, it would become more of a fantasy world and lose the realistic aspect of the game. The HUD in the game is really simple and comfortable. Since you only have two weapons, you don't need to scramble around with buttons.
Player movement in this game is kind of stiff and slow. Since this was a very graphically intensive game, the developers had to decrease the framerate to a substantial amount. However, the visuals are worth it. Agro's development and movement is worth complementing. I have never really seen a more realistic horse in a video game. In most other video games, riding a horse is pretty much the same thing as riding a car in terms of changing directions and speeding up. In this game, however, Agro's acts like a real horse. The controls are a little more stiff when Agro is running a you have to change directions. The way his head and muscles move while walking or running is very realistic.
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Game Log # 1 Shadow of Colossus (Classics Game)
Summary
In Shadow of Colossus, you play as a young man who must travel through land and water on his horse named Agro and defeat giants, known as colossi, to bring a dead girl back to life. This is a third-person action/adventure game that has strong emphasis on the environment and colossi.
Gameplay
This is not the easiest game to pick up but it also isn't the hardest. The primary goal is simple but how you accomplish the missions may get a little frustrating. As you start the game, very little is known about the story and the mysterious girl that seems to be the love of the young man. This stays pretty much constant throughout the game. Besides the unnamed young man, dead girl, and Agro (the horse), there aren't any new characters that I have encountered. Also, besides the colossi, there aren't any other enemies.
As you travel through the vast land, your sword acts as your navigation device. It guides you to the next colossus by shining a green beam towards your destination. This only works in the a sunlit area. There isn't any action on your way to the colossus, but that is good in a way because the colossi get harder to defeat and require a lot more time as you progress. For now, I have only encountered the first two and it took me a good amount of time to beat them. I've noticed that the colossi are more like puzzles and require strategy more than brute force to defeat them. Each colossi has weak spots where it is prone to damage.
This game is really fun to play cause there is a mystery element to the story and you just don't know how the next colossus is going to look like. I also love how you get to climb the colossi and explore the vastness of it's body. The intuitive design of each colossus and how you go about defeating it is what makes this game really interesting and enjoyable.
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