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Saturday 26 January, 2008
GAMEPLAY
The more colossi I slew, the harder it was to discover their location. Although not nearly as exciting as fighting a colossus to the death, but it gave me a chance to explore the varied environment, which I don’t think I would have otherwise. The later colossi seem to be more aggressive than those earlier on, firing electricity and lasers at you. However, when I defeated a colossus I found it a bittersweet affair. I felt pride that I had overcome such a daunting foe, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had just killed a magnificent creature that had not really done anything to me.
This game has drawn more people to it than any other I’ve played. While playing the game my friends, even those who didn’t like videogames, would come in to my room and be mesmerized as I was drug into a deep lake by a giant sea serpent, and there were shouts as I flew off the wing of another only to grasp the tip of its tail.
DESIGN
Shadow of the Colossus is a very innovative and exciting game that does many things well. The game gets rid of normal enemies in lieu of only a handful of colossi. The game is more or less defeating one colossus after another, but it never becomes repetitive or boring because each colossus requires a completely unique way to defeat it. The colossi are so massive that they are more akin to levels than actual bosses; you have to overcome obstacles to reach a goal (their weak point). Each battle has a sense of grandeur due to each of the colossus’s shear size. The musical score was interesting and imaginative. The music was calm and almost non-existent while I was roaming the environment which creating the feeling that this all took place at the end of the world, yet became intense and dramatic upon engaging a colossus to fit the more combative section of the game. The environment spans from desert to forest and is truly 3D, the whole world is open at the beginning, and there are no invisible walls or cliffs to restrict the character’s movement.
However, the game’s camera angle and controls while riding Agro, your horse, leave much to be desired. The camera was difficult to manually navigate and would sometimes turn completely around causing me to lose sight of the colossus and crushed underfoot. In addition, the Horse was hard to keep in a straight line while riding it, which was not a problem in the plains or desert areas, but it took me over twenty minutes to navigate a forest because I ran into every other tree. Despite these draw backs they do not happen often enough, nor with enough severity to really detract from the gameplay. As it stands, Shadow of the Colossus remains a brilliant game.
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