Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

[Hermie]

I, like many here, was also turned off by the "push forward and A to advance cutscene"-ness that the demo leaves. But a few points made me reconsider it.

-Steve Gaynor seems to like it quite a bit. As this game was coming out, I was listening my way through the 'casts again, and I heard lé Scoopse voice the exact same fears about Uncharted 2, and then I noticed that he was praising Enslaved on twitter in the present.

-Lately I've been so interested in cool systems in games, that I almost forgot how interested I am in the potential of the medium as a story-telling device, and I hear from many that this has a very solid story that will make you want to play through it.

-Something Jeff Cannata said on Weekend Confirmed that doesn't relate to the game itself, but is still an angle I hadn't considered: "Support original IP".

I don't think I will pick it up quite yet, but after realizing these points, I'm definitely more on the positive side than I initially was. If I have a hole in my gaming schedule (man, everything was postponed until 2011, and there's STILL too many games out around now.), then I might pick it up, especially if there are more positive sentiments from Thumbians, since I know just about everyone here are actually aware of the narrative/system balance and how a game manages it.

[toblix]

I was pretty impressed at how the first dialogue sequence managed to not suck horribly, even though the premise was so crazy. It might've had something to do with them not just saying tons of shit.

[Irishjohn]

I was pretty impressed at how the first dialogue sequence managed to not suck horribly, even though the premise was so crazy. It might've had something to do with them not just saying tons of shit.

I'm on Chapter.... um something. Damn. Six, let's say. Anyway, I'm happy to say that the dialogue continues in the same vein. I find myself caring about the characters despite the fact some aspects of their relationship usually make me groan in video games. Really enjoying this one, hopefully the story will end well. So far, the setting is fantastic and the story itself is predictable but well done.

[Irishjohn]

Just finished the game, cue large block of spoiler text.... And I specifically mention a brief moment I really liked very near the end of the game, so the spoiler tag is warranted.

I thoroughly loved this game. I really enjoyed the story and the way it was told.

The scene near the end of the game when Trip deactivates the headband and Monkey tells her to turn it back on is the best dramatization of a romantic relationship I have seen in a video game, ever. Pigsy is a great character, he offers comic relief but he's a really important addition to the mix. I might have got sick of Trip and Monkey eventually.

I liked the ending. I know some people weren't thrilled. It made sense and I enjoyed this feeling of having played a story that covered a large sprawling area but was still relatively contained within itself, if that makes sense. I'm trying to say, the lack of a grand world dominating corp or something didn't bother me.

So, yes. Loved this game. Loved it.

[Lu]

I'm a bit late to the party, but I finished the demo twice now and I'm really not sure. The game often gives you this illusion of control and I'm kind of okay with that if the bits where you do actually control your character didn't feel awkward and stiff? It's not bad... Just not great either. Still, I had the drive to keep playing and find out what happened next. Will probably get this game at some point in time, but definitely not at full price.

Oh, and how often are you gonna make me watch these human folks getting blown up? Moments like that felt too scripted for my taste. /minornitpick

What worries me is that they handed of Devil May Cry to these developers, which I would assume would have a combat focus, yet nothing these folks have done convinces me that they're capable of creating a tight combat system. Will be interesting to see how that turns out.

[Irishjohn]

What worries me is that they handed of Devil May Cry to these developers, which I would assume would have a combat focus, yet nothing these folks have done convinces me that they're capable of creating a tight combat system. Will be interesting to see how that turns out.

So, I loved the story, and I'm happy I got it, but it sounds like getting it at a slightly lower price makes sense for you.

As for the action, I am not a DMC head by any stretch of the imagination and I'm not a big combo heavy action guy outside a month of Ninja Gaiden once upon a time ago. The action in Enslaved develops a bit of nuance here and there but really it's just basic, heavy, evade attack, counter stuff. Overall I liked the game because I just enjoyed playing it, but that's probably because I really enjoyed the storytelling and everything else was either good enough to keep my happy or not crap enough to annoy me. The action might annoy you, I don't know.

[Thrik]

I really like the combat myself. It's not as sophisticated as that in the laboriously combo-driven Castlevania (which is also superb imo) but it's very satisfying and has enough depth to be taxing — and after the exhausting complexity of Castlevania it's refreshingly straightforward. Bit like Fable.

[toblix]

OMG EVERYONE BUY THIS!!!!

I just finished it and this is a fantastic, great game of good quality and fun. Just like Metro 2033, it came out of nowhere and turned out to be awesome:

• I played it on normal and was able to finish it without rage quitting, which earns it the coveted Not Suddenly Frustratingly Impossible Award Powered by Mountain Dew™
  
  
• It has, from start to end, the very best cut-scenes I've ever seen. There's some wonky graphics stuff in them but the character animation and the dialogue is just incredible. From now on there should be a mandatory requirement that everyone should have to play this before being allowed to touch a game cut-scene. The landing code scene was pure comedy gold, which makes this the first non-comedy game to make me laugh by being great.
  
• It's fun: There's jumping around huge, collapsing shit; there's an interesting combat system that doesn't get boring, is always challenging, feels natural and gives a great sense of mastery; there's a skill tree thing where you spend points to improve your man by getting more health, shield, new moves, etc.
  
• It's beautiful: the environments are impressively detailed – I really got the Half-Life 2 feeling a lot of places where there's this huge, destroyed city and even though it's tightly controlled and barred off, it feels like a real, huge place.
  
• I give the sound a 7.8/10
  

[elmuerte]

yeah yeah... don't get your thong in a twist...

it's already on my to-play list.

[miffy495]

[*]I give the sound a 7.8/10

Ahaha. Thanks for that. And yeah, this game is on the top of my "I should buy these when I'm no longer broke" list.

[Squid Division]

Well since Toblix's love for Metro panned out (damn game is messed up so I can't continue though) I'm looking forward to this. I already bought it based off the demo, which indicated a highly polished game, but haven't been home to play it.

[Garple]

The ending (while not exactly original) impressed me by being rather audacious in light of the game's obviously high budget.

Toblix:

Didn't the guy who runs Pyramid kind of look like Jeff Goldblum?

[toblix]

I'd say he looked very much like Andy Serkis.

[Garple]

I'd say he looked very much like Andy Serkis.

I guess that was probably the case, but I didn't know what Serkis looked like so I was thinking something different.

[Hermie]

Yeah, just finished it too. Despite the dreaded Linearity, I found it to be a great experience through-out. It does what almost no video game does ever: Hold back. It never ever plays that giant cut-scene about how "everything changed once the bomb dropped. Oh, someone dropped the bombs because war and blah blah blah humanity are bad people." You're just left to your own device to glean from the environment what might've happened.

The narrative writing and the voice/mo-cap acting are also extremely solid. While the story itself is fairly standard hero's journey/Joseph Campell myth, it's well told and with actual believable characters. Even the ending "twist" was neither telegraphed from a mile away nor completely absurd.

My favourite example: When, at one point, one character asks "Did I do the right thing?", NOBODY ANSWERS. Not the other character(s), not some magical narrator, they just let it hang. How come it takes a film screenwriter to be secure enough in their ethical ambiguity to just come out right away and give an answer?!

Unfortunately, I didn't like the combat that much, though I did play on Hard, so maybe that is why. It seems to suffer from 2010 syndrome: The game is so proud of it's mo-cap animations, it has to play the attack animation finished before dodging, even though I see a robot right there, about to attack me.

Ending:

Andy Serkis being The Guy put kind of a big disconnect there for me, because I had the knowledge that it was Andy Serkis talking to Andy Serkis, directed by Andy Serkis.

Like I said before, I really like the fact that they left the question hanging. Just like there never was the Big Happy Family Reunion, where it turns out "hey, Pigsy's okay too!". It was an actual sacrifice (and even his loyalties up to that point were never spelled out, but also kept ambiguous.)

I borrowed the game from a friend, and now I regret not spending money on it. Support original, quality IP.

[miffy495]

I am torn between this and Vanquish, but this is $20 cheaper, so will probably get it. Just played the demos for both, and am having a hard time deciding.

[elmuerte]

Ok, the demo definitely didn't do the game any good. So far I'm really enjoying the game. It has a good mix of fighting and platforming, with an occasional puzzle. If only the movement was as fluid as with Uncharted. The pacing of this game so far is better than with uncharted. I do miss the free-look ability in this game. The camera is quite fixed.

[syntheticgerbil]

I recently finished this and the Pigsy DLC after really only finding out about what Enslaved was a little over a year ago. For various reasons what this game looked like or what it was about completely passed me by. I somehow thought it was a Serious Sam clone, but it turned out to be post apocolyptic version of Sands of Time. I kind of wish I had paid more attention to this thread, especially because I vaguely remember Toblix gushing, which doesn't normally happen.

 

I don't know what else I can really add other than Enslaved was a smooth and memorable experience that I rank very highly. My only frustration or annoyance would just be that it is not challenging enough in the mock Prince of Persia bits. I would have preferred failure being possible more often because part of the fun from the Ubi Prince of Persias was looking around the area ahead of time and trying to map out your jumps. Since Monkey doesn't go fucking insane with wall running and jumping, surely adding the ability to jump the wrong way would have been okay? As it was, I found myself getting lazy and sometimes just running around and hitting X without even looking during platforming sections since the game had it all scripted out for you. I don't know, maybe it was for the best Ninja Theory did this, because the prince can rewind time, giving you about 5-6 fails possible before reloading the checkpoint.

 

Toblix said it already in terms of story and characters, but wow, I'm incredibly impressed with how much is told without words and just glances, tone, and the way a character moves. I know the writing was done by Alex Garland, but it seems a lot of the story is well carried by the animation. Normally you'd expect the opposite of a AAA game desperately needing a writer to fill out masses of overdone plot, but the way that every story point here is subdued is impressive. Although I have seen all of the directed Danny Boyle scripts plus The Tesseract, so I really shouldn't be so surprised as they all work more or less in the same vein as Enslaved. The back story is all completely implied, the character motivations lie within the expressions on their faces, and the ending necessitates that audience had kept their attention the whole way through to understand the impact. There aren't any lazy audio logs or voice overs to fill in the blanks. I guess I have to credit the actual actors and not any animators, as much as it pains me to give credence to a mocap production. Although the artists sure did well to model characters that look amazing and stylized in all the right ways so not lend themselves into dropping far in to uncanny valley with the mocap like the ugly Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire. I took a lot of mental notes on what was going on here in hopes that it'll help my work in some way at a later date.

 

And so when I got to the Pigsy DLC, I was somewhat expecting it to be more comical, but not a complete style and tone shift. It's more than fine, it has a great tale all on it's own and is an incredibly fleshed out prequel story making the Pigsy character less of a sleaze and his actions more understood. I really appreciate all of the hard work Ninja Theory put in to what was originally a (high priced?) $10 DLC. There's a slew of new cutscenes and the gameplay is very different, sort of closer to a stealth game in the manner of setting up traps and keeping yourself out of vulnerable positions at all times. There's also a lot to be done in surveying the scene and trying to map out the chain of events with what bombs you will use, which as I said earlier, Enslaved was missing. If any in this thread loved Enslaved but did not play the DLC, you should buy it. I mean it's years after the fact, but one day it may be gone from the PSN and XBLA store and will never be seen again. Go in to a panic and buy it!

[SecretAsianMan]

I am of such a mixed mind about this game.  I did enjoy playing it (though I never beat it), but I was also slightly uncomfortable at the same time.  At first I was excited to play a game based on Chinese mythology because so few games are.  I liked the setting and characters, but something was off when I was playing it.  I later realized it was because of the source material.  Journey to the West holds a special place in my memory because as a child my father once told me the story when I was very sick.  I won't say the game does any injustice to the original tale, but for me it was different enough that it clashed with my memories and took a lot of the fun out of it.  I'd like to give the game a fair chance, but that memory is so important to me that I don't want to do anything to disturb it.

[syntheticgerbil]

I don't know much about the details of the original tale outside of the iconic bits, having never read any versions of it, but after having read a few summaries of the plot I get the feeling Enslaved doesn't follow it much outside of just having similar characters. I'm actually wondering what was the point of using Journey to the West as some kind of inspiration.

[miffy495]

I loved the game and bought the Pigsy stuff, but never played it. I should really go fire that up.

[Erkki]

I'm thinking of buying this. PC or PS3? Price seems similar on both.

 

[edit] Hm.. actually the Steam version comes with a DLC and is a few euros cheaper so I think I'll get that. And now that I decided that I'll probably wait for a sale

[darthbator]

The PS3 version is EXTREMELY framey. I've been thinking about playing this... I own the PS3 version but I never really got moving on it. I might give it another try this weekend as I am about to give up on Dark Souls for the 3rd time. 

[elmuerte]

Framey?

[Thrik]

Jerky. Probably.