Shadow Of The Colossus

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Sometimes when buying new games you stumble upon hidden gems. That's what happened to me lately. I'm home for Christmas break so grabbed the ps2 and hit a store before coming home in order to get a few games to kill time (my home is a tiny town, nothing to do, you get the idea). Anyways I grabbed Resident Evil 4 and Shadow of the Colossus. I figured those along with FF12 would keep me more then satisfied. Luckily FF12 is a great game and RE4 blew me away, how SotC was the question mark, I wasn't sure exactly what I would think of it as I had heard it got good reviews but that was about it. Past that I knew not what I was getting myself into.The first thing you notice in SotC is the art design. Frankly the game is stunning. The animation is fluid, the graphics rich (great for PS2, they could easily re-texture it for a newer system and it would be gorgeous), and the lighting surprisingly nice. The next thing you quickly realize once playing the game is that it's not your average adventure or fighter game. The best way I can explain it would be to say its a... puzzle-fighting game. The game (mostly) consists of numerous boss battles against the colossi, ginormous beasts that wander the world in the game. Early in the story you learn you must defeat them all to achieve a goal (won't spoil the story for you) but whats interesting is, right off the bat, you are told beating the colossi MAY achieve what you want. Maybe. Not necessarily. But maybe. I LOVED this, not sure why. I think it does a good job of pulling you into the characters desperation. Basically saying "Here, do this insanely intense, possibly impossible, life risking task and you might get what you want. Or it might all be in vain. One of those."As far as the battles themselves are concerned, you literally have to CLIMB these beasts and stab their weak points, sometimes obvious sometimes not, while avoiding being thrown off, crushed, etc. As you progress they require more thinking to figure out the trick to them and each beast is impressive in its own right.The game is not one that will appeal to everyone. It is not an action packed shooter or a true brainiac puzzler, but a hybrid that is a work of art. Its only 20 bucks new as a "Greatest Hits" title so for anyone like me still trying to get their money's worth out of their PS2's I highly recommend it.

[leafbunk 0]

I bought this game for my boyfriend for Christmas and he says he really likes it so far. I've watched him play a bit of it and we both think it has a very cinematic feel to it and it looks really neat. The camera angles are cool and I think the giants look awesome. He's pretty much just started the game, but he says he likes so far how the story is vague, so you can, in a sense make your own until you pick up the plot line as you go further into the game. And yeah, climbing the giants is incredible. Nice looking game, and I'm glad to see that my boyfriend thinks it's good....since I did get it for him as a gift. Maybe when he's done with it I'll play it.