Enslaved: Odyssey to the West Review

I finally finished this game last night and I'm very excited to write this review. It's a game that's left a strong impression on me as a player in numerous ways.


First, some backstory. Enslaved is based on one of the four great classic novels written during the Ming Dynasty called "Journey to the West". It's about a Monkey king who is trapped/enslaved by a crown put in place by a monk named Tripitaka, who is going west. Tripitaka uses Monkey's strength and cunning to make a safe passage to his destination.


Enslaved starts off with the female lead, Trip, breaking out of a slaver ship and the male lead, Monkey, breaking out as well and following her to an escape pod. Monkey gets to the pod just as she's launching and he rides it down to the hard way. When he regains consciousness he realizes been fashioned with a "slave headband." He quickly figures out that Trip put it on him so when he moves to attack her immense pain shoots thru his head. Trip reveals that she needs to get 300 miles to the west, back to her dad, and that she can't do it alone. She promises that if Monkey gets her there she will set him free. Also, if she dies....so does Monkey.


Trip is the AI controlled partner that luckily never gets in the way. She's a tech junkie that helps you in numerous ways. You directly control Monkey as the player.


Now that the story is out of the way it's time for the likes and dislikes.


Like:


Story - It's written by Alex Garland. The guy that wrote 2 movies that are in my top 5 all time favorite movies! If my brief synopsis of the beginning of the game doesn't intrigue you or make you appreciate the concept and relationship that these two are going to have then please go kill yourself, robot. It's a very original story with amazing characters that are believable and incredibly likable. It never turns into a romance, but the love that these two form for each other is believable and a joy to watch. The end of the game is not a head scratcher where you're left wondering, "WTF just happened?" But more of a, "Wow....what would I have done? What happens next?!" I've been thinking about it all last night and this morning. No game has ever done that to me.


Performances - Andy Serkis does the cinematic directing and mo-cap for the game just as he did in Heavenly Sword and his talents really shine. His voice acting as Monkey is (it sounds so gay to say) both badass and sweet. Even when he's yelling there's a tenderness to the character of Monkey that you don't see with other tough guys in games. His worry for Trip starts as self preservation and slowly moves towards care for her. The subtlety in facial animation delivers even more emotions, unlike anything I've ever seen in any other game and most movies. Trip is voiced by Lindsey Shaw and I can't seem to find any good info on her, but she does an amazing job as well.

Character design - I keep saying it, but the eyes in this game blew me away over and over. No uncanny valley here! Also, whoever drew up Monkey is a genius. I played the demo before I knew about the whole "Journey to the West" relationship to the game and while I was playing I was shocked at not only his name, but just how much he does look, move and stand like a monkey. He even has a belt that hangs off of his pants and more than once looks like a tail. Shockingly well designed.

World - The game takes place 150 years after some war. The game hardly ever talks about the war and there are little to no details as to what happened. All that the people know is that a long time ago there was a war and it wiped out just about everyone and there are mechs left over that still just want to kill humans. The world isn't a bombed out wasteland, but rather a fertile regrowth after humans are gone. New York city is an overgrown jungle and it's wonderful to look at. Nice to see a developer do post war with some color. Gets a little tiring looking at the grays of Gears of War and the browns of Fallout.

Combat - It's pretty simple and for all the over the top action games I've played it was nice to focus on playing the game over pulling off huge combos for "MAXIMUM DAMAGE." Not that it can't be too basic, but I thought that it fit the game very well.

Graphics - COLOR! Lots of it!

Platforming - There's a ton of jumping around and it's a lot of fun. Some very big set pieces to play around on. Sadly it's not overly difficult, but getting from Point A to B is more of a joy than a pain from poor timing.

Dislike:

Graphics - Looks like they could have used another month or two to work out some poor textures and a handful of jaggies....or it could be another fail of the Unreal Engine. I'm so damn tired of seeing the same shit shading on faces of characters in ANY game using the Unreal Engine. Ninja Theory made an awesome engine for Heavenly Sword that was not only 1st gen PS3, but in a lot of ways looked an animated better than Enslaved. Why they didn't use their own engine is beyond me. Not a jab at 360, but maybe it fell on that for some reason. Heavenly Sword was PS3 exclusive and it didn't have either of the problems listed above.

Cinematics - This isn't a fault of the game, but something I missed having just come off of Heavenly Sword. There weren't as many well crafted movie type moments where you get to watch some neat performances (mo-cap and voice acting). This probably has to do with the much more straghtforward plot and game design than anything else, but Andy Serkis didn't get to stretch his wings in Enslaved like he did in Heavenly Sword. 360 disc size limitations?

Platforming - This is something else that could have used another couple weeks to work the rest of the kinks out. I had on quite a few occasions problems jumping where it seemed like the game wasn't recognizing that I was, in fact, on a ledge trying to jump. The game won't let you fall to your death so you basically just sit at the edge of the ledge rolling rather than jumping.

Animations - They're well done, but seem to be missing the same "fluidity" of Heavenly Sword. Again, I don't know if this is from a different engine or what, but there's a noticeable difference in quality when compared to Heavenly Sword.

End of the Story - It's over?! I want to know what happens next!!!

This game was awesome. It slowed in the middle, but picked up huge at the end. It has one of my favorite stories in any game ever and definitely my favorite characters in any game ever. If you guys ever play the game I hope you find the same emotion and humanity in it as I did.

I do highly recommend this game, but I think a lot of people would not want to pay the full 60 dollar entry fee to play. For me and this game it was about supporting a developer that is attempting to move the entire video game genre to a new level of storytelling and immersion. They succeed in every way, but jumble the ball slightly in some of the platforming and graphics departments.

Here's hoping for a sequel and for the longevity of Ninja Theory! I'm a fan for life.