Shadow of the Colossus

[Da Maintenance Man 0]

When I first saw this, I kinda wrote it off as some lame ass, non-action adventure game (like Ico) but it's been getting pretty good reviews everywhere. PSM gave it a 9.5 in the December issue. Just might pick this one up someday.

[chirs3 0]

Well, overall, I'm gonna have to chalk this up as a disappointment.

 

Many of the Colossi battles are cool. So that's nice.

 

But then again, many of them are not. Many of them are great ideas ruined by typical pattern-based boss gameplay.

 

What's great about the first few Colossi (particularly #5) is that how the fight goes depends entirely on your skill - if you play sloppily, you will fall off. If you play smart and carefully, you can take the thing down without ever falling off.

 

Later bosses, however, resort to the typical videogame "do something three times" pattern. For example,

the flying serpent. You shoot the little gas sacks underneath him, ride Agro parallel to him, jump on his wings, climb up, attack the first weak spot... and then he dives under the sand, so you have to shoot the gas sacks again, ride Agro next to it again, climb it again, attack the weak spot again... and then you have to do all that again. No matter how good a player you are, you will

always have to repeat the pattern three times. It totally kills the momentum, and really tests your patience more than your skill. And many of the Colossi (mostly in the 9-16 range) are like this.

 

Plus, they recycle music, which is just unforgivable. In a game that's basically just 16 boss fights, would it be too much to ask that each have his own music?

 

And, as previously stated, the graphics are ass. Thumbs up for artistic vision, but really, this is like doing the Sistine Chapel in crayon. The tech side just isn't up to snuff.

 

And on top of all that, the actual land mass is much smaller than the developers claim. Supposedly it's 52 squares of 600x600 feet, but a good number of those are either all water (oceans at the edge of the map) or are just plain unreachable (top left corner of the map), or are covered in mountains you can't climb or explore in any way. Not that it would matter, since exploration has yielded fruit trees and nothing else. There are plenty of areas I'd love to check out, but they're either blocked by invisible walls (the structure in the first Colossi area), or just entirely unreachable (every mountain in the game).

 

Lots of potential in this game, but very little of it reached. It's worth a rental, but not much else.

Edited October 23, 2005 by chirs3

[haws bah gawd 0]

Where'd you get the demo from?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I assume you were referring to me. This reply is a little late, and more than likely you have the game by now. However, I got the demo from Gamestop, and I believe OPM had a demo as well. I could be mistaken on the magazine pack-in though.

[Golgo 13 0]

Just to chip in, I got an unexpected demo late last week by way of Playstation Underground, although it was a stand alone with nothing else on it.

 

I enjoyed it enough, but I'll probably just rent it or rely on a pal to buy the game before I do, with a purchase later once it gets cheap.

[Ravenbomb 0]

Where'd you get the demo from?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I assume you were referring to me. This reply is a little late, and more than likely you have the game by now. However, I got the demo from Gamestop, and I believe OPM had a demo as well. I could be mistaken on the magazine pack-in though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't even have a PS2 yet, I'm getting one in the next couple of weeks