IF Command Online
IF Command Online Bulletin Board Forum (total 54 members)
home
|
login
|
register
|
search
|
today's posts
|
help
Index
/
Old Guard
/
IF Central Command Post
/
Out of Character
Reply the topic
Please fill out all required (
*
) fields.
Nickname
*
enter your nickname.
Email
*
enter your email address.
To
Old Guard / IF Central Command Post / Out of Character / TOP 10 BEST GAMES EVER
Symbol
Subject
*
write the subject of your new topic.
Message
*
UltraBoard Codes
: on
HTML Tags
: off
Emotions Legend
[quote][b]Remus (Oct 30, 2002 04:47 a.m.):[/b] I hereby bump Deus Ex from the list. Toonstruck, Final Fantasy VII, JP2, MGS, and Blade Runner all fall one rung on the ladder. Asserting itself firmly in the #5 slot on the Best Games Ever is... [b]5. Ico --[/b][i] Sony Computer Entertainment Japan[/i] Holy shit, folks. This game is amazing. I'm placing it in slot #5 because I just finished playing it 10 minutes ago and I'd like to be conservative until the euphoria wears off. But god damn. God freaking damn. That was cool. Okay, so, premise first: background information is scant as hell in this game, but the opening cinematic shows us three men on horseback traveling through a lush forest, with an 11- or 12-year-old boy (who, inexplicably, has ox horns sticking out of the sides of his head) seated in front of the man riding in the middle of their single-file line. The boy doesn't look happy. The four ride to a cliff overlooking the sea, and a short ways from shore we see a large, cliff-walled island with a huge structure built over it. The structure is clearly ancient, even the stonework is falling apart, but has a vaguely temple look to it. Next we see these four traveling by boat to the island. Then they're in a cave parking their boat. Then they're inside the temple, and they use an odd-looking glowing sword to unlock a door. Last, we see them enter a large hall, lined on each side with tier upon tier of what look like big metal jars or pots. One opens. They place the boy inside, and one says, "Do not be angry with us. This is for the good of the village." The pot closes, and they leave. A section of the floor rises up to cover their exit; no leaving that way. But the shaking makes the floor under the boy's pot crack, and the pot tumbles forward and cracks open, dumping the boy on the floor head first. Now, after a rather odd and disturbing dream portending later events in the game, the boy (I assume this is Ico, because I don't have the game manual but that word isn't used anywhere else) wakes up. Shortly thereafter, after running around and throwing switches, he comes upon a cage suspened within a tower, just as he saw in the aforementioned dream. Inside is a girl (assumably much older, as she is taller by head and shoulders), who, for reasons also not explained, seems to glow white. For a mental picture, thing of a photograph of a pale girl in a white dress which has become overexposed. He busts her out of her cage, and but she speaks a language he doesn't understand, so they don't talk much. After this, you must play through the game by leading this girl (who, we find out later, has the unfortunate name of Yorda) literally by the hand. You must solve extremely clever puzzles (more on this in a moment) and protect Yorda from the hordes of shadow demon thingies <shiver> that keep on popping up and trying to drag her into little vortex thingies by (literally) beating them off with a stick. Now, one of the most interesting things about the game is the necessity of leading and protecting Yorda. Ico has no health meter; he does not take damage when he is smacked around (which is a good thing, cause he takes some bad spills in some of these cinematics). The only thing that can kill him is if he falls a great distance. So the tension comes not from staying alive, but from keeping Yorda safe from the shadow demons. And you must take her with you as you explore, for two reasons: A) she has the ability to open doors like the one that the sword from the intro opened; and B) if you leave a zone/room without Yorda, it won't be long before you hear a frightened gasp from the zone you just left, and if you haul ass you might just make it back in time to drag her out of the vortex she's being pulled into. Thus, as you progress through the game, you actually start to feel sort of parental. Yorda's very childlike; she can't defend herself, and she can't find the way on her own. You have to do all the work. Now, I am not the biggest fan of useless distressed females in video games. I believe I got tired of the notion about halfway through the third Mario Bros. game. And yet, only once or twice did I find myself getting annoyed with Yorda (though that time when we were almost out and the big gate was closing and she tripped... yeah). Rather, the game fosters a sort of big-brotherly, protective feeling toward the character, which baffles me as much as anyone. Criticize if you like, but play it and see if you can stay annoyed. Dare ya. The puzzles. Ah, the puzzles. I had to look online for solves twice during the course of the game. One I think could have been prevented had I been given the manual -- if you hold the O button while hanging on a chain, Ico kicks his feet out and starts you swinging, which can get you into otherwise inaccessible areas. The other... well, maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind, cause it seemed reasonable enough. But here are some examples: - a large room has two levels, and the floor of the bottom level is riven by a big damn chasm. The upper level has a bridge that goes across. However, it's the far side of the lower level you need to get to. You climb up into the rafters, to where a large chandelier is hanging. When you jump on the chandelier, it falls, dumping you on the bridge and crashing into the chasm. When you go down to the bottom level, some of the candles landed on your side. You use them to light your stick, then use [i]that[/i] to start the fuze on these little bomb thingies that look like christmas ornaments. Then you drop the bomb next to the bridge's support beam, and run like hell. Voila. The bridge collapses, forming a ramp from the starting side of the upper level to the finish side of the bottom level. - For those of you still reading (if any), this one will be shorter, promise. You're on a wooden bridge and there's a section that's standing up on end, like a drawbridge, on the far side of a gap. Now, as Ico, you can find a way around, cause you're cool like that. But Princess Toadst- I mean, Yorda, doesn't like climbing and swinging and falling, so you have to make a path for her. There's a chain hanging from a tower on the far side (where you are now), close to the upright section of the bridge. You climb up to that, and swing, and fling yourself at the upright segment. Ico gets a little bruised, but the segment falls down and Yorda can walk across safely. Aww. - okay, one more, real short. This is my favorite; it was in the demo. You have to get to the top of a windmill. I could explain more, but as I said, I'm keeping it short. Unfortunately, the convenient ledges and handholds stop about halfway up the side. What do you do? Take a flying leap at the spinny propeller dealy, and edge your way along it hand over hand so that when it goes vertical, you're hanging on at the corner, and you can leap off onto the top of the windmill. Yeah, I like that. Okay, that's all for examples. In summary for the puzzles, they were extremely creative and involved things I'd never before seen in a platformer. Almost every single one was unique, and none were cliches (with the possible exception of some light block puzzles). Simply brilliant. Well, I think that's it. Complaints? Don't have many. The game was pretty short; I don't know how long exactly, because the end of the game doesn't let you save for a while before, but I'd estimate five or six hours. However, I have to say that while I love this game and do sort of wish there was more, it really was the perfect length. Any longer and they would have been stretching it; it was exactly as long as it needed to be. Other than that... hmm. I found it odd that the game's dialogue (what little there was of it) was subtitled. All the voice acting was in Japanese (except the gibberish Yorda kept babbling). Uh. Yeah, I think that's it. Okay, so, rant over. Simply awesome game. I propose this one for SuperBodacious Holiday Extravaganza -- it's short, and lots of fun, and the ending is neat. I leave you with two things. 1) The game eventually leads you full circle back to the hall with the ceramic pots. Up on a raised dais, several shadow demons are standing in a circle and doing something ritualistic. You run up there ready to kick some ass, and they scatter. But in the center of what was their circle, sits Yorda (who was captured a bit earlier), who has been turned to stone. You charge after the demons, beating them up until they turn into shadow vapor. They seem endless. Not that it's a hard fight -- you can't be hurt. But they keep on coming, and it starts to feel hopeless, and there's Yorda, staring into space as a statue. And then... You start to realize that the shadow vapor that's left when you kill each one of these things gets drawn into one of the pots. And the pot, thereafter, starts to glow... 2) You're standing in the windmill area. The game, as you have seen, is gorgeous. But here you can see the far shore, with its lush forest, and the waves crashing on the rocks. There's a little pond next to the windmill, rippling and reflecting everything. ...And if you leave Yorda alone, she'll walk around the area by herself, looking at the far shore, at the sky, at the reflections in the water. She'll walk toward birds, and when they take flight, she watches them go. It's rare to find a video game character with a soul.[/quote]
write your message here.
Preview your post and/or attach a file?
Powered by
UltraBoard
2000 Standard Edition,
Copyright ©
UltraScripts.com, Inc.
1999-2000.
Sign our Visitor's Log!