Not long ago the staff had a Serious Discussion (which lasted 3 minutes and consisted of “why not?”) about whether our First Impressions section should include demos… that is, whether we can state first impressions based on one. It didn’t occur to us to set up some kind of rule about how long the demo should be. After all, size doesn’t matter. What matters is enthusiasm.
And Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is all about enthusiasm. It’s from Ninja Theory, which made its debut with the love-it-or-hate-it PS3 exclusive Heavenly Sword. Claiming they learned from their mistakes in that game (it was before my ownership of a PS3 so I haven’t played), the ninjas at Ninja Theory – seriously, those are their titles, like “Coding Ninja” and “Marketing Ninja” – promise to make a longer, better game with Enslaved.
Now, I have a soft spot for any game that’s based on or inspired by great literature. Except Dante’s Inferno, because that game was shit. Enslaved, meanwhile, is intriguing; and it is based (kind of) on one of the “four great” classical Chinese novels: Journey to the West, by (maybe) Wu Cheng’en. It’s a rich and complex novel that involves, uh, journeying. And the west.
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Okay, I haven’t read it and hadn’t heard of it until I heard about this game. Sue me.
Enslaved is a modern readaptation involving robots and stuff.
Gameplay is Prince of Persia meets, um, Prince of Persia, which is not a bad thing; the demo only lasted about eight minutes, during which I – playing as Monkey, a criminal/ninja/weird hair guy – got imprisoned, escaped, survived a big spaceship crash, and wound up with a fuck-with-me-and-it-will-zap-you headband courtesy of the game’s female lead, Trip.
She wants you to protect her while she goes WEST. You’re her slave. She has enslaved you. Get it?
The demo is brief; only a few minutes of platforming, a few seconds of fighting, and a reasonable dollop of cutscenes. What I saw was pretty liquid platforming controls, and basic combo-driven combat not dissimilar to the latter two Prince of Persia games. I was impressed by the elegance with which the constantly changing camera perspective managed my thumb movements; only once did I wind up running the wrong way after a cut. And while it’s hard to judge melee combat by four or five encounters, what I saw seemed impressive.
The challenge with Enslaved is that it’s written by some Hollywood dude and directed (and starred in) by Andy Serkis, the brilliant motion actor who’s best known for playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, and that god damned ape in the agonizingly bad King Kong remake. Serkis also worked with Ninja Theory on Heavenly Sword, but, recognizing his talents, the developers gave him a lot more control in this one. Coupled with professional writing, it has a lot of potential to be a spectacularly cinematic and moving game. The only question is… is it fun to play?
What I played was plenty of fun, but the demo takes ten minutes to complete. A fellow journalist, who I won’t name because he’s operating under a press blackout and shared this on a private discussion group, described it as “Game of the Year.” But the demo doesn’t communicate that. It communicates a generally fun combat-focused platformer with highly impressive motion capture.
Demos are so easy to do wrong. You’ve got perfect demos like Crackdown that made millions buy the game; you’ve got non-demos that don’t show you what you’re like to experience. Enslaved’s demo is closer to the latter than the former; I suspect there’s more to it than was shown in the brief moments that 1.3GB demo allowed. But it didn’t make me want to scamper out and grab the game. Thus my impressions are that this one has potential to be brilliant, but if I were you I’d wait for some reviews before I did anything rash.
Email the author of this post at steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.
This is the first game that’s seriously got me to consider picking up a console. I’m hoping it’s as good as… well, I’m hoping.
Well, you had me until you namedropped Prince of Persia…
Aw, who am I kidding, Ninja Theory have been on my shitlist since I heard they were given the Devil May Cry reboot based on their Heavenly Sword… er… success… I was thinking that Enslaved kinda looked neat but I really don’t fall for story driven games if gameplay is not there… The impressions are not exactly encouraging me…
I gotta check this out.
I’ve always wanted to play Heavenly Sword. Once day I hope to pick it up at a bargain price. If I can find it!
I’ve had my eye on this for a while now. I’ve been reasonably impressed by the trailers and game-play videos I’ve seen (just remember, I’m easily swayed by “the pretty”) so I’m hoping it’s really as good as it looks because I’m intrigued by the theme and the whole Monkey/Trip dynamic. In other words, me wants.
Actually… After playing the demo myself… I think I love it!!! Nobody is more surprised than me, but there you have it. I am not a big PoP fan, but Enslaved so far looks like it’s trying to ape Uncharted’s brand of action adventure where nothing will be especially deep or complex but everything will be breathtakingly cinematic and charming. I liked the demo. Platforming is entry level as is combat, but the art direction is pretty and the characters seem interesting and the gameplay doesn’t look… frustrating. Neither does it look especially challenging, but, hey, Uncharted 2 was the same. I’m not saying this will be Uncharted 2 for the year 2010, but it has more potential than if you’d just come up and tell me “A competent PoP clone.” Also, Serkis’ voice acting – astounding.
Mind you, I still figure Devil may Cry will be arse, but I think Enslaved, as Steerpike said, has the potential for greatness. Wait, that’s not what he said, but I think the spirit is close enough!!!
What Meho said. Just finished the demo and I liked it! A lot. The voice acting coupled with Monkey and Trip’s facial expressions was superb. I had a little trouble spotting the next handhold (enough that I missed avoiding the building just before the ship crashed) but I think that’s just gamma adjustment.
And its very pretty!
I’m considering pre-order.
Finally got round to installing and playing this last night and I thought it was total arse.
Edit: okay not total arse, but I really wasn’t impressed.
The menu screen was lovely as was the music accompanying it so I was eager to get it started. But then the game began. First off, what the hell is going on with the character design? A gruff muscly dude with ridiculous hair? A beautiful red head complete with tight clothing and exposed midriff? I thought we were past this sort of generic stuff now — look at Beyond, Good & Evil and that’s 7 years old. Then there’s the prison ship level design. Compartment after compartment — exactly the same. Even the bloody prison pods blowing up to kill those slaves got repetitive. All I did through the entire demo was hold the thumbstick in a specific direction and kept mashing X. Fighting was fun but still very mashy and I expect this to be where the game shines later on but the platforming was totally lifeless. And the lip-syncing! What the hell is going on there? The fact that Andy Serkis is part of this baffles me considering his history with mo-cap. All this pretty pretty and the lip-syncing still stinks. Half-Life 2 is 6 years old.
I’m sorry, I know this is a demo but there was just so much style with so little substance.
Meho likes it, Gregg hates it.. I’m just confused now. I think I expected the opposite at this point.
Reviews are pretty good so far. I accidentally bought Dead Rising 2 today, though, so I don’t know if it’d be responsible to get another game so soon.
What do you mean accidentally? Is it any good? It looks like good mindless fun, but I never played the first one, so don’t know too much about it.
Dead Rising 2 is pretty good. Not just mindless fun, you do actually have to strategize and manage resources. It’s very similar to the first one but has certain sophistications (three save slots, more save points, makeshift weapons…).
On topic: after playing Enslaved for three hours, I can say it’s… not bad. It’s pretty obvious that the accent is on story and characters but the gameplay, while simple, perhaps simplistic, is not too bad. Simple combat, simple platforming, simple puzzles. This is not Uncharted 2, that much is clear so far, nor it is Prince of Persia Sands of Time, but… it’s entry level gaming and not too bad in it.
Armand, when Steerpike buys somethign “accidentally,” it means he went into Best Buy for something else (like a can of air to clean out his PC’s innards) and somehow a game wound up at the checkout with whatever he’d come to purchase. He often protests strenuously when this happens, but the Best Buy people say it’s NOT an accident, that he meant to buy it, and ring it up anyway.
It’s pretty good – few changes from the first, which is okay in my book. What changes they made seem to be improvements. I wish they’d taken out the have-to-restart-multiple-times thing, but it’s a small complaint.
Steerpike: Ahh, I see this is similar to how my bank account seems to mysteriously decrease in value while directly corresponding to my increasing list of digital downloads.
I should have never saved my CC info on Steam…
Finished this up last night. It may have been simplistic for Meho; however, for the Queen of Combat Weenies (TM) it was perfect… well, except near the end when the game started throwing waves of mechs at me. That wasn’t so perfect, but I managed to survive. Primarily due to the fact that I played on Easy and the game is somewhat forgiving.
The game made me laugh out loud in several places. It also made me swear out loud. A lot. But I was in good company because Monkey was usually swearing right along with me, which made me laugh.
I haven’t had this much fun playing a game since Dragon Age. I was sad to see it end.