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Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #27/Blog a Day #4

Hello everyone, how are you?

Video games have gotten to a point where you can tell a really well acted and crafted story that is in the same quality that you would find in a good movie. Heck, video games are making more money than the movie industry. Either games have gotten so good at telling stories or movies aren't good as they used to be. Whatever the reason may be, there are some games that tell really great stories whether they are older or modern games. One of the games we are here to look at tells a story that is Hollywood worthy if I do say so myself and today we are looking at Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.

                                   The music in this game is pretty damn good

I remember back when I first got a PS3 I got recommended games really often. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West was one of those games. Back then Gamestop had a sale called Game Days Sale where they would have some really great deals on games. I remember I bought a stack of games that day and Enslaved was one of them.

The game takes place on a post post-apocalyptic Earth 150 years in the future after a global war where most of mankind has been wiped. Those that aren't are captured and enslaved by robots known as mechs, which were left to wander Earth after the war and they also have their original programing intact. In the game you play as Monkey, one of our two protagonists, who is forced to team up with Trip to help her get back to her village.

The game will have you explore may different environments, you get to see what happened to everything following that war. You can clearly see everything in ruin but atthe same time you also see nature reclaiming everything. In a way, it is sad but at the same time it looks beautiful. But dangerious at the same time too. In some of the areas you will need Trip's help to proceed, which involves protecting her which doesn't sound too bad. But if she dies, you die as well. Can't say why because of plot.

                                          The set pieces are some of the best

The areas have mechs, they aren't an immediate danger since they are dormant, but get too close and you are in for a fight. The combat, is not the most interesting thing in the world. It isn't broken or buggy by any means, that's good. The thing is that it really doesn't do anything new that you haven't already seen. But that the very least the combat finishers are really cool looking.

Then we go to the next problem, which is the platforming. The platfoming isn't buggy or broken like the combat. It's too easy. Like really easy. You'll be doing a lot of climbing and jumping but the platforming isn't the best. There is no fear of falling because you really can't from what I remember. In platforming games there's always a sense of danger because you don't know if you'll make a jump unless you take a leap of faith. Here I'm sure you could do that while blindflded and you'll still be fine. This is good for those who aren't good at platforming, but not so good for those who want more out of the platforming here.

"But Captain N, where can I play this game? Well you are in luck since PS3 and 360 copies of this game are really cheap. You can also play it on Xbox One via backwards compatibility. I heard that it was delisted digitally, althought I'm not sure since I don't have an Xbox One. The game is on Steam as well and if you get it there you get the compete edition as signified by the header image I used. You get the game and the dlc, Pigsy's Perfect 10. I have never played the dlc, I think I actually own it but I really can't tell you how it is.

                             The environments are great but the platforming isn't

Final Thoughts: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is a really underrated game. I've played my fair share of games with post-apocalyptic settings and whatnot and I feel this one captures that setting well better than most games with the same setting. For a game that released in 2010, it still holds up really well in terms of graphics and gameplay, for the most part. The platforming is too easy to the point that it is automatic in many cases. There really isn't a sense of danger when it comes to platforming. So don't expect Uncharted level platforming, you aren't getting that here. The action, well it really doesn't do anything special to be honest.

The presentation of the game is really well done, the voice-acting is top notch, and the story is really great. The ending is, well I won't spoil it. The game has some of the best set pieces I've seen in a game, in a way the game is like a movie. It's just a shame the overall gameplay doesn't really match the presentation of the game. I feel the problem is that the game was originally supposed to be a CGI movie and then maybe it got repurposed unto a game.

I feel like the game is at least worth playing through once though. You never know, you might like it. Like for games in general we often rely on reviews from sites to see how a game is. I tend to rely and trust whatever friends recommend me, whenever the hell they actually do. But only you can decide if you like the game, like you might actually like a game others don't. If a game is cheap and you're curious, give it a go. If not, well there's always youtube...

                                                   Pigsy: You see this shit Monkey?

The future isn't written we don't know what will happen next. So take care of yourselves. We can't predict what will happen but the best we can do is try to be careful to prevent future problems. Something I know all too well...

Well that's it for this one. We'll be heading to Gotham and beyond for the next post so see you there but watch your step. See you later and remember...