Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

Preview from Jae - Friday, 10 September 2010 @ 12:09am

Being an avid gamer when the PS3 launched I was a big fan of Heavenly Sword. Well, apart from it's punishingly hard end boss. The developers behind that beautiful title, Ninja Theory, have brought us Enslaved: odyssey to the west which is an action adventure game set it a vibrant post apocalyptic world. This time though the game expands onto both the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

I got a fair bit of playtime with the game when we interviewed Nina Kristensen from Ninja Theory, 3 Chapters worth to be precise. The game starts off with you on a slave ship. Your character is Monkey, an ode to the game's inspiration from the old Chinese mythology of Journey to the West, who escapes from the clutches of his captors. You then end up meeting Trip a fellow escapee. The relationship starts off a bit shaky as Trip places a deadly head band on Monkey to force him to help her return home hundreds of miles away. From there on they work together to traverse through New York. The story is interesting and it seems like it's setting itself up for some interesting character development. The voice acting and motion capture is of the highest caliber. Those who experienced Heavenly Sword will see artistic similarities and those who haven't will be in for a treat. If you have the chance, try to find the behind the scenes videos of Heavenly Sword on the PSN. You will see Ninja Theory's high production values and the level of detail they managed to capture in the early era of the PS3.

Monkey see monkey do

I mentioned before this game was set in a vibrant post apocalyptic world. This is true as most games set in this era like to subject us to landscapes of brown and grey. Enslaved is in a world of lush colour and plant life. It's as if something had wiped the world of almost all human life and all that was left was for the lush plant life to retake ground. It's refreshing to see this with the level of detail Ninja Theory puts into the game. The buildings look genuinely run down and the atmosphere is that of a calm quiet world that has been untouched for decades.

The main style of game play is action based adventuring, though you do have the option to sneak past many enemies. Old machines, left over from the apocalyptic era, are littered around the world so fighting them helps increase your abilities and experience. There are some parkour style elements where monkey must climb from ledge to ledge to progress through the city. The part of the game that is unique is the use of trip. To start off with Trip can play decoy so that enemies shoot in her direction whilst you get up close and personal with their blind spots. It’s a mechanic that works well and one that I’d like to see get a little deeper throughout the game. Ideally having to use Trip more than once in a strategy would really test a player’s skill especially if they’re for different and unique purposes.

Don't mess with Trip or you might fall over.

It’s quite obvious that the story will revolve around the relationship that Trip and Monkey develop. Starting with one of mis-trust and slavery it looks to digress to one of love and happy feelings. I say that because that is what the story eludes to and also based on the experience of deep characters that Ninja Theory are known for. I really hope they don’t spoil it with a typical Hollywood love story whereby two polar opposites fall in love, girl gets captured or is put in danger, man saves girl and happy ending. It would be great to see a game surpass conventional story telling to make you feel engaged much more than a motion film.

I’m going to watch this game closely and see how the final product fares. Like I said a unique story, combined with a setting not commonly shown in games will help Enslaved stand out as a title to buy this season. Be sure to check back here when we review the full game upon it’s release on 7th October this year.