Enslaved: Odyssey to the West – a game that was hyped, then panned, by a majority of the sites I frequent. This is a game I actually bought, which may sound odd, but as a game reviewer, I get many of my games for review sent to my by the publishers themselves. This can lead to a bit of entitlement, of course, but it really just leads to my being really very picky when it comes to the $60 I spend on a new game. I was intrigued, however, by the Andy Serkis motion capture and performance touted in many of those hype articles. I had just come off of Uncharted 2, and figured, like many I suppose, that another motion capture game would have to be as awesome as Uncharted 2. Right? Am I right?
Well, no. It’s nowhere near as captivating as Uncharted 2, unfortunately. As Michael Abbot put it, this game seems just to show how much better Uncharted 2 is. I played the first couple hours of the game, really WANTING to like it. WANTING to find the story and the hook that would keep me playing. The story is interesting in broad outline – based on an ancient Chinese legend, the interplay of captive and captor, both fresh off a crashed slaver ship in a science fictional, apocalyptic future, etc. I mean, this has ME written all over it. My first couple of hours showed me a game that just went from level to uninspired level, fighting faceless mechanical foes with some banter between the main characters, Monkey and Trip. Monkey, of course, is a big muscly bruiser with a bad case of space marine dialogue, while Trip is a fairly sexualized female who still cowers and cries out for Monkey to save her, even though she slams a control helmet on his head in the first few minutes. Oh, in fact, I got a code for a special, “Sexy Trip Outfit” with the game. A big turn off, to say the least.
So the game sat on my shelf. Until last week, when I picked it up for this very column. And kinda got hooked.
Yes, the characters are gender stereotypical. Yes, the levels and foes are fairly uninspired, at least at this point. Yes, Trip still cries out for Monkey to carry her from time to time. But I found the hook – what the HELL is going on with Monkey’s flashback “glitches?” Holy crap, that IS Andy Serkis’ face in them. Wha? I’m playing through THIS one, oh, yeah.
The mechanics are buggy – the combat animations don’t fully stop for a few seconds after I finish mashing the correct button. This leads to some insta-death moments, especially in the dog levels, where I need to stun the beast, get in close and bash it with my staff, and then get away REAL QUICK as it comes back from my stun. A bit frustrating, to say the least.
There are some pretty good acting moments, though. One that stands out in my mind is a scene where Monkey says, apropos of nothing, that his Cloud seems to work in this area. After rolling my eyes at such an obvious plot/game mechanic device, I laughed out loud at the non-verbal repartee between Monkey and Trip. She says something like, “That doesn’t LOOK like a cloud.” Monkey triggers the flying disk, looks at her in exasperation and pulls an “I told you so” look while he jumps onto the flying round floating disk with an exaggerated “duh” body posture. It’s good acting, and a pure motion capture moment if I’ve ever seen one.
Hidden gems like the above are why I’ll continue to play Enslaved, Odyssey to the West. It isn’t an academy award winning picture by any measure, but the bits of brilliance are enough to keep me rolling through it – at least for now.
Until next week, stay evil, and let us know about your own stacks of shame in the comments below.
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