Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

[spaceboy]

info on my new game which should be delivered this week!

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is now available nationwide for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Developed by Ninja Theory, the post-apocalyptic action-adventure features influences and contributions from top music and film industry talent. ENSLAVED combines beautifully rendered graphics and captivating music with seamless animation and engrossing gameplay to deliver a premier entertainment experience.

Set 150 years in the future, ENSLAVED takes place in an unrecognizable America, where war and destruction have ravaged the population leaving few human survivors and a world reclaimed by nature. Mysterious slave ships roam the land, capturing the dwindling population for unknown purposes and taking them out west, never to return. Technologically savvy young Trip and strong brutish Monkey are two survivors who have both been imprisoned by one of these slave ships. Trip manages to escape by using her mental prowess while Monkey, uses his raw physical power to tear through his confines. Trip knows that she can not make it safely back home on her own, but believes that Monkey is her only chance to survive. She hacks into a slave headband and fits it on Monkey to link them together – if she dies, he dies... Her journey has now become his.

Enslaved E3 2010 Trailer

http://enslaved.uk.namcobandaigames.eu/

[PZ]

Looks interesting spaceboy - will be looking forward to your impressions of the game play.  It kind of reminds me of inFamous in a post apocalyptic world.

[spaceboy]

yeah, it's supposed to have good character development and as you can see beautiful lush graphics.  The demo is free on PSN.  I was amazed at the facial animation of both characters.  The gameplay in the demo was  a good mix of button mashing combat and platforming.  Mix in an interesting story and you've got me psyched.

It is based (loosely of course) on an old Chinese story Journey to the West - which I am now interested in reading  :)

[Jim di Griz]

Spaceboy and I played this at the same time, though not on MP as the game doesn't have that mode.

As you can see in the trailer, it is an extremely lush cinematic experience with lots of bright colours and atmosphere. From the forum I know some of you played Bulletstorm, that had slightly muted colours by comparison  ;)

Story-wise Space is correct, it's a reworking of the classic Chinese storyJourney to the West about the character Monkey, the same one from an old TV series Monkey or Monkey Magic.

Andy Serkis who played Gollum and King Kong so well using MoCap, directed and acted in this game; the acting therefore is a level beyond most games. You can identify with the characters easily and that is the nub of a good story because it stays with you.

Gameplay for the most is smooth and easy - there are a few spots though where the coding mechanics aren't as fluid, leading to a few frustrating deaths and awkward perspective shifts. I think it's as if each move needs to be completed before the next instruction can be accepted, plus the transition between cut-scene and action that goes wrong on occasion, but this isn't the only game that suffers from such problems, even the Uncharted games had similar problems. Oh yes, and the longer mid-combat cut-scenes will restart you where it shows you as standing, so if you'd advanced further, it'll pull you back to that spot - I found that quite frustrating and disorientating at times.

Those minor points aside, the game is a blast to run through with plenty of climbing, jumping, very cool combat combos and lots to keep you exploring the maps. This latter has you searching for golden orbs of tech to upgrade your weapons and masks, some of which are hidden in the damnest of places - the masks provide snippets of back-story to fill in what had happened to the world and background to the story unfolding. The hard-light tech is well incorporated into the story, as are the main characters' different abilities.

It's a third-person game with a good variety of environments that enable you to test your skills as well as abilities in different ways - you even get to use your 'cloud' to skim around on water and land in several places. In the original story and TV series, Monkey could summon his cloud to travel quickly - so this was a very nice nod to the original.

So, plenty of excitement, variety and lots to immerse yourself in whilst playing this. Actually, just writing about it here makes me want to go back and play it through again. There is also a standalone DLC centred on Pigsy, one of the other main characters, though I've not played that one yet - something about his search to create the perfect partner.