Shadow of the Colossus

The first big game for the PS2 this year is the latest work from the company that gave us Ico a few years back. This tells the tale of a young guy who travels to a far off land to kill 16 giants in an attempt to bring his girlfriend back to life.

What makes the game different is that there are no other characters in the game other than those mentioned above and a horse that the guy uses to ride around. You don't get random battles, the only things to kill are the 16 giants.

And giant they are, the screen above shows Colossus number 3 as an idea of the scale of the opponents (not all are this big however). It is a platform game but the platforms are the giants, their armour and their weapons. You have a grip bar that you must use to hold onto the giants as they attempt to shake you off. You kill them buy making your way over the Colossus to their weak points and stabbing them there with your sword.

After playing it solidly for the weekend I did complete the game, and I wasn't disappointed at all. There is a superb emotional attachment to the character in the game that you develop, and as with Ico, it's simplicity and visual mood leads to an amazing attachment to the character, that a lot of other developers have failed to achieve with their games. Special mention should be made of the ending which is just superb and certainly worth perservering with the game to see.

Further modes are unlocked upon completion, which I'll be attempting next. For a more long term challenge I also bought Ico, which has been re-released to coincide with the release of this game.