Enslaved: Odyssey to the West Review
I was excited when I read about this game when it was still in production. Then I didn't hear anything about it and completely forgot about it until my friend bought it the other day and brought it over. I was surprised to see the game because I hadn't heard a thing about it in years, and I am damn glad my friend brought it over!
Graphics
The game came out a year or two ago so the graphics aren't as good as Uncharted 3 of course, but they are damn good, very much like Uncharted graphics...In other words, pretty damn good. They put a lot of detail into this game, from the textures on the rocks and the moss growing everywhere, to the plants growing out of decaying buildings and the complexity of the robots that you have to fight.
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is an extremely beautiful game. However on the down side I did notice a few texture loading problems in some of the movie scenes but whatever that's not big deal.
SCORE 9.5/10
Gameplay
I mentioned Uncharted before because this game is a hell of a lot like it. You play as Monkey who has climbing skills to match his name. You climb up decaying building and other such structures very similar to the Uncharted series.
You also have a staff and a gun attached to your gloves (Once you get the gloves that is) and these are used to fight the wide assortment of robots that infest this post apocalyptic world.
The gun has 2 kind of shots, stun and kill, each having its own kind of ammo, and some enemies have energy shields (As do you) and in order to defeat these enemies you have to stun them to make their shields go down. The gun however is not the only way to stun an enemy. Your staff also has a stun feature that allows you to charge it up and charge the enemy with a stun attack. Then you can follow it up with an array of weak attacks or powerful attacks, similar to God of War. Same buttons actually.
Also like God of War there are execution kills that are started when a button press icon appears over their head. You press that button and it executes them i several different and beautiful ways. However unlike God of War it does not have the button combination mini-game.
Trip, your female partner in the game, isn't so good with fighting....or surviving in a post apocalyptic world like this at all for that matter. She seems to be extremely tech savvy but not too good with staying alive! She can scan enemies for you which allows you to take them down easier in the future by finding out their weak points.
Speaking of Trip, she enslaves you with a slave headband in the beginning of the game...hence the name Enslaved...Here's what the headband does, it sets up a kind of telepathic link between Monkey and Trip. That's the good part. Bad part is that if you get to far away from Trip she sees it as you escaping and she triggers your headband and you slowly die unless you get closer to her again. Also if Trip dies....You die. Fun huh?
So throughout the game you have to assist Trip through platforming and puzzle solving, by throwing her across gaps, having her distract enemies while you sneak by, you also distract enemies yourself so she can sneak by and join you. There's a few puzzles where you have to throw switches and have her move, then have her throw switches while you move. It is an interesting platformer game.
You can upgrade your health, shield, combat and staff as well with tech orbs you find throughout the world and get from slain enemies.
However there is a bit of a drawback in the gameplay department. Occasionally Monkey will jump the wrong direction or move in the wrong direction and sometimes there are camera centering problems, but it's not too much of a bother. Nothing really worth complaining over.
SCORE 9.5/10
Story
I'd have to say the story of this game is pretty damn good. You are Monkey, a man with..well...monkey like acrobatic reflexes. You wake up in a pod on board a slave ship, transporting you to God knows where. You see a woman running away from the pods and you try to escape but cannot. The pod then blows off of the wall, allowing you to now escape from it.
You make your way through the flying ship while it's engines are failing. Fighting off dozens of robots along the way. Yes robots! Not like the friendly one from Lost in Space....No...These robots are mean and deadly and want to kill your ass!
The ship passes over the statue of liberty, hitting its torch along the way. The ship then moves into a decaying New York city where you have to escape on an escape pod before the ship crashes! And that's just the first level!
You wake up with a splitting headache and it's not from the fall. You have a slave headband on your head and the woman you seen escape earlier explains to you that she put it on you and you have to help her or die. She also explains that if you try to run you die, and if she dies you die. So you kinda have to do what she says.
The humans of the Earth are nearly completely wiped out, aside from a few remaining people here and there. It has been 200 years since the war that began the ending of humanity and the cities have turned to ruin. It's your job to help get Trip, the girl who puts the damn headband on you, back to her home, and to fight back against the robot hordes that have taken over the world.
The game has a pretty good story in my opinion. Fairly epic in proportion. The characters are likeable....or in some occasions they piss you off, but that's all part of a good story. All throughout the game you are having hallucinations of a world before all this, and the ending has a pretty damn good twist that I didn't see coming!
SCORE 10/10
Replay Value
The replay value of this game is fairly decent. The game itself is very fun and makes you want to play it again anyway, but outside of that there are a few things you can do. After you beat a chapter you can go back through and pick up anything you may have missed. You can collect masks (The same masks that you see that trigger hallucinations throughout the game). There are main game masks which you can't miss and then there are hidden masks that you can collect. There are also plenty of tech orbs hidden around the world, and there is a trophy/achievement for collecting all of them as well. Plus you can always max out all of your upgrades too. Not to mention various other trophyies/achievements that will take some practice for completists out there!
SCORE 6.5/10
OVERALL SCORE 8.5/10
Graphics
The game came out a year or two ago so the graphics aren't as good as Uncharted 3 of course, but they are damn good, very much like Uncharted graphics...In other words, pretty damn good. They put a lot of detail into this game, from the textures on the rocks and the moss growing everywhere, to the plants growing out of decaying buildings and the complexity of the robots that you have to fight.
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is an extremely beautiful game. However on the down side I did notice a few texture loading problems in some of the movie scenes but whatever that's not big deal.
SCORE 9.5/10
Gameplay
I mentioned Uncharted before because this game is a hell of a lot like it. You play as Monkey who has climbing skills to match his name. You climb up decaying building and other such structures very similar to the Uncharted series.
You also have a staff and a gun attached to your gloves (Once you get the gloves that is) and these are used to fight the wide assortment of robots that infest this post apocalyptic world.
The gun has 2 kind of shots, stun and kill, each having its own kind of ammo, and some enemies have energy shields (As do you) and in order to defeat these enemies you have to stun them to make their shields go down. The gun however is not the only way to stun an enemy. Your staff also has a stun feature that allows you to charge it up and charge the enemy with a stun attack. Then you can follow it up with an array of weak attacks or powerful attacks, similar to God of War. Same buttons actually.
Also like God of War there are execution kills that are started when a button press icon appears over their head. You press that button and it executes them i several different and beautiful ways. However unlike God of War it does not have the button combination mini-game.
Trip, your female partner in the game, isn't so good with fighting....or surviving in a post apocalyptic world like this at all for that matter. She seems to be extremely tech savvy but not too good with staying alive! She can scan enemies for you which allows you to take them down easier in the future by finding out their weak points.
Speaking of Trip, she enslaves you with a slave headband in the beginning of the game...hence the name Enslaved...Here's what the headband does, it sets up a kind of telepathic link between Monkey and Trip. That's the good part. Bad part is that if you get to far away from Trip she sees it as you escaping and she triggers your headband and you slowly die unless you get closer to her again. Also if Trip dies....You die. Fun huh?
So throughout the game you have to assist Trip through platforming and puzzle solving, by throwing her across gaps, having her distract enemies while you sneak by, you also distract enemies yourself so she can sneak by and join you. There's a few puzzles where you have to throw switches and have her move, then have her throw switches while you move. It is an interesting platformer game.
You can upgrade your health, shield, combat and staff as well with tech orbs you find throughout the world and get from slain enemies.
However there is a bit of a drawback in the gameplay department. Occasionally Monkey will jump the wrong direction or move in the wrong direction and sometimes there are camera centering problems, but it's not too much of a bother. Nothing really worth complaining over.
SCORE 9.5/10
Story
I'd have to say the story of this game is pretty damn good. You are Monkey, a man with..well...monkey like acrobatic reflexes. You wake up in a pod on board a slave ship, transporting you to God knows where. You see a woman running away from the pods and you try to escape but cannot. The pod then blows off of the wall, allowing you to now escape from it.
You make your way through the flying ship while it's engines are failing. Fighting off dozens of robots along the way. Yes robots! Not like the friendly one from Lost in Space....No...These robots are mean and deadly and want to kill your ass!
The ship passes over the statue of liberty, hitting its torch along the way. The ship then moves into a decaying New York city where you have to escape on an escape pod before the ship crashes! And that's just the first level!
You wake up with a splitting headache and it's not from the fall. You have a slave headband on your head and the woman you seen escape earlier explains to you that she put it on you and you have to help her or die. She also explains that if you try to run you die, and if she dies you die. So you kinda have to do what she says.
The humans of the Earth are nearly completely wiped out, aside from a few remaining people here and there. It has been 200 years since the war that began the ending of humanity and the cities have turned to ruin. It's your job to help get Trip, the girl who puts the damn headband on you, back to her home, and to fight back against the robot hordes that have taken over the world.
The game has a pretty good story in my opinion. Fairly epic in proportion. The characters are likeable....or in some occasions they piss you off, but that's all part of a good story. All throughout the game you are having hallucinations of a world before all this, and the ending has a pretty damn good twist that I didn't see coming!
SCORE 10/10
Replay Value
The replay value of this game is fairly decent. The game itself is very fun and makes you want to play it again anyway, but outside of that there are a few things you can do. After you beat a chapter you can go back through and pick up anything you may have missed. You can collect masks (The same masks that you see that trigger hallucinations throughout the game). There are main game masks which you can't miss and then there are hidden masks that you can collect. There are also plenty of tech orbs hidden around the world, and there is a trophy/achievement for collecting all of them as well. Plus you can always max out all of your upgrades too. Not to mention various other trophyies/achievements that will take some practice for completists out there!
SCORE 6.5/10
OVERALL SCORE 8.5/10