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Cian
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 Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 9:28 am Post subject: ICO & Shadow of the Colossus HD Review |
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| ICO & Shadow of the Colossus HD Review by Cian |  | | PS3 Review: Beauty personified. | | [View Article] |
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benspyda
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:21 am Post subject: |
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My copy should come in the mail today hopefully. Can't wait to play it. Be curious to see if it is worth playing in 3D. Generally the 3d sony games look really good in 3d and every else looks kinda bad. Pretty much the games that don't half the resolution hold up in 3D.
Edit: Can't say I enjoy it in 3d that much. Those colussus battles get so intense at times it does my head in, in 3D.
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Last edited by benspyda on Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total
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Benza
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:23 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Complaining about the occasionally erratic camera angle or rudimentary controls would be missing the point, and if you can find the time to bicker and moan about these two experiences, then you're in the wrong medium. |
Huh? Games is the wrong medium to be playing if I'm going to complain about game mechanics?
I really don't understand this mind set. If an art film had crappy chromatography and bad acting people wouldn't excuse it cause 'it's art' So why do games get a pass?
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GooberMan
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 11:06 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, I'm being facetious.
But I do agree with the point. If the camera controls are horrible to a full time gamer, how in the hell does anyone expect not-gamers to understand all your claims of art? It's just proof that the medium still has quite a ways to go on that front.
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Jahanzeb
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 11:22 am Post subject: |
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We don't see eye to eye when it comes to gaming tastes but this is the glowing exception, Cian 
Word for word, I would have said the same thing. I've played through the PS2 releases numerous times (ICO 7 times, SoTC 11 times). If I had a PS3, I'd pick it up and play them over and over again.
SoTC on PS2 was an amazing game, and they really did the best they could with the hardware. And even back then, I always felt that the game would have made such a great PS3 launch title! ha
Amazing games, absolutely timeless. It needs to be experienced by those of who have never played them before, and judging by the review, experienced again by thos who already have.
I might just buy a copy, in case I ever pick up a PS3 at some point in my life.
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fatpizza
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 11:22 am Post subject: |
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The camera isn't terrible, but it's far from perfect. I don't thinks it's bad enough to detract from the experience.
I should hopefully be receiving my copy today, can't wait to play through these again.
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Cian
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 11:39 am Post subject: |
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| Benza wrote: | Huh? Games is the wrong medium to be playing if I'm going to complain about game mechanics?
I really don't understand this mind set. If an art film had crappy chromatography and bad acting people wouldn't excuse it cause 'it's art' So why do games get a pass? |
I thought I made that sentence quite clear but I'll rephrase it, just for you Benza. You babe.
My point is that you need to look at the bigger picture and see what these two games have achieved instead of complaining about something that's very minor and doesn't affect the experience. I never said that the controls were horrible, if I did, there was no way in hell that 9.5 would be at the end.
So yeah, look at the big picture bro. The games are amazing and I absolutely believe that it's an art form... when done properly. Most games aren't, but ICO and Shadow are rare exceptions.
<3
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Fetidchimp
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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it was a fair comment, probably didn't need to be greeted with the condescension.
At least it wasn't a your review sux post
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Benza
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 12:15 pm Post subject: |
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It's not so much saying that they're crappy (Bad comparison, my fault) It just seems like that sentence comes off saying "Well these games are art so normal critiques don't apply to them"
Which is just a really weird stance to take.
This isn't meant to be a personal attack on you Cian so sorry if it comes off that way, it's just a general feeling I've gotten from a lot of 'art game' reviews. That some how if it effects you emotionally then the mechanics side of it don't matter (Limbo and El Shaddai spring to mind). Which I don't know... seems to be missing a pretty vital part of the entire picture.
Maybe it's just cause I found ICO to be a fucking tedious pain in the arse of a game that made me want to slap the shit out of Yorda to stop being such a simpering useless cunt.
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Cian
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 12:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Benza wrote: | | This isn't meant to be a personal attack on you Cian |
Oh I know, don't worry about it you don't need to apologise. And I 100% agree that all the art stuff shouldn't overshadow the gameplay. I'm trying to think of a good example, oh yeah, Brink!
Amazing character design, probably the best I've ever seen. But the game itself was a steaming pile of shit. So you're right.
And I also agree with you fetid, I am a cunt.
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divinestorm
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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I've gone the whole snes-n64-xbox-xbox360 and this is the first time I've seen a game review thats made me want to get a sony PS3 ....
thanks a lot Cian! why did you have to write this review so beautifully ???
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David No.1
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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Still waiting for my copy to arrive in the mail... ordered from Ozgameshop. Damn you Ozgameshop, it's been two weeks!
Awesome review Cian, you've really hyped it up for me now. I can't believe it missed out on these two games on the PS2.
| Jahanzeb wrote: |
I might just buy a copy, in case I ever pick up a PS3 at some point in my life. |
Totally gonna start a 'PALGN help Jahanzeb purchase a PS3 donation charity' fund. 
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GooberMan
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 2:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Benza wrote: | | That some how if it effects you emotionally then the mechanics side of it don't matter |
This is actually what annoys me more than anything about the whole "games are art" mentality. Honestly, if being affected emotionally is the entire point of art then the butter chicken I made last week is the only item I ever need to experience for the rest of my natural life.
Even the most basically competent Hollywood movie can tug someone's emotion strings, and no one would dare try to call them art.
I think it's about time the distinction is made between an artform and a work of art. It's something that really gets overlooked in the entire debate. Interactive media is the artform, and it's a completely valid one that is being used increasingly by artists of more traditional artforms.
Games are a usage of the artform, but games will never be art. For one simple reason - can you win art? Games actively seek to engage the player in a test of skill. Anything else is always a secondary concern.
I own both the games in question in their original format, but I've spent far more time on SotC (technical issues with my TV rendered Ico mostly unplayable for me, and my PS2 needs replacing for me to load them up again - unless I buy this new pack). So let's see what it does. It throws you in to a land where you're instructed to kill the Colossi with no other context than a girl is in trouble. There's always been a lot of discussion about how the game makes you question whether blindly following this goal is the right thing to do, but if you stop playing the game you don't win it. In this sense, it has far more in common with literature than any visual art - there's a very specific story that it wants to tell, and you're in for the ride whether you like it or not. If it were a novel, putting the book down and turning the game off would not have any significant difference.
In that sense, it has done good for the interactive media artform. It's shown that interactive media can ape other artforms with perhaps more elegance than the original form. But games have been doing that for a long time. What makes these two more important than all those other games that have done the same? Again, the elegance of them. Excepting the camera issues (which is a failure of a basic mechanic of the artform), a far more careful hand has been used in its construction than many other games.
The elegance of it all though is an important point, but does it make it a work of art? My own theories on the subject lead me to say "no" but I do place it in the same category of importance as current-gen games such as The Darkness and Far Cry 2 (and, to a degree, Alan Wake which went and aped literary tropes more blatantly than SotC did - and to be quite honest, the DLC worked far better in an artistic sense than the rest of the game did). There's still a long ways to go before interactive storytelling finds its own voice, but as long as game creators are worried about matching other artforms rather than exploiting the inherent strengths of the new emerging artform then we're still going to have a small but vocal crowd jumping up and down saying "art" while the rest of the world shakes its head and laughs.
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Jarrod
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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Once upon a time I would have loved to get deep into the 'games are art' debate, but I've long since given up on it. The term 'art' is too vague and subjective to personal opinion, and the debate itself always turns into a debate about semantics.
All I'll say is that I consider ICO and Shadow of the Colossus art. They're excellent games, mostly well designed, and encourage a particular emotional investment. They're great. But I'd also categorise a lot of other games as 'art', and firmly disagree with any notion that the qualities that make up ICO/SOTC are necessary for a game to be defined as art. There are more 'traditional' games that I would still call art.
That being said, it's an excellent game, and this is an excellent review. I'll purchase the package sometime in the near future once my moneys are sorted. I'm mostly looking forward to the improved technical performance.
| GooberMan wrote: | | This is actually what annoys me more than anything about the whole "games are art" mentality. Honestly, if being affected emotionally is the entire point of art then the butter chicken I made last week is the only item I ever need to experience for the rest of my natural life. |
To add to this, being affected emotionally also results in the annoy habit of romanticising past generations/games relative to a modern era, especially the N64/PS1 era, where many people here (and elsewhere) were children playing 3D games for the first time, which of course made it seem magical.
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OropherX
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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Just got this in the mail this morning =D
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benspyda
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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Whether or not the game is art, it's one beautiful experience. The soundtrack alone makes this game worth playing.
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grim-one
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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| OropherX wrote: | | Just got this in the mail this morning =D |
Me too 
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Pagan's Mind
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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| grim-one wrote: | | OropherX wrote: | | Just got this in the mail this morning =D |
Me too |
Me three .
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Frozencry
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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These games will always be on the top for me, as I've finished them a ridiculous amount and know pretty much everything there is to know about them (especially SotC, can clock it in 3 hours flat if I want to), and yeah, they're incredibly beautiful, elegant games that deserve recognition as they are important to the industry and came about at a time where they were most important.
However, the mechanics have aged badly, and it does affect the quality of the experience. I can see the bigger picture and I'd be the last person to be told that there is one; but while it's nice to have these games back so more people can experience it, their faults will no doubt cause criticisms among many people and will hinder the enjoyment.
They're both still absolutely outstanding games, but if they were to properly remaster these games and add more polish to what are already near perfect in what they intend to do, it'd be a much much better piece of gaming than what it is now.
/cynicalfanboy
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Macka
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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Excellent review Cian.
| Pagan's Mind wrote: | | grim-one wrote: | | OropherX wrote: | | Just got this in the mail this morning =D |
Me too |
Me three . |
My preorder still hasn't arrived from OzGameShop 
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rankodour
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 11:38 pm Post subject: |
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Both games are what they are. Control may be arcane but any player can adjust. As far as 'games as art', make of them what you will. Nobody is wrong or right. I personally love both games
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Pagan's Mind
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:05 am Post subject: |
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| GooberMan wrote: | | Games are a usage of the artform, but games will never be art. For one simple reason - can you win art? Games actively seek to engage the player in a test of skill. Anything else is always a secondary concern. |
You make some good points but that's a pretty superficial way to look at it and video games in general. I think Jarrod sums it up well in that the word "art" is a subjective thing. I look at paintings people call "art" and only see a splash of paint here and there. The same thing can be said with any movie or video game.
Anyway, I'm about 2 hours into Ico so far. The controls do take some getting used to. It's hard to view the surroundings when the camera just wants to fly back into it's default position.
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GooberMan
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 10:17 am Post subject: |
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| Pagan's Mind wrote: | | You make some good points but that's a pretty superficial way to look at it and video games in general. |
O RLY? Any attempt from gamers to legitimise these skill testers is going to be long, painful, and utterly pointless.
The problem is that games themselves are a superficial way of using an interactive medium. Thoroughly enjoyable superficial uses, but even the most pretentious indie game hasn't been more than a carnival side show thus far. If you can't see that for a paint splash, then that's not my problem. I'll just keep working on my own uses of an interactive medium that will illustrate exactly what I mean.
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StorminNorman
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 11:11 am Post subject: |
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| benspyda wrote: | | Whether or not the game is art, it's one beautiful experience. The soundtrack alone makes this game worth playing. |
"You Were There" brings a tear to my eye every time I hear it.
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Benza
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 11:32 am Post subject: |
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| GooberMan wrote: | | but even the most pretentious indie game hasn't been more than a carnival side show thus far. |
What about something like The Graveyard? Pretentious as hell and kind of crappy yeah, but I'd struggle to call an actual game.
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