Game Review: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

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Genre

Platformer

Platform

PS3, Xbox 360, PC

Story

Oh, yay, another dystopian future. Because we haven’t seen enough of that lately, have we?

Enslaved is set 150 years in the future, Earth ravaged by war, humans are mostly dead, mechs wander the world, blah blah.

The main character, Monkey (played by Andy Serkis of Gollum fame), busts out of a slave ship before it crashes. A woman named Trip is also from the ship, and despite Monkey banging on the escape pod hatch, she jettisons the pod without allowing him to enter — he literally rides the pod on the outer hull. They land in yet another ruined New York City, because it’s not like real life has taken enough cracks at my home town.  When he wakes up after the crash, Trip has fitted him with a slave headband on him, which does pretty much what you expect it to. Trip wants to return to her village some 300 miles away, and she couldn’t have simply asked him for help.  No, she has to hold him at metaphorical gunpoint.

Charming, right?

Mechanics

This game is your standard hack and slash — run, jump, light attack, heavy attack, dodge and block.

The problem? The camera controls jump all over the bloody place, so every time you start to push Monkey forward, the camera decides that everywhere else but where you’re going is something to look at.

Gameplay

The mech enemies are brain dead stupid.  Zero IQ points.  The gameplay is fine if you could actually SEE THE ENEMIES. I have the feeling the camera was deliberately broken in order to make this game challenging.

A large part of this game — easily half– is about running, jumping and climbing. Basically, it was for people who thought the climbing in Prince of Persia required too many working brain cells.

It was awkward, it was clumsy, it was just a mess.

Music/Graphics

The graphics in this one were okay. They were nothing to write home about, but they weren’t bad. They just weren’t enough to blow me away.

The music is varied. Some of it is beautiful. Some of it is tense and driving. And some of it is just banging on drums and hope they get a beat.

Morals/Appropriateness

Forcing someone to help you at gunpoint? Um … I’m going to say the morals in this one are not good. Just a guess.

ESRB says it’s OK for teenagers.  I guess they’re right. On the one hand, it has some lines that are inappropriate for kids, on the other hand, without those lines, most 10 year olds could get through this game easily.

Community/Multiplayer

None.

Addiction Danger

Only if you like fighting with the camera.

Problems/Ending Comments

The game was okay.  But the ending lacked punch. The characters were all over the place, and it never really felt like the game understood what it wanted to do.

ESRB Rating: T for teen. 

My Rating: 6/10, an average game

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Copyright 2014 John Konecsni

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