Sunday, March 26, 2006

Shadow of the Colossus - 1 & 2

I started Shadow of the Colossus tonight, courtesy of cgm. What a potent mixture of images. I downed two colossi.

I feel like the guy who shot King Kong off the top of the Empire State Building, or perhaps a guy who took out a huge blue whale with a gatling harpoon gun. On the other hand, these creatures aren't falling just out of superior firepower, but simply by virtue of being lumbering beasts with glowing Achilles heels, so to speak. I can reason my way to the weak spot, thrust the sword a few times, and the effects are devastating and awesome.

As with the demo, I do not like killing without a good reason. I'm trying to bring this girl back from the dead: fair enough, but I hope it's fleshed out a bit. Additionally, I'm suspicious of proverbial deal with the devil. Maybe I'm just cynical.

Finally, I miss MGS3. I want to be able to choose a nonviolent path. I realize in the context of some games (e.g. Hitman) this doesn't make sense, but you get my drift. There is no obvious reason for this dude in SotC to be killing majestic giants who appear to harm no one if not provoked.

Now, for random thoughts:
  • Dark shadowy creatures who are closely related with stone figures lined up in a big hall. Sounds like Ico.
  • It isn't just the colossi who give a grand sense of scale -- the whole seamless world is pretty flipping huge
  • Having the god, i.e. disembodied booming voice from above, mimicking King James Bible talk with "art", "thou", and the random "-st" suffix is pretty sad form. I'd rather it just have been straight.
  • Framerate issues I heard about, do not bother me. What bothers me more is aliasing and texture crawl. Makes me want to claw my eyes out.
  • Music appears to be well-integrated. I liked the dramatic entrance of the second colossus and the heightened energy of the music.
  • Tutorial is a bit haphazard. I think I missed some instructions, like how to pull up on a ledge. (Tap triangle, I think.)
  • I long for a way to get a distance view. Am I missing how to do that? Violent as it sounds, I'd like a good view of me putting the finishing blow to a colossus.

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