Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

Any game with a budget instantly goes for the all-out epic approach, trying to throw the kitchen sink and some kind of cataclysmic event that only you can face. Ninja Theory wisely spent their budget instead on an intimate, highly polished little game. It feels like it starts after some kind of epic, with the planet completely abandoned, killer robots prowling the street and the protagonists in shackles. After an impressive first level the plot of the game is set up. Is it to eradicate the robot foes that plague the surface? Are we escorting an atomic McGuffin to centre of the enemies base? No, instead two characters work together to make it home.

For such a sparse narrative almost all weight is taken by the leads. Monkey is a muscled rogue; capable, cocky and appropriately world weary. He is played by Oscar winner Andy Serkis, aka Gollum from Lord of the Rings, and the high quality of his voice acting absolutely nails the role. On top of this Monkey is one of the best animated characters in any game, I remember how impressed I was with the seamlessness in Assassins Creed but this game puts that to absolute shame.

Monkey is accompanied by Trip, a smart but weak young girl who imprisons him to make sure she gets home. Again her performance is spot on and much against the trend of female characters in video games she is neither a super powered heroine nor damsel in distress. Across the game she saves the duo as often as the male. The writing has also gifted the pair with realistic humanity and the inevitable romance is done the best in any video game.

Visually the game indulges in palette greens and blues, with gorgeous vistas. The character models are superb and the art style is amazing, wait until you meet the perfectly designed Pigsy, with a flappy robot ear, snout, roles, sweat, a hoof and a bandana.

There is one major criticism, this is an unbelievably linear game and the platforming is practically impossible to fail as you can only jump when the game lets you. That’s not to say it’s boring, it keeps everything brisk and fair, but the hand holding every now and then can get on your nerves.

I’d also like to praise the fantastic DLC, that does something completely different while having the same level of polish as the main game. It’s unprecedented for a game to make me cry, but for the £6, 5 hour add on to have me balling like a baby is nothing short of a miracle.

Like anything creative and innovative in the game industry Enslaved failed to sell at all, it just managed to shift its 700,000 copy. The good news is you can buy this game on the cheap, I got it for £6 on eBay 3 months ago and its money very well spent. It isn’t perfect all of the time but I guarantee you haven’t played anything quite like this and also that you’ve spent much more money on worse games. If you like your games with a story and fluffless, this is the game for you.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts

I really don’t think you can make a platformer anymore. I mean the market for this is so saturated you would never make a dime and critically trying to outdo Mario is insanity. That is why when Rare, the super talented guys who specialise in making family games for the 360, created the next entry in the much loved Banjo Kazooie series they changed genre. At surface level they made a kart racing game, which isn’t much better, but the genius, wit, creativity and overall quality makes for one of the best games ever period.

The game focus on driving weird and wonderful contraptions to complete specific tasks, so you’ll vary between racing, collecting, transporting, minigames (actually fun minigames) and much more. The tasks vary greatly and often and the game in reality is more of an open ended puzzler. There are blueprints to help you but for the top medals you will almost always have to build or tweak something to great the prime results. Cleverly new bits and pieces are unlocked gradually so you’ll have to play with limitations. Basically, off the bat you can’t just put ten jet engines onto something and brains will always beat brawn or skill. If you get stuck though you can watch someone else’s attempt or even download there vehicle, meaning the game doesn’t ever get frustrating.

There’s a madcap logic; as long as it has wheels, an engine and fuel it’ll run. You can further add crazy guns (heat seeking easter egg cannons anyone?) or wings or springs or fuzzy dice. The system really works and somebody out there is a genius for making it all fit onto a gamepad so well.

The first thing to love about this game is the humour. It utterly shatters the fourth wall, making gleeful, silly jabs at the game industry. You’re on a quest to collect as many pointless items in order to reach the end of the game. That’s it. Along the way you’ll find clever ironic worlds, cut scenes that lampoon everything from 1970’s soccer coaches to soaps to Dr. Who and the dialogue is far wittier than anything necessary in a “Kids” game. As an example “Humba Wumba” is kinda Banjo’s love interest but reinvents herself each level from supressed housewife to tom-boyish pit girl to space conservationist. Basically imagine if Princess Peach was a smoking hot cock-teaser and the game revels in a very British wink and a nudge sexual tension here.

Top to bottom this game has a seriously high level of polish. Unlike kids games the controls are as tight as any racing game, the difficulty is spot on, the graphics are superb and artistically this game excels. Each level has a distinct style and the gameplay shakes up constantly to reflect this. Heck, it even has a nigh on perfect achievement list encouraging you to get the most out of the game and solve even more mad cap puzzles.

The only complaint I might make is no kid could ever stand a chance on this game as you need some degree of intelligence to make any ground. The game isn’t hard, atleast mostly not, but someone under 12 is going to have real problems playing.

As far as I can tell this game absolutely bombed, which is a shame because this was a truly unique and very high quality product on a console starved of innovation. I recommend this game to absolutely anyone and it deserves to sell atleast a million more. This isn’t a rental as the game has a good 40-50 hours of gameplay, it was a budget title when it was released so you can pick this one up for as little as £8.

Splatterhouse

Lower your expectations. Now. Because this isn’t really a very good game at all. It’s repetitive, the fatalities repeat forever, you need multiple playthroughs to 1k the game, the side scrolling sections are broken and will send you into a blind rage and the ending is shite. But it also has Winnie the Pooh ordering you to “Fuck that thing!”, plays Mastodon on a loop and lets you pull a zombie-dog things brain out of its arsehole.

Essentially just a hyper-violent hack and slash, the games saving grace is a comprehensive and meaningful upgrade system, grinding becomes much more enjoyable when your never more than 20 minutes away from a cool power-up and there is joy to be had going from utter dweeb to unstoppable, neck snapping monster. The difficulty was spot on too; it never got frustrating but I never felt any room was a dead certain to get through. The achievements were varied and fun and for once the collectables were enjoyable; lightly sprinkled shreds of sexy pictures.

Splatterhouse was a bit pooh, but the way it threw itself into over the top gore and all things boys love paid off well. The game is short, which is in many ways a virtue, so I certainly wouldn’t buy it at anywhere near full price. But if you can rent, borrow or pick it up in a bargain bin you ought to be entertained for a day or two atleast.