ICO

Summery: I found this whole thing incredibly dull.

There is little to be said about it, despite what the hipsters insist. It is essentially a short linear path around a castle. The aim is to bring your frail lady companion, who cannot climb or jump very far without your help, to the doors that only she can open. You would think this might be a great set up for some interesting puzzles. In fact, there are no puzzles to speak of, or at least no obstacles that could be described as puzzling. Pull a lever to open a door, cut a rope to drop a bridge, that sort of thing.

Udea's clear aim in this whole mess was to create an attachment between you and your companion. This works to an extent, but only by the law that time forms bonds. You have to stare at these characters for however many hours, of course you feel a little something when Bad Things Happen to them.

It is reinforced somewhat by the aesthetics, the hand holding, the catching, and I appreciated that. You also have to save her from monsters on occasion, as she can't fight for herself, but that's as far as it goes. Nothing substantial actually happens to the characters throughout the whole game, save for event towards the end involving a bridge. They just walk together. She never helps in the 'puzzles'. Had they been overcoming challenges together (the key word being challenge), as you and Agro did in Udea's next game, Shadow of the Colossus (which I mostly loved, by the way), by way of difficult puzzles which you both contributed to, maybe I could have scraped some emotions together to care by the end of it all, but as it was I just didn't.

So that's why, for me, the 'emotional mechanics', for lack of a better term, failed. That's not even mentioning that the level design is basically abysmal. The setup is great; the game, not so much. It could have been good if only they hired some game designers.

If you didn't already see the art-game movement as a deterioration of gaming, and didn't already recognise this as a deterioration of the puzzle-adventure genre, it's worth noting that Rohrer's 'masterpiece', Passage, is basically this FUTHER simplified. Or to put it another way, if you thought Passage was effecting, this will have you in tears (my apathetic response is clearly one reserved for emotionally developed human beings).

This game had me pining for my childhood loves: Abe's Oddyssey and Soul Reaver.