By Joel Smart (The Cascade) – Email
Date Posted: October 4, 2011
Print Edition: September 28, 2011
The way a creation has the ability to touch or affect you is often a standard through which an art form or artistic medium is judged. We likely all have memories of experiences with a film or a song that was able to stir emotions in us, or that helped us to work through a difficult time. Most games focus on being fun or challenging, instead of the way they make us feel. As a result, many feel that video games are not art. However, critics often point to a handful of games that have led the way into defining gaming as a valid, important artistic medium; two games that almost always come up are Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. For good reason then, video game aficionados would be seriously missing out if they failed to pick up the re-mastered versions with high definition graphics and 3D support in the just-released Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection for PS3.
There is something that sets the new $40 HD combo release of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus apart from the other collections that Sony has released so far. Unlike God of War, for example, these games were relatively obscure and never sold particularly well, despite being among the most critically acclaimed games of all time. Originally PS2 games, they were both created by a small Japanese company that became known only as Team Ico.
What sets Ico apart from most other games is the way players come to care about a character in the game other than the one they are controlling. Yorda is the young, innocent, often helpless princess that young Ico must lead by the hand in his attempt to escape from a giant castle filled with puzzles and shadow creatures that threaten to steal Yorda away. To say any more about the game would be a travesty, because the experience of playing it, taking in the sights and sounds, and appreciating the way the game makes you feel really stands on its own. There is a reason why many game designers have since said that they took a lot of inspiration from this game when designing their own. It is a masterpiece. There will be times that players find the decade-old artificial intelligence of Yorda’s character a bit frustrating, but it is more than manageable. As Charles Herold said in his original review in The New York Times, “Ico is not a perfect game, but it is a game made up of perfect moments.”
Shadow of the Colossus shares many stylistic elements with Ico, but in many other ways it is an entirely unrelated adventure. Players take control of a boy on the quest to save the life of a young girl name Mono. In order to do so, he must travel on horseback out into a vast, barren landscape and destroy 16 great, towering beasts. The isolation of the unpopulated countryside creates a bond between the player and his horse Agro. Joe Juba, in a Game Informer review of the new collection, stated that this is the best he has ever seen the new 3D feature used, noting that, “The scale of the colossi – and the sense of vertigo caused by dangling from them – is conveyed well through the 3D effect.” Though, he stopped short of recommending players invest in a 3DTV for the game.
This collection provides PS3 owners an opportunity to experience something incredibly special, and it should not be passed up. Few people have ever played these games, but those that have routinely place them at the very top of their list of favourite games. As a bonus, the collection also includes a sneak peak at Team Ico’s third game, The Last Guardian, which is set to be released sometime next year.
