Plotting Points by Tan(x)
Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher
Game: Enslaved
Platform: XBOX 360
Played For: 10 hours
Journey to the West is one of the four great books from the days of early Chinese Literature. It has inspired many works of popular culture through the ages, not the least of which is the enormously popular Dragonball and Dragonball Z. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is the newest contemporary video game by Ninja Theory (the people who brought you Heavenly Sword) to be based upon this source material. The protagonist of both the ancient Chinese book and the modern Xbox360 game is Monkey, alternately known as the Monkey King. Hatched from a stone egg and equipped with a magically extending pole and flying cloud, Monkey challenges the heavens with his prowess and simple wit. But while the original Journey to the West has Monkey making a mystical Buddhist pilgrimage from China to India, Enslaved drops Monkey instead in post-robot-apocalypse New York City as he accompanies a girl named Trip on her journey home (she lives in the Burbs.)
Journey to the West is a very lovely game. Subscribing to the theory that color can still exist post-apocalypse (as opposed to the ash gray and puke brown of Fallout and Gears and their ilk), Monkey and Trip’s world is brimming with bright reds and verdant greens. Decaying skyscrapers heavy with vegetation and rusting robot carcasses in pools of oil are the order of the day, and there is rarely a moment in the game that you won’t be fighting with the sometimes restrictive camera to get a better view.
Standing before all this majesty are Monkey and Trip, two survivors of a crashed slave ship who are in dire need of a cross-town bus. You control Monkey, who having escaped the so-called “slavers” has been newly enslaved by a wide-eyed and ever-fearful teenage girl named Trip. Monkey, who is as gruff and simian in build as any incarnation of the Monkey King I’ve ever seen, takes to his new female overlord with an amazing sense of aplomb. Honestly, there were several times during the game that I marveled at his patience, as taking Monkey exploring a little too far from Trip can activate his slave headband and cause all of his brain cells to explode or something. This leaves you beginning again from the previous checkpoint and a little unenthusiastic about the inevitable Monkey/Trip romance that is sure to develop later on.
Trip explains to Monkey that he has to get her home, at which point she will release him from the headband. Until then, much of the game involves Monkey sneaking past or fighting a ton of robot monsters called Mechs, and gathering little bouncy red power orbs that Trip uses to upgrade Monkey’s moves. There are also mysterious illusionary masks that Monkey glibly suspects to be byproducts of the headband… but hey, why hold a grudge… what’s a little brain damage among friends?
Monkey, like any good brachiator, is a marvel at swinging from trees and climbing about on the ruins of civilization. While this is a pleasure to watch and easy to execute, the game is very restrictive about where Monkey can travel. Anything Monkey can leap to is indicated by a glimmer… surrounded by such fantastic environments it is frustrating that Monkey can only move along the linear paths prescribed by the level designers. To reinforce this notion, the camera will sometimes refuse to turn away from the direction of progress, and hidden masks are occasionally only hidden by the fact that the camera refuses to let you look one way or another.
Trip, on the other hand, has no skill at climbing or jumping, so she often requires assistance from Monkey. Expect to carry Trip past mines, toss her across chasms and hoist her up to ledges all in the name of good team bonding. Trip can be useful for distracting certain enemy mechs, however, as she can project a temporary illusion that draws fire from enemy turrets. Much as the headband was an annoyance at times, I liked the communication link that Trip establishes with Monkey through the device. As you gain distance from Trip her words switch to radio correspondence seamlessly. The headband also serves to augment reality, as Trip can set markers and enemy info only visible to Monkey using the device.
While getting sidetracked really isn’t possible in this game, there is always good reason to move forward. Monkey and Trip encounter a nice progression of mech opponents as they move from one set piece to the next. One early encounter with a “dog” on Broadway is particularly memorable, and there are some spectacular battles later on in the game as well. The presence of man-hunting mechs all over town is never really explained, and we never find out how the world came to be as it is. For most of the game it is not even clear if the robots are just tools serving some human agency, or if they themselves have taken over… and don’t expect things to make sense in the finale.
What is clear, however, is the mood, which is masterfully supported by a reserved soundtrack and some fantastic voice acting by Andy Serkis (of Gollum fame) and the rest of the crew. One has to wonder if Serkis had to do any motion capture for Monkey in this game… I hope the poor guy doesn’t develop back problems after playing so many hunched over simian characters. The journey to Trip’s home is nicely lonely and quiet, characteristics that fall away a bit in the second half of the game when Pigsy (the inevitably duplicitous pig companion from the original work) joins the crew. While I enjoyed the quiet decay of the first half of the game to the junkyards and action of the second half, it was amusing to see each successive nod to the source material.
On a final note, I want to give credit for some of the timed action sequences you encounter playing this game. While the fighting system is simple and does not rely on a lot of strategy, there are some very tense situations where Monkey is tasked with either defending a strategic location or saving someone from harm, while fighting off hordes of mechs that are in the way. I really enjoyed the difficulty and pacing of these scenes, several of which were just desperate enough as to be exciting without entering the realm of frustration.
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is gorgeous but brief, easy to play but at the same time a little too simplistic. It is more of a movie than a game, as the visual style trumps the gameplay in every way. Enslaved is a great game to buy at half-price, or to rent, but probably not worth the full price of admission… which is too bad, because the production values set such a high bar.
