Top 10 of '10: Number 4 - Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (XBox 360)

I hadn't heard of Enslaved at all, until just before the release of its demo. I think it was a week or two prior to that, maybe even with the announcement of the demo, that I started to look into it. And the more I looked, the more intrigued I became.

If you're anywhere around my age (and I'll be hitting 40 later this year), you'll have watched the well-remembered TV show, Monkey. And that was probably your first exposure to what is regarded as a classic Chinese story, called Journey to the West. It centres around three main characters: Monkey, Tripitaka and Pigsy. And here's where the point emerges: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is a futuristic re-telling of that classic tale.


Not quite a romantic walk in the park.

Enslaved kicks off in startling fashion. The first level serves as both a tutorial and an introduction to the two main characters, Monkey and Trip, both of whom you will play through the game, although mostly you'll be Monkey. You're on some kind of flying craft, possibly a spacecraft, that is on fire, breaking up and heading for a crash on a dystopian futureworld. Monkey appears to be a prisoner, but manages to escape from his prison pod, whereupon he sees Trip (a young woman in this iteration of the tale) making a desperate bid to escape. Naturally, Monkey wants in...


Awww... look at her. You'd want to look after her, too...

That first level is a thrilling race against time, with you desperately scrabbling to get to the relative safety of the escape pod before either it launches or the giant craft crashes. Of course, with it being a video game, you can just restart if you fail. But there's a really frantic feel to proceedings as you throw yourself onwards, making terrifying last-ditch jumps and grabbing for tiny handholds.


Hey! You! Get off of my cloud!

Now, that all sounds far more exciting than the actual gameplay... in truth, you can't actually fail jumps or miss handholds. You can be too slow in performing them, at which point you fail, but you can't miss them. I know that a lot of people complained about this "hand-holding", preferring instead to have the platforming left entirely to their own skills. I came to love this method, as it allowed you to play the game and still concentrate on the surroundings (which are gorgeous), and the characters and story (which are excellent).


Monkey, you're a fine figure of a man... just like me.

As I've said, the story is cribbed from an old classic, as are the characters. But just taking those characters and plonking them into a videogame is not a guarantee of success. It still takes a lot of skill to work them into something you actually believe in. Fortunately, an amazing job was done with all aspects of the characterisation. The protagonists' expressions are wonderfully evocative and their lines are delivered superbly, as you would expect of the top-notch actors that were hired for the parts (the casting of Pigsy, in particular, is incredibly inspired and I burst out laughing when I realised who it was). You believe in these people, and it's fair to say I felt a genuine emotional involvement in the development of their plight.


Surfing with the alien. Oh, OK... I'll stop now.

It's a pretty lengthy game, although the relative ease of many aspects of the gameplay should see seasoned veterans ploughing through it in fairly short order. But I think that would be missing the point. This is a game you want to absorb... it's all very well comboing a load of mechs into oblivion, but if you don't take the time to see why you're doing it or where the story is going, I can't imagine it would be half as satisfying.


I've got your back...

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is a superb piece of entertainment, which successfully places a good story into a good video game, and with the enhancements of superb production values and acting and the most believable character faces I've ever seen, the whole thing meshes into more than the sum of its parts. Even though the actual gameplay is quite simple, it's the combination of the elements that make this something special, and I hope that Enslaved becomes an important stepping stone in the evolution of story-driven video games.

Ridge Racer 6 (XBox 360)

Believe it or not, I'd never played a Ridge Racer game before. That shouldn't be too much of a stretch, seeing as you know I hadn't played a Castlevania game until recently. But Ridge Racer should have been different. Ridge Racer is an arcade game. I should really have played it at the seaside. But the the days of seaside arcades were numbered when Ridge Racer was released, and I didn't see a Ridge Racer game for a long time.

Similarly, I always seemed to miss the boat with the home releases. I never seemed to own the right console at the right time. So although Ridge Racer was raved about in many places, I always seemed to end up playing Sega racers. That's definitely not a bad thing, but now it's time to broaden my horizons.

Having said that, I was surprised to load up the game and be greeted by Pac-Man. Bloody hell, Namco.


The morning commute seemed a bit more exotic today.

With that out of the way, it was on to the game. And it's a bit daunting at first, plonking you into the Ridge Racer Universe with barely a moment's notice. I mean that literally... a galaxy of swirling green stars swallows you up and spits you out at its origin. It's at this point you realise what a mammoth racing task lies ahead of you. Well over 100 races, and as if that wasn't enough, you have to plot out routes yourself!

I like this approach. It's more fun to have an element of choice over where and when you race. Plus, completing routes (in this case, linking a section of races together) unlocks new cars, and who on this Earth doesn't like unlocking stuff? It's cool to get a new car for every few races you complete. It's even better that they're named after classic Namco games, and driving a Gaplus or an Ordyne racing car is great.


Neeeeeoooowwww! Who'd have thought that little bug had it in him?

There are things I don't like, though. I don't like that you have to win every single race in order to progress. I'd have preferred an approach more like Sega Rally's, where you get points depending on where you finish and a certain number of points will allow access to the next area. That gives a bit of leeway, and is a touch more forgiving when you have a difficult game. Having said that, Ridge Racer 6 doesn't appear to be as hard as Sega Rally, at least, not at the moment...

I really, really, really don't like the announcer. I thought I did, at first. But it didn't take long for him to become really grating. And he's camp. Very camp. Not necessarily anything wrong with camp, but there's a time and a place, and a turbocharged racing game is neither. And when he says, "Ooooh, someone's let off some nitrous", he says it like someone in the room just farted.


Skreeeeeeeeee! Sliiiiiiiiiiide! And without so much as a car in sight for added fun.

But those are niggles. There's plenty of good stuff, too. The sheer volume of racing is something that would keep anybody busy for ages. I like some of the little touches, particularly the way Pac-Man is used for split times. And the actual racing itself can be pretty exciting, even if the controls are weird and the cars just a bit too slidey. Just as well I've played a lot of OutRun 2 in the past, otherwise I would have been completely unprepared.

Ridge Racer 6 is, basically, a giant arcade machine in your own home. It's more expensive than an arcade machine, but you get way, way more game for your money. I'm not entirely sure yet whether I love it or not. I love owning a giant arcade machine, sure, but it hasn't clicked in the way that Sega Rally or OutRun 2 did. That said, I'm enjoying it a lot and will be pressing on with it in the days and weeks to come. It'll be interesting to see where it ranks in my list of top racers by, say, the end of the year.

Hmmmm... list of top racers... everyone loves a list...

Mojo (Slight Return)

Gaming Mojo is a strange thing. Sometimes, you can be right into games and whatever you pick up you can find yourself playing for hours. Others, you're in a slump and can pick endlessly through your shelves without one single game jumping out at you with a spark of inspirational quality.

I'm having one of those slumps at the moment. Don't get me wrong... I've been having great fun playing old games this past week. That side of me usually stays keen. But it speaks volumes when I'm turning on my 360 and would rather spend half an hour pissing about with Onechanbara Bikini Samurai Squad than getting stuck into the campaign on Halo Reach.

Still, things are about to pick up. Having played and loved the demo for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, I've been out and bought the game today. The smallest child is in bed, the eldest will be soon, and I'll be diving into Monkey and Trip's somewhat dystopian future.

I'm really quite excited by it. If you haven't been following its development at all, here's a video showing the first 15 minutes of the game.

Baraduke (Namco Museum (everything), arcade)

What a strange little game this is. It's another of those odd games on the Namco Museum that I've never played before, and when I first saw it I had high hopes of it being a bit like Section Z, a shooter that I love.

It isn't.

It's an odd sort of a shooter, which sees you controlling a player named Kissy. Yes, really. I actually looked up this game, and found that Kissy has a backstory. And that backstory is a corker. Apparently, Kissy married Dig Dug. Yep, that shocked me as well. They had three children, one of which is Mr. Driller. What? They are now, sadly, divorced. Even videogame characters can't stay together these days.


You can tell she's a girl. A bloke would shoot that daft cute thing.

I tell you, this was shocking revelation upon shocking revelation to me. Who would have thought it? Can you imagine a Japanese soap opera based on this? It would be awesome! Sadly, it's never likely to happen. Also sadly, this is all way more interesting than Baraduke, the game.

Baraduke (or Alien Sector, to give it its Japanese (and better) name)sees you venturing through alien landscapes, blasting odd looking creatures so that you can unlock the door to the next level. It's as shallow as that. The creatures (at least, the ones as far as I saw) look like octopii. Some sit there and throw out more octopii that wobble about at you, and shoot laser rings at you. If you blast the ones that sit there, they release collectable things.


Look, there's too many nasties down there. You go.

There's a recoil action when you shoot... if you don't counter it, you'll blow yourself right back across the screen, eventually. It doesn't, in actuality, have much of an effect on the gameplay... it just looks kind of nice.

That's about it, really. It's quite a dull game, and not much fun to play. It's slow, and low-scoring. All it really has going for it is that tremendously involved backstory. Who fancies writing it into a screenplay? Anybody with me?

Galaxian (Arcade/MAME/Namco Museum)

Today is my dad's birthday, so in a tribute to him, I thought I'd play what is probably his favourite game ever: Galaxian.

Surely the whole of the Developed World knows Galaxian. It's one of the most established classics we have. And it hasn't just died away - Namco has kept it alive on every format known to man through their Museum collections. That said, it's taken something of a back seat to its sequel, Galaga, which many prefer.

Not me.


7000 points. That gets you an extra ship. That'll come in handy.

For me, Galaga over-complicates the formula. With its attack patterns, dual-ship capability and challenging stages, it throws a lot more into the pot. And it's a good game, there's no doubt about it. But I think it takes the swoopy-swirly aspect of the alien attacks too far, leading to much frustration at times.

Galaxian, on the other hand, is as pure as arcade gaming comes. It's just you, with your ship and its single laser, against an enormous alien force. That's it. The parameters never change, and eventually they're going to force you into a mistake and you'll die. It's inevitable.

Survival relies on you getting into The Zone. Galaxian was probably the first game I ever played where I got into The Zone, at the age of 8. It's probably the game most responsible for me loving videogames now. And for me, it's still as enjoyable as it was when I played it in the chip shop in 1980.

Dragon Buster (Arcade/MAME/Namco Museum)

There are a lot of games on the latest version of Namco Museum. Pity the interface is rubbish, because it puts you off playing any of them regularly. But this blog is not about regular; it's (mostly) about playing games that I've never played before. And there are a few on this compilation that I can say that about. Before today, one of them was Dragon Buster. Pity that's not still the case.


Oooh, where to go, where to go... I'd rather just go home, actually.

Dragon Buster is basically a rubbish cross between Rastan (which isn't that great to begin with) and Wonder Boy in Monster Land (which is). You wander around subterranean passages and get attacked by ghastly monsters. I say ghastly... they really do look horrible, but only in a drawn-by-a-five-year-old way. For 1984, these are terrible arcade graphics.


Hey you! Yes, you! I put it to you that you are a rubbish skeleton!

As far as the game goes, I suppose its ideas outstrip their implementation. You have a world map, with choices of route, which was probably fairly novel at the time. It's just unfortunate that, whichever choice you make, it sees you wading through a sea of cack gaming. It's usually a case of walk right, stop, do a Pete Townshend swing with your sword at a rubbish animal, and move on. Occasionally you might do something exciting, like drop off a ledge or something, but that's your lot. Every so often you'll come across a pathetic looking dragon, which you can smite with just two hits. There are bigger, much more impressiver dragons to be slain, but not a lof ot skill involved.


You're a dragon? Really? You're cute. Wanna be my pet?

And there we have it. Dragon Buster was, research finds, pretty well thought of in Japan, with conversions to home platforms, sequels and even a board game! I find that a bit odd... it's really not a particularly good game at all. I doubt I'll be loading this one up much in the future.