Friday, November 21, 2008

Nerd Alert - Ico

so im not much of a gamer but I am obsessed with getting to play this game called Ico. Its on the Playstation 2 (which from what I hear is now waaaay outdated) but its heralded as more of a work of art than a video game.

Youre basically this little boy, banished from your village and locked in an enormous castle and you meet a little girl also in the castle. You have to help her escape and protect her from these shadow creatures trying to capture her soul. So the game is you guiding her through this very richly designed world and its full of subtleties like the controller doing things to simulate you holding her hand and an almost complete lack of dialogue and music. The music that is available is supposedly on par with a film soundtrack and apparently it has an incredible ending. Every review says its the most original game they have ever played and it completely changed the face of gaming. Strangely it was a commercial flop but became a cult classic later.

"On the most basic level, the challenge is just to move from point A to point B, overcoming the inanimate obstacles in between. As an experience, though, it's almost impossible to describe.

Ico is short, Ico is quiet, and Ico is in fact nearly incomprehensible. It has an action quotient very close to zero. It has a story, but you see and hear only tiny hints and snatches, spending most of the game on one side of an impenetrable language barrier. So what is there to actually recommend this game, given that I do recommend it almost without reservation? The experience.

The feeling of simply being in the world that Ico creates is one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen in a videogame. The visuals, sound, and original puzzle design come together to make something that is almost, if not quite, completely unlike anything else on the market, and feels wonderful because of it. The sensation is like a very strange dream -- a little frightening, a little beautiful, intriguing throughout -- and its only main problem is the same one all dreams suffer from. It's over a good deal sooner than you might like."

I cant wait. I hope its available in Austin.

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