Shadow of the Colossus

Video games these days have become like mass produced music, caught up in genres, sub-genres and needless hype. Every time a new game comes out it gets put into some sort of box. Be it a first person shooter, a role-playing game or a racing simulator. But sometimes, just sometimes, a game comes along that defies classification. Shadow of the colossus is one such beast.

The story begins with a young man who has just lost his lover. Not willing to accept her death, he journies to a temple in a far away land where the gods supposedly have the power to grant life to the dead. He lays her on the altar and a voice in the temple tells him that what he wants is indeed possible. However, to achieve that end, he must find and slay 16 collosi spread throughout the land. Ah what a man won't do for the love of a good woman! He willingly accepts the adventure of course. His magical sword (which also helps him locate the colossi) and a bow are his only weapons. Thus begins the adventure.


One of the most striking features of the game is the lack of minor enemy elements. You won't be killing any minions while you go looking for your next colossus. There aren't any in game characters to interact with. What you have however, is a beautiful black war horse called Agro that you can ride across the landscape. And what a landscape it is! The feeling you get when riding Agro through lush green fields, vast open tracts of desert and dense forest can only be described as profound. Let's face it, how many games let you ride a horse these days. Agro isn't as responsive as your fancy quad bike in the latest action-adventure title, but I think that is deliberate. After all, a horse is an animal. Besides that, the affinity you feel for the animal can scarcely be replicated by a vehicle.

When you finally get to a colossus, the game truly lives up to its name. These things are HUGE! I'm talking creatures the size of buildings, so that you actually have to climb them like a mountain before you can slay them. Thats no mean feat either, given the fact that these mountains tend to move around a lot and generally resist getting climbed. Plus, they always have some sort of fittingly humungous weaponry to swat attackers the first chance they get. Having said that however, each of the colossi do have a few vital spots on their body that you can stab with your magic sword to bring them down. Of course the vital spot will almost always be located in the place that is most difficult to get to. There is also a puzzle element involved whence you figure out how you are going to get on a colossus.

Each colossus in the game is like a separate work of art. Just by looking at them you can tell that the game's designers spent a significant amount of their time giving each of these guys a distinct personality. Some of them live on land, others swim under water and then there are those that fly around in the sky. The result of all this work is that by the time you have beaten a colossus, you get a real feeling of accomplishment. This more than makes up for the lack of any other sort of enemies.

Graphically speaking, this game is one of the best titles I've seen on the Playstation 2 to date. I'm sure that had it been released on the Playstation 3 or the Xbox, it would have looked better. Even so, the real selling point of the game is the incredible gameplay and the elegantly simple premise. I know its not a game everybody is going to like, definitely not people looking for quick thrills. Fighting a colossus can be a very time consuming undertaking. There will also be people who will get bored and give up mid way. But to me, as to a lot of other gamers, this will remain one of those games that will always be at the top of the pile because it does something fantastic in a world that seems to have given up on fantasy.