Shadow of the Colossus

steviec

Shouldn't this be out already? I was in Gamestop in Santry and they said its not out till tomorrow and no sign of it in Tesco or Xtravision.

I thought I saw a thread here(can't find it now) where a good few people said they've bought it...

Mr E

This is the thread. I haven't looked today, so I can't confirm. Mine shipped from Amazon last night, FWIW (along with Ico).

rainbow kirby

Gah, damn the fact there's only €3 in my bank account until I get paid tomorrow... I can't wait to get my hands on this!

RobertFoster

Where'd be the cheapest place to get this? I rang Smyths and they said €60 (€54 with the 10% off thing), but SimplyGames has it for ~€38 including shipping.

Lemlin

Looks a great game. Good couple of weeks for the PS2 with this tomorrow and then Black next week.

CiDeRmAn

Yup, gamestop have plenty of them, along with Ico. It comes in a lovely box with art cards, very similar to the original Ico stuff, wonderful.
Of course it costs €60 but is worth every penny.
With this and Katamari in the last few weeks, looks like the PS2 has really beaten the Xbox/360 with novel, non-traditional gaming, the unexpected gems that make gaming feel somewhat special, the titles that feel simply "right".

BlitzKrieg

just completed it.


Its a great game...but marred slighly by a few small details.


Whats good.

-Visuals.
-Music
-Controls
- formula of the game and the battles for the most part.

Whats Bad.

Its mostly wishful thinking on the bad side.

You do feel by the tenth or so colossi that they should have made the journeys to the Colossus more interesting, maybe with more elements of controlling your horse well, climbing andmaking your way towards its nest. For some of them, this was the case, but alot of them were simple ride until you find the passageway leading out of the hub to said colossus.


The actual battles are amazing...but on two specific colossi, the camera drives you nuts cause it either gets in the way, or makes it difficult to spot what your meant to do.

specifically colossus number 4 and the last one. The last one is very infuriating towards the end when the camera goes out of control while trying to balance on the second hand.

Tiniest disapointment is the *Stoned* attitude the Colossus have at times pretty much ignoring you and stumbling along most of the time. Kinda wish for more tense moments dodging attacks and trying to get near them, instead of easily walking up to them and then climbing them.

But apart from that an amazing game.

BLITZ_Molloy

I spent the last 5 hours of my life poking big furry monsters.

More detailed impressions will follow when I've completed it.

BlitzKrieg

i knew i forgot something.


The single most annoying theing about this game are the bloody subtitles...near impossible to read.

Crucifix

BlitzKrieg wrote:

i knew i forgot something.


The single most annoying theing about this game are the bloody subtitles...near impossible to read.

Uh-oh, what's wrong with em? I'll be playing on a tiny Tv.

BlitzKrieg

they're very stylised subtitles being grey and dark and very squigily and slightly blurred.

Crucifix

BlitzKrieg wrote:

they're very stylised subtitles being grey and dark and very squigily and slightly blurred.

Oh right. I suppose I'll just sit 6 inches from the tv and hope for the best :v:

December Son

brilliant game. Just got to the 5th colossus. I only wish the framrate was better as it does give you a bit of a headache after a while.
The 3rd colossus has definitely been the best so far

CiDeRmAn

Perhaps Ico should make an appearance on the PSP, no changes mind you, tha would be nice, imagine being able to take the magic with you and showing it to complete strangers, perhaps going into Game with it and screaming "why don't you idiots grow a brain and recommend this instead of feckin Fifa!!!", whilst waving the PSP about and speckling the shop assistant with spittle in my rage, or maybe thats just me?

Note to self, stop self medicating.

Wertz

First PS2 game I've bought in ages...since GTA;SA. Had to resort to buying it in Xtravsion as it was the only place I could find it locally (€60)...probably pick up ICO again when I clock this; had it a few years back but sold it for a nice profit

Mr E

Do people really still use the word "clock" in gaming?

Mine should arrive Monday.... can't wait.

Wertz

Showing my age

Just been messing about with this for the last hour...stunning...really really is...so similar to ICO yet so different, the horse is a particularly well thought out device...gonna take me a little while to get used to the controls but they're pretty intuitive and progressive scan really does the SD signal justice on my telly.

All that and I've not even seen the one of the game's namesakes yet...

balkieb2002

Yeah beautiful looking game but the camera can be really annoying espec in heat of battle (crossbow is a bit fiddly too espec on horseback but ya get used to it). The horse-riding was fun though (horse-back surfing so fun though (s)he could be a stubborn fecker when not on the horse. The speech and subtitles were indeed akward so it meant you had to pay good attention during the cut-scenes.

Really orignal game though, i loved the collosi (?) and i prefered this alot more than katamari.

i_am_dogboy

balkieb2002 wrote:

i prefered this alot more than katamari.

Bit of a strange comparison there balkie....

I've been playing sotc quite a lot since I got back from work yesterday, beaten 6 of them and spent a hell of a lot of time just running around on argo and climbing on stuff. Fantastic over all, I love the solitude, all you have for company is the horse, the odd animal and some big ****ers with a grudge. This game is proof of how artistic styling and direction can more than make up for technically inferior hardware-to me it looks better than far cry/half life 2/f.e.a.r and all the other recent flashy games. I really love the music too, quite quite excellent.

balkieb2002

I meant as they're two of the most orignal games to come out for the ps2 for a good while, and having played both, i felt i needed to say i liked sotc more than katamari... but then again i don't need to explain myself to you but then again you compared it to far cry etc (not directly i know )

shuushh

rented this out for a week this afternoon, looking forward to getting stuck into it this evening

December Son

Well i just beat my 10th colossus tonight (at around 3am!) and bloody hell i just have to say, this game is just one big stand out moment. Other game might have a handful of moments where you think 'wow this is what its all about, im gonna remember this bit for ages' but every time i see a colossus, riding past it on my horse, the epic music playing, finally figuring out how to clamber onto it, its all just incredible. Right now im just seeing in my head the moment of

belting past the cave that colossus number 10 is in, the big turtle shaped one, just running past the cave as it emerges and starts attacking you, agro rearing up on his hind legs and whinnying

, it was absolutel visceral.
After a slew of GTA's, uninspired GTA wannabes, identikit guns cars and explosion em up games, SOTC has reaffirmed my faith in gaming.
Absolutely incredible. I cannot stress enough how much i love this game.

Captain Trips

Yeah, it's a superb game alright, and it's so bloody simple in premise it's surprising no-ones done it before.

As a gaming game, it's one the best ever, IMHO. It's maybe a platform game if you really want to put it in a box, but not even then really. Absolutely superb and like FF7 on PSX, I think this is one of the reasons PS2 stands out even now.

Mr E

Beat the first couple last night... I'm really enjoying it. I agree with criticisms about the frame rate, though. Still, its a superb game........

steviec

I've dropped 7 colossi so far and absolutely love the game. Freshest gameplay I've come across in a long long time. And the battles simply look amazing.

evad_lhorg

ive dropped six and am on the

big electric eel fella

and cant figure out how to get him. he is the only one who has killed me.

number 3 and 5 were my favourites . 4 was was a well thuoght out fight but i thought he was too small. number 6

the eagle

wasnt as fun as i suspected he would and was a lot easier than i expected. 3 was definitely the highlight. so so big.

i_am_dogboy

I got to number 16 last night, couldn't quite kill it though as it was late and I've to be up early in the mornings.

I couldn't believe argo died, I was close to tears when he fell down the big chasm thing, it's made worse by the fact that you can still whistle for him after, it's worse then the end of ICO and you think yorda is dead....

I'm absoltely loving the game so far, technical marvel and every bit as good as ICO. Now I hope the next 5 years till their next game just flies by...

Lemlin

Got this yesterday and have killed 4 so far. I thought the 2nd was the hardest so far. The third only took me about ten minutes.

Zapp Brannigan

I wish I had money to buy this game