Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

[Aigis]

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is the newest game from Ninja Theory, the developers of Heavenly Sword. It's one of the games that I am the most excited about. And it's in development for the PS3, and the Xbox 360.

It is an action game where you control a character called 'Monkey', in a story inspired by the Chinese epic 'Journey to the West'. Some of you will be to some degree familiar with this story through DragonBall. At some point I guess the characters get enslaved. There is also another female character, whom I suppose you have to protect as when she dies, you die. There are robots involved.

It's set in a post-apocalyptic world, but it's not a barren, Fallout-style one. It's a world where the trees have taken over, and everything is overflowing with colour.

E3 2010 Trailer

What really intrigues me about the game is the emphasis on story. They got a Hollywood screenwriter, Alex Garland (the writer of Sunshine and 28 Days Later) to write the game. He's a good writer, so I'm hoping that will translate to a good game story.

It's being directed by Andy Serkis, an actor probably best known for playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, who also directed the cutscenes in Heavenly Sword (and played King Bohan). And from what I can tell, the voice acting seems good. I believe Andy Serkis is playing Monkey, and he's great.

The game also appears to have platforming involved.

[Sun-Wukong]

Finally, someone else who's heard about this.

No, this isn't a novelty account just to post about this game, misleading as the user name may be.

[FullFistMaria]

I got excited because the title made it seem like an Oddworld game.Wishful thinking I guess.

[Lost-Chances]

At 6/16/10 07:45 PM, Aigis wrote: They got a Hollywood screenwriter, Alex Garland (the writer of Sunshine )

Oh no...

[Aigis]

At 6/17/10 06:37 AM, Lost-Chances wrote:

At 6/16/10 07:45 PM, Aigis wrote: They got a Hollywood screenwriter, Alex Garland (the writer of Sunshine )

Oh no...

Explain.

[Lost-Chances]

At 6/17/10 07:09 AM, Aigis wrote:

At 6/17/10 06:37 AM, Lost-Chances wrote:

At 6/16/10 07:45 PM, Aigis wrote: They got a Hollywood screenwriter, Alex Garland (the writer of Sunshine )

Oh no...

Explain.

You've never watched Sunshine? I can't say the writing is mediocre, but rather just down right poor.

[Aigis]

At 6/17/10 07:11 AM, Lost-Chances wrote: You've never watched Sunshine? I can't say the writing is mediocre, but rather just down right poor.

It falls apart in the third act, but other than that I think it's solid enough.

And 28 Days Later was well-written.

[Lost-Chances]

At 6/17/10 07:19 AM, Aigis wrote:

At 6/17/10 07:11 AM, Lost-Chances wrote: You've never watched Sunshine? I can't say the writing is mediocre, but rather just down right poor.

It falls apart in the third act, but other than that I think it's solid enough.

And 28 Days Later was well-written.

Oh yeah, 28 Days Later was pretty solid in terms of it's writing. It's just Sunshine collapsed about half way into the film as soon as Icarus was disconnected from the Icarus 2. Maybe a bit before as the psychiatrist starts yelling at the captain "WHAT DO YOU SEE?!" which I couldn't help but be reminded of a character from the book Firestarter by Stephen King where there was an assassin who would choke people to death and stare into their eyes, asking what they could see, just as they passed on. It set out to poke around the idea of religion and did a bad job of making a...Metaphor for it? I'm not sure if what they did could even be considered as containing metaphorical value. It's a good film I guess, but I can't help but think it's one of those films that it's best you don't scratch the surface. Which isn't a good sign when it comes to the writing.

[Aigis]

At 6/17/10 07:32 AM, Lost-Chances wrote: Which isn't a good sign when it comes to the writing.

There's also something else you have to remember:

Almost every game that is well written by video game standards is poorly written by film standards. If you try to scratch the surface of almost any game script in terms of its themes you're really not going to find much.

There may be a few exceptions, but I can't really think of any at the moment. I was going to offer Braid as an example of depth, but then I remembered I couldn't offer it as an example of good writing.

Even if they're not getting a Charlie Kaufman or a Coen Brothers to write their game, it's great that they are taking steps towards trying to get their writing on the level of films.

I have no idea if Andy Serkis is a good director or not, though. But hey, I don't think I've ever been amazed by the direction in any game's cutscenes. But he is a great actor, and is playing the main character (and sounding like Ron Perlman apparently). Andy Serkis hamming it up was probably the best thing about Heavenly Sword.

[Aigis]

Just downloaded and played the demo of this game on the PS3.

It's a very exciting demo. The game looks quite promising.

The gameplay seems a reasonable bit like the 2008 Prince of Persia. Only better, with more exciting set pieces, and with a much more interesting setting. Also Andy Serkis doing some bizarre voice, which is awesome.

[Yokumashu]

Played the demo off of PSN.

It was pretty fun, but it doesn't seem too much different than Heavenly sword. The graphics are barely any better as well, which is weird because heavenly sword is from 2007.

I think I'll pick this up when it hits bargain bin, seems a pretty solid game overall but nothing special IMO.