Backlog Burnout Review of Shadow of the Colossus: Joy and sorrow in a forbidden land

System(s): PS2, PS3
Release Year(s): 2005, 2011
Rating: Teen
Current Amazon Price: $59.90 (PS2), $19.39 (PS3)

The Skinny:

Holding a very secure spot in my top 3 games of all time, Shadow of the Colossus is a beautiful, fun, challenging game that succeeds at everything it attempts to do. An interactive work of art, this game is an absolute triumph that provides exciting action, perfect art direction and design, and an emotional experience very few games have achieved.

The Meat:

Last week I talked to you about the often forgotten gem that was Ico. This week I bring you the reason that people don't really talk about it anymore. While Team ICO created an extremely solid game in Ico their next offering completely blew it out of the water and out of people's minds. Shadow of the Colossus is a game that I believe anyone who enjoys video games needs to play at some point, and with the extremely reasonably priced Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD collection for PS3 there has never been a better time to do it.

First thing's first. I will reveal nothing of the story of Shadow in this review. The game is an experience that is best enjoyed blind so my comments will be intentionally vague so as not to ruin it for you. What I will do however is describe what your task within the game is. Your sole purpose in this game is to hunt down and destroy the sixteen giant beings that populate the beautiful, desolate landscape of the Forbidden Land in which the game takes place. That's it. While at first glance this may not seem like enough content to fill out an entire game I can assure you it is. Gameplay is essentially broken into three different categories. Locating and travelling to each Colossi, figuring out how to destroy it, and then executing your plan.

Step one in your quest is locating your quarry. This is done by standing in sunlight, raising your sword above your head, and using the way the light reflects off of the blade to pinpoint the location of your next foe. This is a really cool mechanic because it really provides a supernatural and mystic air to the proceedings and gives the feeling that you're on an epic adventure for a higher purpose. After the sunbeams give you an idea of the general idea of where the next fight will occur your task becomes to traverse one of the most beautiful game worlds ever created. What is so cool about it is how there's really nothing in it, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. Aside from the occasional lizard or bird its just you and your horse exploring the remains of what was once clearly a living, breathing place but is now a haunting, empty land. There is so much story that is never said in words oozing out of every ruin, temple, and forest that you traverse. The world sucks you in and captures your imagination. Anyone who says games can't be art has never seen this game.

After you have shaken the feeling of wonder and sadness that the world invokes and actually manage to bring yourself to the lair of the next Colossi the action begins. The music swells and you find yourself face to face with some of the most epic and unique boss fights in gaming. Some of the Colossi are vaguely people shaped, some are animals, and some are just plain terrifying. One thing that they all have in common is that they all have distinct behaviors and personalities that are immediately apparent. Some are passive, some are hostile, and some seem sad. It is truly amazing how unique and unusual each Colossi is and each one brings a distinct flavor to the proceedings that prevents the game from ever getting stale, even for a moment. Their uniqueness doesn't just stop with their looks or personalities either. Each one is fought in a completely different way. While the way you kill them is always the same (climbing onto their enormous bodies like a flea and stabbing their weak-points) the specifics of each fight are completely distinct. Some involve using the environment to your advantage in order to disable the colossus or to get yourself onto it in some way. Some involve causing the colossus to do something in order to hurt itself in some way. Still others require you to fight from horseback while dodging and riding like mad. Each one is fresh, unique, and extremely fun.

Finally, once you've analyzed the landscape, personality, and nature of each battleground and colossus its time to actually do your duty. You climb aboard the giants and locate their weaknesses. These behemoths don't like being climbed on and will do everything in their power to get you off of them. This creates extremely exciting and tense moments, where you're about to land the killing blow but the creature is shaking and roaring, trying to throw you off, as your grip meter slowly drains. Dropping from the head of a 200 foot tall giant is a doom that always is lurking and providing an incentive to find secure rest points and handholds. Its difficult to explain just how epic and thrilling each fight is, but I'll try. Take the most exciting, large scale, and unbelievably crazy boss fight you've ever done in a video game and make it better. That's every fight in this game. Yeah.

The Bottom Line:

Melding aspects of puzzle games, platforming, climbing, adventure, and action, Shadow of the Colossus is a triumph in every sense. Its a beautiful game, with a mysterious story, exceptional art design, sublime gameplay, and an atmosphere that is second to none. This game receives my highest of recommendations and I envy those of you who just might still get to experience it for the first time.

Backlog Burnout Review of Fatal Frame: The scariest photos outside of 70s fashion magazines

System(s): Playstation 2, Xbox, Playstation Network

Release Year: 2002

Rating: Teen

Current Amazon Price: $29.99 (PS2) $103.21 (Xbox) $9.99 (PSN)

The Skinny:

It’s scary, plain and simple. Even if you don’t scare easily this game (and series in general) knows how to get under your skin. It’s a truly unsettling and harrowing experience; marred only occasionally by some frustrating combat moments.

The Meat:

Fatal Frame is a Japanese horror series (known in Japan as Zero and Europe as Project Zero) on the Playstation 2 that is a cult favorite among many horror fans. Its trademarks are genuinely scary environments and situations coupled with extremely disturbing storylines deeply rooted in old Japanese mythology. In every game in the series the main characters become haunted by ghosts for one reason or another, be it wandering into a haunted mansion or becoming trapped in a ghost village that stopped existing hundreds of years ago. The only way our unfortunate protagonists can defend themselves is with an occult camera known only as the Camera Obscura. This mysterious box, which looks simply like an ancient camera, has the power to exercise (in the Catholic sense of the word) spirits which it captures photos of. This is the setup for a series that, in my humble opinion, is one of the best and scariest horror franchises out there.

Fatal Frame has three main strengths: its environment/atmosphere, its sound, and its themes. Let’s begin with the environments. Every area of the game, from the dark interior of a haunted mansion to a creepy shrine out in the woods feels soaked and oozing with dread and unease. Things are damp, old, rotten, and just have an aura of doom about them. I cannot think of a single area in the game that is welcoming or feels safe, and in a horror game that is an extremely impressive accomplishment.

Next is the game’s impeccable use of sound. Music will slowly build when you enter a room and you know something foul is lurking waiting to spring on you. The ambient noise and static builds to a crescendo as you raise your camera and look around the room in a panic trying to spot your doom. And then everything goes silent. You let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding and slowly your heart begins to slow. And then you hear the creak of the kimono cabinet behind you opening and hear a bloody gurgle that sounds weirdly like the laugh of a little girl and you promptly freak out like a child who finally has seen the monster in their closet. No other game I have ever played has used sound as effectively as Fatal Frame, except Fatal Frame 2 and 3. It is truly a masterwork of audio design and is absolutely terrifying.

Finally, there are the game's themes and story. The fact that this game is teen rated completely boggles my mind. This is a story about human sacrifice, body mutilation, dismemberment, suicide, and murder. Lots and lots of death and none of it pretty. One of the ghosts is a woman whose eyes have been stabbed out by giant needles. The imagery is dark, the story is gruesome and disturbing, and it creates a truly horrifying experience. This tale probes the darkest reaches of Japanese mythology and doesn’t relent. It starts dark and only gets darker. All of this combines to create a wonderfully unsettling play through and creates a feeling of dread and hopelessness that has been missing in modern games. It’s why the old Silent Hill games succeeded, and it’s why Fatal Frame manages to capture true fear.

From a gameplay perspective Fatal Frame is decent enough, but I feel the gameplay is not one of the games strongest points. You explore these haunted places in third person view with modified tank controls similar to those found in Silent Hill 2. You have your Camera Obscura that you use to solve puzzles and combat ghosts. When you raise your camera the game enters a first person view trough the camera. The ghosts appear and assault you, and while visually they are pretty grotesque actually fighting them can sometimes go from scary to annoying. They will hide in walls and pop out to hit you giving you maybe half a second to snap a picture of them before they chunk your health. In wide open areas it isn’t too much of a problem because they can’t use their ghostly shenanigans to hide inside solid objects. The problem is that a large portion of the game takes place inside tight hallways and here it can become a major issue. When fear turns to frustration some of the fun of horror is lost. However in small doses the feeling of helplessness imparted by the awkward combat actually helps the game to drive home its points. It’s just when you lose half of your healing items to one ghost’s cheap tricks it can get a little irksome.

The Bottom Line:

Fatal Frame is an excellent, extremely frightening game that any fan of the horror genre must play. It’s disturbing, scary, and most of all fun. If you’re willing to wade through some occasionally irritating gameplay mechanics and an extremely Japanese setting you’ll find true horror through the lens of a camera.
(Also I apologize, I couldn't find a good trailer/video in English so here is a Japanese one. The game is in English however.)