Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Worth playing"

It seems every action game developer makes a post-apocalyptic game at least once in their timeline. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is Ninja Theory's entry to this desolate theme. The game begins with a slave breaking from his cell as the slave ship he's on lose altitude, plummeting towards ancient New York City. On his desperate attempt to reach the last remaining escape pod, he finds himself on the wrong side of it, staring through a window watching its occupant jettison them both from the ship. After a hard landing, this once free slave awakens to find himself enslaved yet again, this time by a girl named Trip. Trip tells this slave, known as Monkey, that she had no choice. She needs his help to return home. Thus, the odyssey to the West begins.

Enslaved is an action game combining hard-hitting combat, shooting and cover, and platforming and climbing based exploration together. The bulk of the game will have you playing as Monkey, climbing structures and looking for new ways to overcome obstacles. He's continuously aided in his exploration by Trip, as she uses a mechanized dragonfly to outline objectives that he needs to work towards. Platforming and climbing is extremely straightforward with no opportunities to get lost, and the game's even easier due to the fact that it's impossible for you to fall to your death. Unfortunately, a small flaw arises as a result. You need to be lined up for your jumps almost perfectly, or Monkey will just stagger and regain his balance.

The combat portion of the game is pretty fun, but it gets mundane after a while, since it never evolves or introduces any radically new enemies. You go up against bipedal mechs that are a couple feet taller than you, relying on your trusty staff to beat them down. You have weak and strong attacks, as well as a wide attack that knocks enemies back and a stun attack that locks them up for a few seconds. Some robots will have shields requiring you to stun them to break through their defense, while others can't be stunned at all. You can also unlock a Focus Attack ability that charges up after several successive blows, and it will instantly destroy a mech provided you land the final hit.

One simply does not button mash through Enslaved, though, as you'll get beat down faster than you can beat them down. Monkey can block, but can only absorb a number of hits before his shield fails, so he needs to rely on counter attacking and evading. Things also get harrier when mechs happen to be shooting him from a distance, so he needs to prioritize his targets by level of threat. A cool thing about these enemies, though, is that certain ones can be used as weapons by performing take downs on clobbered enemies. You can rip a gun off a mech and fire back, stun surrounding bots by overloading a certain mech's capacitor, or explode them by using a mech's overloaded core as a detonator. There are issues during combat, however, where the camera zooms in on you too close, making you lose track of your target. There will also be moments where Monkey will stand there for a second or two after finishing a combo when you need him to start attacking again immediately.

When Monkey isn't bashing mechs with his staff, he's shooting them with it. Monkey's staff fires bolts of blistering hot plasma as well as stun rounds. There will be moments in the game where he'll need to take cover and return fire. Some mechs will have shields, requiring them to be stunned and then blasted with plasma. Monkey will also have to fire at structural weak points to get past certain obstacles. Ammunition is rare, though, so don't expect to be firing plasma in close combat. When you definitely need to use it, a respawning ammo pick up becomes available.

Monkey also carries with him a hovering disc called a Cloud. Monkey rides the cloud to move over water and travel distances very quickly, but it can't be used just anywhere. During these moments of the game, Monkey will be allowed to explore the open area as his leisure. Giant boss battles will also occur during his Cloud sessions, and they'll usually end with Monkey making use of boost icons to catch up to the boss and deliver a finishing take down.

The world of Enslaved is a pretty desolate one. You're only accompanied by Trip, and aside from mechs and a character named Pigsy from Trip's past, you do not encounter any other animated personalities. This allows for the game's storytelling to focus exclusively on the duo's relationship. At first, Monkey's enraged by Trip for enslaving him, but then quickly develops a sort of Stockholm Syndrome in that he can't stand to see anything happen to her, even if he wasn't enslaved. When the two meet the pudgy Pigsy, the dialogue becomes even more entertaining, as Pigsy and Monkey play off each other rather well. Many games suffer from overdistended cast members, but because Enslaved features such a small number, its potential for emotional attachment is extremely high, and it's carried out very effectively. You really grow attached to this trio well before the end of the game.

Trip isn't just an integral character in the game's story. She's a very important asset and critical component to the gameplay. Quite often, the duo will be pinned down by shooting mechs, and Monkey will have to distract them to let Trip come to him safely. Trip can generate a holographic decoy to provide Monkey with a distraction as well. Trip can also operate levers, heal him with health kits he finds, or upgrade Monkey's equipment and abilities with the tech points he collects throughout the game. All of this can be done by holding down LB and moving the stick to the proper command. Trip is also less agile than Monkey, so she needs boosts to ledges she can't reach and thrown across gaps she can't jump. Several times, the game will put Trip in the middle of danger, and since Monkey's headband is connected to her heartbeat, if she dies, Monkey dies, so you'll always need to protect her.

Enslaved is an artistically driven game. Its textures may not be as brilliant and it may not contain as many polygons as other games of its genre, but its level design more than makes up for that shortcoming with its sheer beauty and scope. The opening set piece of Monkey scaling a plummeting slave ship is evidence that the levels will be epic. The characters and mechs are all modeled well enough, but it's the attention to detail in the characters' faces that truly stand out. Every subtle shift of the eye and sag of a cheek bone are captured to portray a great deal of emotion. The special effects are decent with flashy explosions, smoke and lightning, but it isn't polished as well as games with higher budgets.

Audibly speaking, Enslaved sounds awesome. It hits every note from loud and painful sound effects to a beautiful soundtrack to excellent voice acting. It really does sound like you're banging on metal with a giant stick as you whale on enemy after enemy. Explosions have a kick to them that jolt you from your seat, and the peppering of enemy bullets can put you in a panic as you scramble for cover. The soundtrack is beautiful and wonderfully orchestrated, and its a potent tool for conveying the emotion contained within the game's story. The voice cast is excellent. Monkey has a wide range of character to him; Trip sounds meek, but confident and determined; Pigsy has a burlyness to him with his deep graveled voice.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West will unfortunately be a game overlooked by many gamers simply because its marketing doesn't match the lofty budgets other publishers give their games, which is a shame. Simply based on its combat and exploring, Enslaved may not be such an enthralling game, but its story provides it with such a strong backbone, those components become enhanced. Enslaved also presents the gamer with some exhilarating and gigantic boss battles, and perhaps one of the largest moving levels in action game history. All of these great experiences will be lost to people who demand their gems to be highly polished, but rest assured Enslaved is a diamond in the rough. It's dirt cheap with an asking price of only 20 dollars, so if you happen to be reading this review, do yourself a favor and pick up Enslaved.