ICO on the PS2 and PS3- A Review From a Nobody

There are some games that are more popular and well-known now than when they first released. These games were completely overlooked by the general gaming public, and years of word-of-mouth from gamers and even "Hidden Gems" articles would finally bring these games into the spotlight they justly deserved. In my Jak and Daxter review, I went over how insane a year for gaming 2001 was. Ico did get some good coverage by some magazines prior to its release, and I do remember playing and liking the demo of the game before I ever played it, but for whatever reason, when this game first released, it flew completely under the radar. Reviewers loved the game, but the general North American gaming public at the time of its release completely overlooked it despite it reviewing well in every outlet, with EGM even giving it game-of-the-month honors. In a later issue of EGM, I can't remember which one, they would run a Hidden Gems article where they featured Ico in their list which help get the game more notoriety among mainstream gamers.

Ico would eventually become the most well-known hidden gem on the PS2, and the later release and success of Shadow of the Colossus has seen both of them rise in the ranks as two of the most beloved PS2 classics. It took a lot longer than expected, but the game has now become a beloved PS2 classic among gamers with a visual aesthetic that blurred the line between being a video game or a piece of artwork, an amazing atmosphere, and unique hybrid puzzle game meets adventure game gameplay. While the combat and exploration elements are a far cry from, say, Zelda, which Ico bears likeness to at first glance, its unique blending of puzzle-game with adventure game, on top of escort-gameplay, really makes for a unique game that doesn't fit the mold of any particular genre of game.

The story centers around Ico, a boy born with horns, a once-in-a-generation curse upon his village. As the cursed child, the village blames any and every misfortune that befalls them on the child until the day of the sacrifice. On his twelfth birthday, Ico is dragged off to an ancient, crumbling fortress ruin where he is locked away in a stone crypt as a sacrifice to appease the spirits and lift the curse off his village. Luckily for Ico, the decayed state of the fortress allows him free himslef from the eternal bondage crypt dumping him out onto the castle floor where a vision of Yorda comes to him, and find her. Upon rescuing Yorda, their perilous journey to escape the ancient castle and the evil queen that controls it begins.

I haven't played through Ico since 2007 or 2008, so my memory of the game is a bit hazy. I remember that I loved the game, but I only vaguely recalled parts of it. For this review, I was going to record a full playthrough of the PS3's remastered version—the one that also came with Shadow of the Colossus—and play the PS2 version, recording some footage. However, I noticed some interesting changes in the PS3 remaster compared to the PS2 version of the game which prompted me to record a full playthrough of the PS2 version as well.

There were two big, significant differences. The first noticeable one is a change in the combat. In the PS3 version, enemies dodge more and feel easier to fight, whereas in the PS2 version, they are much more aggressive—even pinballing Ico around on the ground when he is trying to get back up after being knocked down. Additionally, there are two completely different puzzles in the waterfall area of the game.

I didn’t realize the changes to the game until I played the PS2 version, but it turns out the PS3 version of the game follows the changes made to the PAL version of Ico. The PAL version added some extra content, altered the combat, and modified the controls so that you had to continually hold the R1 button to stay attached to Yorda—as opposed to tapping it to attach and tapping it again to let go in the NTSC version. (You can change it to the latter in the options menu.) At first, I thought Bluepoint had made these changes, but one of the FAQs on GameFAQs explained the differences to me.

Pal gamers won't notice a difference in the level designs and combat of the PS3 Remaster, but diehard NTSC fans might be a little taken aback by the changes. It's still mostly identical to the NTSC PS2 version, but the differences are noticeable.

Ico is a game where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Yes, it's a visual work of art in motion; it's also an incredibly well-designed puzzle game, a giant escort mission—where you guide Yorda throughout varied game environments, and has Zelda-esque exploration and combat elements. The game's story also doesn't overwhelm the player with a lot of text and explanation; yet, it still manages to offer two of the most intriguing characters in gaming history. What it lacks in direct storytelling, it conveys visually through both Yorda's and Ico's animations and actions. Both characters possess a sense of childhood innocence, and you find yourself growing fond of them despite not being able to understand them.

There are some cut-scenes to tell the story, but the bulk of the experience and fondness for the characters comes through their visual pantomime, where the characters Yorda and Ico are given more depth through their actions and reactions than any dialogue spoken throughout the game.

At first, the most striking feature of the game is its incredible art direction. Reviews at the time compared the visuals to an impressionist painting. Even in the PS2 version—where I am upscaling 240p to 720p with the Hyperkin cable—Ico is still a beautiful game. On the PS1 and N64, there were some games that used interesting visual aesthetics; however, it wasn't until the sixth generation, with more powerful consoles, that art direction in games really started to have a large impact. Ico's large, open, and empty castle environments, mixed with its great use of lighting and shadows, come together to give the game an amazing atmosphere. Add in a sound design that mostly uses ambient sounds while sparingly using music, and you have a game that gives an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. You really do feel like you're exploring an abandoned, decaying ruin of a castle.

The audio and visual design really do create a tremendous atmosphere. There is music in the game on occasion; the ending theme is amazing, and I'm not good at describing music, but the save screen music sounds like happy childhood memories. When the save screen music plays, you feel a reassuring air of safety as the music plays. The game wouldn't be the same without so many small touches in its audio and visual designs. The developers' meticulous small but hugely impactful artistic touches in both areas adds so much extra depth to the player's experience while playing the game.

The core gameplay in Ico centers around guiding Yorda by the hand while exploring the ancient castle—solving brain-teasing puzzles along the way, fighting against a variety of dark spirits who try to kidnap Yorda and shove her into a portal, upon which time is limited to pull her out before it's game over—which gives the combat a sense of urgency, all while traversing multiple areas of the castle and trying to open the main castle gates to make your escape.

When it comes to the puzzles, Ico is from the era when developers didn't hold your hand. It's cut from the same cloth as a game like Tomb Raider or Primal. It actually gives fewer hints about what to do next than the previously mentioned Tomb Raider. Does this mean that sometimes the solution to a puzzle can be quite obscure? Absolutely. This might turn off some modern gamers who are so used to the hand-holding elements that have been implemented in gaming since Ico's time. Hand-holding elements, like cutscenes that play upon entering a room that give the solution to a puzzle away, or having important objects shine to show the player they are important, such mechanics do not exist in Ico. The only hand-holding that occurs is between Ico and Yorda themselves.

I guess to modify what I said in my Tomb Raider review to fit Ico is to say: the bad thing about the puzzle elements in Ico is that the game doesn't hold your hand, but the great thing about the puzzle elements in Ico is that the game doesn't hold your hand. This is a game that will use quite a bit more of your problem-solving skills than most others, even for the time. There is, however, a huge sense of accomplishment when you figure out the solution to a puzzle on your own. It's a hard-fought sense of satisfaction you rarely see in gaming anymore.

It had been so long since I last played through the game that I had forgotten all the solutions to the puzzles. This was like playing through the game for the first time again. I did get stumped on a couple of puzzles, but managed to figure them out eventually. That is, all except one, and that would be one of the puzzles I mentioned. I caved in and finally decided to go to GameFAQs because I was close to figuring it out, but not quite there. However, it was going to GameFAQs that helped me discover the differences between the NTSC and PAL versions, and also led me to finding the secret Mace weapon in the game.

In this room here, most FAQs said just follow the pipes on the ceiling and exit the room; however, in the PS3 version, the pipes don't lead to the platform. Instead, there is a switch on one of the platforms that activates a moving block. I got that far but couldn't figure out what to do on the moving block. I tried jumping off the block when it was moving, but it did nothing. I got so annoyed racking my brain over this puzzle that I took Yorda back to the beginning of the game, put her back in the cage, and gave up. Well, it turns out I was just jumping at the wrong time. You have to jump near the bottom when the block first starts to move. I guess I would have figured it out by dumb luck eventually, but the FAQs confirmed that I was close to figuring it out. It also enlightened me on how to get the mace in the game.

While the castle is huge, there isn't a lot of extra exploration in the game, but there are still some hidden rooms here and there. Generally, the game keeps it simple, with the main focus being the puzzles. This is a puzzle game above all else. Defending Yorda through combat is a secondary focus, while the exploration elements revolve around the puzzle elements. There aren't any arbitrary things to collect in the game, like coins or gold Skulltulas. Ico is beautifully simplistic and without a lot of bloat that many other developers would be tempted to add to the game. It's a game that knows what it wants to achieve and sticks to it. This is a puzzle game above all else. The entire castle is a giant puzzle that is solved by solving a series of smaller puzzles.

Outside of the puzzles, there is quite a bit of platforming—especially near the end of the game. The last section of the game is a platforming puzzle in itself, where players must traverse from platform to platform, solving some environmental puzzles to figure out where to go next. Ico makes good use of environmental puzzles throughout the game, with the ending section being the culmination of all the platforming skills you learned.

For the platforming elements, I took to the controls pretty well. I don't know what the learning curve might be for those with modern sensibilities, however. Generally, games with fixed camera angles make for overly frustrating platforming elements, as it feels like the developers purposely choose the worst camera angles for each jump, but this is not so for Ico. While I did, occasionally, find myself missing a simple jump and plummeting to my death thanks to the camera shifting mid-jump, the devs did a great job of giving players the best camera angles possible to make jumps over pits or to chains dangling over those pits. It's not perfect, but it works great most of the time.

The wall climbing elements in the game are also done really well and really smoothly. The jump up in technology from the PS1 to the PS2 helped remove the clunkiness of similar scenes in PS1 games. Similarly, the climbing elements—scaling, descending, and swinging on chains—are also incredibly smooth. While I won't say I never plummeted to my death on accident, there are a lot of protections in the control scheme to prevent such incidents, mitigating a lot of frustrating deaths that occurred in similar games in the previous generation.

The combat in the game is pretty simplistic. It's the added element of the shadowy figures trying to kidnap Yorda and stuff her into a portal, mixed with the limited amount of time you have to pull her back out of that portal, that gives the combat much of its intensity. Ico has a simple three-button combo to dispatch his enemies, and there aren't any deep moves like a dodge feature. To dodge enemy attacks, just move out of the way. I've seen people say that the combat in the PAL version is more challenging than the NTSC version because enemies dodge and evade more, but I find the more aggressive enemies in the NTSC version to be tougher and more intense to fight against. They attack more often and even hit Ico when he is on the ground. I think I like the more aggressive enemies in the NTSC version. Yes, they are easier to hit, but they also hit Ico more often, meaning the player either has to move or jump out of the way more. I found it to be way more challenging.

The Bottom Line: Ico was that “hidden gem” game that is now, rightfully, taking its place in the minds of PS2 gamers as a tried-and-true classic. You really don't need this review to tell you this, as even if you have never played the game yourself, you've, no doubt, heard about it. Even the most cynical, contrarian type of gamers should at least play it once. Beyond being a piece of artwork in motion, it's an excellent puzzle/adventure game hybrid that would still be a timeless classic, even without its unique art direction. That's just the icing on the cake as far as Ico is concerned. Really, the only big complaint that can be waged about this game is its short length, where your first run might take you 7 or 8 hours to play through, but every subsequent run will take you four hours or less. There's even a trophy on the PS3 version for beating it in under 2 hours. Ico is a defining achievement of PS2 game development, and it has stood the test of time as one of the best games on the system. It's one of those essential PS2 experiences that I think every gamer should experience. It's seen as a PS2 classic for a reason.

Now, as far as playing the game in physical form, the PS3 version is the cheapest way to play it, and it comes with Shadow of the Colossus in the HD remastered collection. The PS2 version is sitting around $25–$30 as of making this video, whereas the PS3 version is around $15–$20. For PS4 and PS5 owners, I looked it up, and if you have a PS Plus Premium subscription, you can play the game for free, but there hasn't been a physical re-release of Ico since the PS3. 

 

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Spin Jam on the PS1- A Review From a Nobody

Near the end of the PS1's lifetime, tons a cheap budget games were released. Along side the budget releases, tons of kids games were released as well. The thought process behind this was Dad or older bother bought a PS2, and gave son or little brother their old PS1. There was blues clues, Land Before Time, Casper, Bratz, etc and etc released near the end of the system's life. And while Spin Jam has the appearance of a budget title released for kids to play, one poor design decision keeps it from being that puzzle game your kid brother could enjoy.

Spin Jam takes it's cues from Puzzle Bobble/Bust a move in that it has the same connect three of the same colored bubbles on the play field to make them disappear. The catch is, when you activate three bubbles of the same color, you have a small time count down till the bubbles pop which causes bubbles directly across from the popping bubbles to fly off the playing field toward colored flower peddles outside the field. The point is to match the color of the bubbles to the color of the pedals in order for the bubbles to be caught by the pedal. Hit the pedal with enough bubbles, and the pedal bursts. For the rainbow colored pedals, all colors of bubbles can be used to pop them. There are also various powerups that appear on the field some are helpful like bombs that explode to destroy more bubbles on the field, while other are harmful like one that slows or even reverses your movement.

If the field fills up with bubbles to the point they reach outside, those bubbles then become poisonous, and start infecting the bubbles around them. If the poisonous bubbles reach the center, it's game over. In order to stop the poisonous bubbles, you need to launch them off the play-field to shake the poison off of them, and transform them back to their original colors.

It takes a bit to learn, but once you get the hang of it, the game is, surprisingly addictive. I've had a ton of fun playing this game. One final gameplay element that I learned, only after reading the game's manual, because there is no indication of having this ability in the game is, is the blitz attack. As you pop bubbles and pedals in the game the launcher tube on the top right or bottom right of the screen, depending on which mode you are playing, will fill up with a blue bar. When the power gauge on the launcher fills up holding the X button with either launch a barrage of bombs to clear the playing field in the arcade mode (this is helpful in the case that the poison bubbles are about to reach the center and cause a game over), or will unleash a blitz attack on your opponent in verses mode. When hit with a blitz attack, for a limited time, the flower pedals on you opponent's playing field turn clear, preventing them from being popped to send more bubbles and traps your way.

The game offers an arcade mode which is sort of the endless mode. The arcade mode rules are simple, keep playing each level until you pop all the pedals on the outside of the play field and you move to the next level. As in tetris, the game starts throwing more at you at a faster rate the higher the level. When you run out of continues, yes, continues in the endless mode, your game is over. The arcade mode is really fun and it gets difficult pretty quickly.

The verses mode is you and a friend duking it out for trash talking rights. You can even get a couple of friends in on the action and make your own friendly tournament out of it. Most of the replay value for the game lies here in the multiplayer aspect and the arcade mode.

The final mode is the story mode. It's sort of like the fighting game portion where you take on every character in the game in verses mode trying to work your way up to Moonlabs, the end boss. The problem being, for no good reason, there are no continues whatsoever in this mode. That's right, the arcade mode give players 4 continues, but, by design, the story mode give you one life, and no continues going against some of the most merciless opponents in a puzzle game I have ever played.

At first, I didn't know about blitz attack, I just knew that my opponents would do it to me. I thought I was just terrible at the game, which I'm certainly not great by any stretch. I failed dozens of times trying to beat the story mode on Easy difficulty. Yes, easy difficulty. When I discovered the Blitz attack, I was like, “Oh that's how you're supposed to do beat them,” but nope, still no chance. I've beaten a few of them, but the brain-dead idea of giving you no continues in the story mode and having cutthroat opponents, even on easy difficulty makes the story mode Impossible for me to beat, even once. I won't say the game is impossible to beat, but it is impossible for me to beat.

I have spent an entire day trying to beat what looks to be a children's puzzle game to no avail. One mess up, and you are kicked back out to the title screen. I have had fun playing the story mode, and have gotten relatively far into it, but the lack of even so much as one continue makes completing the story mode brutally hard, and for no reason. The game didn't have to be this hard, especially on easy mode. I know I'm not the best at it, but I've spent an entire day trying to beat the story mode, and I give up. I will never beat it, and without the use of an action replay, will never be able to unlock any of the hidden characters in the game either.

It's a shame, because the rest of the game is a ton of fun. This is a well made, addictive puzzler with charming 2D sprite graphics, tight controls, well done sound effects, and music that is well done but also low key enough that I had to go back and play the game again to notice it which is perfect for a puzzle game like this. It's well composed enough that you can listen to it for hours and it doesn't get old but also isn't a distraction. It's just kind of there. 

 

This is a fun game that's still around the $10 asking price with shipping on ebay. The arcade mode and the verses against a friend modes are the parts where you'll get your cheap money's worth out of this game. If they story mode wasn't made stupidly hard thanks to one bad design choice, I would herald this game as an underrated puzzle gem. It is fun, it is well design, and it is worth it for cheap, I just wish the developers wouldn't have completely hampered the overall experience with a mostly impossible story mode. As it stands, this isn't the underrated gem it could have been, it's a flawed game that still has some really fun parts to it. If you find it in the bargain bin it's worth playing, especially if you have a friend to play against. Spin Jam is a fun, but flawed game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Quick Review- 007: The World Is Not Enough on the N64- A Review from a N...

 

 

After Rare was done with Goldeneye, EA was quick to snatch up the Bond license, leaving Rare to make Perfect Dark and Eurocom to handle the next N64 game with the Bond name- The World is Not Enough. While not the first Bond game released post-Goldeneye, it was the first N64 Bond game release post-Goldeneye, and Eurocom smashed it out of the park with TWINE.

Eurocom is responsible for producing some of the best post-Rare Bond games.  There are even some N64 gamers that will even tell you they like TWINE even better than Goldeneye. While I still, personally, prefer Goldeneye, I can't deny that The World is Not Enough is the best possible Bond-licensed followup to Goldeneye there could have been for the N64. It even surpasses it in some areas.

Eurocom not only faithfully reproduced the gameplay and level design aspects that made Goldeneye so fun, but also made a game that feels more like a bond game. Not only did they manage to get quite a bit of voice-over dialog in this cart (which was a big deal for N64 games), but the focus is more gadget-heavy in nature, meaning the game captures the spirit of Bond better than Goldeneye did.

The mission designs mirror those in Goldeneye where the devs give you a map and a variety of objectives to complete. As in Goldeneye, the number of  objectives depends on the difficulty level you are playing on. The mission structure, controls, and general gameplay feel recapture Goldeneye's feel, while the bigger gadget-focus recaptures the Bond feel.

The Gunplay in Tomorrow Never Dies has a good feel to it, even if I do like Goldeneye's faster and more arcadey feeling gunplay a little better. It's a little slower in feel, but has the same controls scheme and auto aiming feature. They really did, for the most pert, recapture the same exhilarating feel of the gunplay in Rare's Goliath.  


For the multiplayer Eurocom even added bots to the deathmatch mode. They aren't programmed nearly as well as those in Perfect Dark, but you can still have some fun bot deathmatches in this game. Overall this game still offers some fantastic split-screen multiplayer, which is why we really loved Goldeneye so much to begin with.

If you weren't an informed gamer at the time, and didn't know that Rare had lost the Bond license, you probably wouldn't have known that TWINE was developed by a separate developer. Even though it stands in it's predecessor's huge shadow, Eurocom really did make make a bond game that is just as good as Rare's. Some of the best Bond games that have been made since, have also been Eurocom products and they really showed off their Bond development talents starting here in The World is Not Enough. If you loved Goldeneye, but haven't given this game a chance yet, you owe it to yourself to give it a look. It recaptures the same classic feel, but also adds to the formula. This is still one of the best First Person shooters on the N64.

NOTE: The video is in widescreen, because TWINE is one of the handful of N64 games that has a widescreen aspect ratio option in the video options menu.

 

 

 

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Quick Review- Tenchu: Stealth Assassins on the PS1- A Review From a Nobody

Here's a game that requires no introduction for those familiar with the PS1. The tenchu series has since fallen into near obscurity in today's gaming world, but back in 1998, it made a pretty big splash. A modern stealth ninja game that had stealth gameplay elements, but released prior to Metal Gear Solid. Metal Gear Solid was the standard bearer for the modern stealth genre, but Tenchu was a nice appetizer to the main course.

In Tenchu, you take control of either Rikimaru, or Ayame, a female ninja, and you traverse openly designed levels, trying to avoid detection while killing enemies silently. Attack an enemy without being seen and you are rewarded with an instant stealth kill. However, upon detection, disposing of your opponents becomes quite a bit more difficult, especially with the quirky and sometimes frustrating fighting system in place that takes quite a bit of learning to get the hang of. Until you learn the fighting system, there will be a lot of frustrating deaths. The levels leave the players open to explore, some even having hidden paths to find. The designs leave it open to choose how the player wants to play. If you don't want to be stealthy, there is no punishment for running in with blatant disregard for stealth. Well, aside from your life being drained from the tough in-game combat against multiple foes.

The coolest gameplay mechanic has to be the grappling hook. Players aim the grappling hook at any roof or high structure and watch as their chosen character zooms away to the spot they aimed at. This allows players to stalk an enemy, unseen from the rooftops, drop down for a stealth kill, and then zoom back to the safety of those rooftops. The grappling hook isn't without it's quirks, you have to line it up just right or your character won't grab the edge of the roof or structure you are aiming for, but that's part of what makes the use of the grappeling hook so exhilarating. Dropping down to stealth kill an enemy, knowing another enemy is close by, and having a few second window to zoom away before you are seen by the other enemy in the area really gets your blood pumping. Among the cool stealth kills, tough swordfighting, and other cool items you gain and use along the way, the grappling hook is still the most fun an distinguishing feature of Tenchu's Gameplay.

Every level you play gets graded by your performance. Once you beat a level, that level is opened up, and you can go back and play it again at any time to get the best ranking. I have no doubt that many people spent hours upon hours replaying the levels in tenchu to get the grandmaster rank in each level, which requires absolute stealth.

In 1999, Japanese gamers got an upgraded version of Tenchu that had the levels that were added for the American release that weren't in the original Japanese release. The upgraded version also had a level editor in it. This version was never made available in North America, so we never had the opportunity to design our own levels in the original Tenchu, that is unless you had the import version of the game. I know it seems like a small complaint because of the level editor in Tenchu 2, but it would have been a very nice touch to have it in the original Tenchu, which is, generally, favored over Tenchu 2 by fans. There is, however, a debug mode cheat that players can play around with that allows you to set items and enemies in a level, and I have heard of people losing hours to playing around with it, making sort of modified versions of each level.

Graphically, the environments have a respectable amount of detail by PS1 standards, they get the job done, but certainly aren't top tier, even for their time. The game is plagued by a poor draw distance making visibility poor, which sometimes gets you discovered by enemies that pop into view, seemingly out of nowhere. Luckily, this is combated with the quick look feature allowing you to look around and take notice of your environments on the fly. If you're cautious, you can see the guards pop in before they see you.

The controls take some getting used to as well, the basic movement controls, are the Tomb Raider, “Tank” controls, though, faster turning. The combat has quite a few maneuvers you can pull off outside of the basic combo giving it quite a bit more depth than at first glance. There is no analog support, so those not familiar with early 3D d-Pad tank controls will have a tougher time learning the movement and combat controls. The music is also a spectacular highlight of the game, but the voice acting is so-so. It's definitely got a level of PS1 era cheese to it. “Do you like cheese people?”

Tenchu is one of the more fondly remembered PS1 games. It's design and feel is uniquely Playstation One, that's the best way to describe the overall feel. I can't really describe it, but there are games that just have a uniquely PS1 feel about them, usually it's a generic sci-fi game with electronic music and explosive special effects, while other times it's games like Tenchu. There are just games that have the PS1 feel, and I don't really have the words to describe what that means. If you know, you know.

The Tenchu series is one of those series that had it's height of mainstream popularity on the PS1, but it's popularity didn't carry it too far into the next generation. Wrath of Heaven and Fatal Shadows were released in a generation of gaming where popular tastes had shifted to games like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden meaning that the series never hit the same heights of popularity as it did on the PS1. The series would continue to get new games up till 2009 with Tenchu: Shadow Assassin's being released on the PSP and Wii, but has since fallen into the dustbin of gaming memories. That being said, in today's gaming world where everything old is new, give it a week and there will probably be a remaster or remake announced soon.

1998 was the year of the stealth game with Tenchu, Thief, and Metal Gear Solid. Tenchu is still beloved among PS1 gamers to this day. If you can get past the early 3D tank controls and get a handle on the, at first, janky feeling combat, you might come to appreciate this PS1 era gem as much as it's fans have since it was first released in 1998. It's definitely a game that anyone looking for the authentic PS1 experience needs at least play. Tenchu 2 is also a solid choice to play. Fans didn't like it as much as the original, but it did add an addictive level editor to the fray. I don't think I've ever played all the way through Tenchu 2, unlike the original, but it's still another great PS1 experience that's worth looking into. 

 

 

 

 

 

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