From the team that produced Heavenly Sword comes a new game that is both unique and familiar, both in story and in gameplay. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West follows Monkey, who starts the game escaping from a slave airship in post-apocalyptic New York. As he is making his way to the last escape pod, he runs into a woman named Trip, who, after ejecting the escape pod with Monkey clinging to the outside of it, decides she can’t make the journey she needs to make alone. She fits Monkey with a slave crown, which causes pain if he disobeys any of her direct commands, and orders him to take her the three-hundred mile journey to her home. As incentive not to kill her just to be able to get away, the crown ensures that he will die if her heart stops for any reason. Aw, that’s sweet.

Gameplay
Enslaved plays very well. The mechanics are intuitive for the most part, though there will be the occasional time when they don’t respond as quickly as you would like. Monkey’s slight twitchiness becomes more apparent when navigating a minefield and he’s trying to slip through some tight spaces without setting off a chain reaction of explosions, or when climbing a building and he jumps down instead of up.  However, it doesn’t take long at all to get a good handle on the controls, and even the most precarious of situations aren’t too difficult to navigate.

As many people might notice, Monkey functions very much the same way as Altair and Ezio in the Assassin’s Creed series, or, perhaps a better reference, the Prince from Prince of Persia. Monkey jumps from walls to ledges to handholds in very much the same way, using the broken-down environment to his advantage to scale decrepit buildings, old bridges, and the landscape itself. Which also presents the puzzle aspect of the game. Enemies abound, yes, but climbing the environment proves to be a challenging puzzle at times, trying to find the next handhold to get you to your destination, sometimes in an allotted amount of time.

The weapons and abilities are introduced in a way that makes it easy to remember, and memorizing combos isn’t like trying to remember the quadratic formula. Using weapons and abilities is also quite fun and rewarding. While the system could possibly encourage button-mashing when it comes to melee, it actually pays off to use the (note: quite simple) combos introduced.  Chaining the stronger attack to the basic melee move causes more damage and will down foes far easier than just mashing away at the basic move. There is also the takedown move, which allows Monkey to turn a gun-arm on a robot on itself, causing it to self destruct and take out any nearby enemies as well.

Graphics/Video
The graphics for the game are absolutely stunning. Everything from the characters to the enemies to the environments are beautifully done. The cinematics flow seamlessly into gameplay, with next to no disruption to show the transition between the two. Bold colors are used throughout, but actually seem to lend themselves to the rusted, run-down environment rather than detract from it.

Audio/Sound Effects
Musically, the game can lean either way. Some tracks are particularly memorable and enjoyable, while others are forgettable or at least not noteworthy. However, memorable or not, it is used well throughout the game, adding to the emotion of the scene, be it tension, calm, action, or sadness. It isn’t intrusive and annoying, and it lends itself nicely to the overall feel of the game.

The voice acting itself is top-notch. The voices match the characters well, and they aren’t over the top and grating, nor are they cheesy and annoying. Monkey’s New York accent isn’t harsh, and Andy Serkis does a wonderful job bringing the perfect amount of hesitant emotion to the character. Likewise, Trip isn’t loud and obnoxious, and Lindsey Shaw does a wonderful job bringing uncertainty and tenderness to her character.

Overall
I can’t praise this game enough. Even with its very few flaws, it is extremely well done. It looks fantastic, the controls are intuitive, the characters are believable, and the story is gripping. Save for a few mechanical issues that could use some tightening, I can find very few things I would change about this game. That said, I highly recommend picking this up as soon as possible.

ComicsOnline gives Enslaved: Odyssey to the West 4½ robotic dragonflies out of 5.

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