Namco
Ninja Theory - Enslaved: Odyssey To The West

First of all, since this is my first review of a videogame on this site and my second review ever, allow me a small (not so small) digression. I've been an avid and steadfast gamer since 1994, and now we're in 2010, so I've been following this industry for about 16 years. Sixteen years, which are an eternity in a man's life, let alone in a sector where Moore's law reigns supreme... Unsurprisingly, in these long sixteen years, everything has happened, we've moved from the cartridge-clad SNES (which still holds its charm today) to the forbidden dream of the third dimension through stuff like portable consoles, multimedia, piracy, online gaming, up to the boon and bane of every pimpled nerd raised on a diet of Mario and Sonic: the mainstream acceptance of his favorite hobby. A process that in the gaming industry has taken on a very specific identity: the Nintendo Wii. The consequence of this deep tremor takes a very specific shape in gamers' imaginations, namely the difference between a casual gamer and an hardcore gamer. We are the latter; that specific evolutionary branch of homo sapiens that has acquired, thanks to the significant hours spent glued to a screen in youth, some pretty characteristic physiological traits such as: fully flexible right-hand thumb, reflexes worthy of Spider-Man, and rather marked and permanent hollows near the eye bulbs of which not even the worst addicts can boast. The former, the somewhat despised casual gamers, are all the others. Those who play Wii Sports with the family during Christmas holidays, the girls (?!) who spend their days on Farmville, and those who are too lazy to go to the gym and believe that Wiifit is the solution to their problem. Basically, all those who think that playing video games now is cool. Now, having laid this out, I think the reasons for the age-old hatred flowing between these two factions of gamers are quite obvious. It's normal for a software house to develop games to sell. And it's even more normal that, to sell, they make titles capable of embracing the tastes of the broadest possible audience. And given that new market players are definitely many more, they do it obviously at our expense. A fairly practical and relevant example is the drastic drop in the difficulty curve that any production has suffered in recent years. As we've seen, for intrinsically biological reasons, not all human beings know the location of the pad's buttons by heart for "Street Fighter" combos, and for them the peak of sadism was reached with the platforms of "New Super Mario Bros." while we were busy completing "Ghouls'n Ghosts" for the umpteenth time.

And it's precisely from these premises that the latest effort by Ninja Theory takes shape. "Enslaved" has all the cards to sell loads among casual players: massive marketing campaign, gameplay that's never too deep, special effects worthy of the most famous Hollywood productions, non-existent difficulty. Yet, I must say, playing it I quite enjoyed myself, and it seemed to me that this "Enslaved" had something more. It all boils down to the evergreen theme of the journey to the east undertaken by the two protagonists who are both antithetical and complementary at the same time. The first is called Monkey, the simian variant of the classic Kratos. A fairly stereotypical character but who effectively fulfills his role as an "ignorant brawler" between one scripted platform session and another, as exciting as a yawn (and a casual game indeed, let's not forget it). The other protagonist, however, is called Trip and besides being stunning and defenseless, she's also the brain of the duo (well, not much of a brain). It's the sections where we control her (albeit indirectly) that allow us to experience the thrill provoked by using our brain through some puzzle-solving sessions, quite elementary but, after all, successful. Now, as we've seen, the two protagonists are different, very different, totally incompatible. Stereotyped as well. Yet they manage not to be banal and to arouse interest. Evidently, the greatness lies in the synergy that these two caricatures release together in a protector/protected relationship worthy of the best Ico/Yorda. Because I could talk to you about the surrounding elements, namely this post-apocalyptic future blessed by the greenery of nature (which is not stereotypical at all) and the contrast it creates with the terrible robots that will do everything to exterminate the last two examples of the human race, almost as if they were the new Adam and Eve. Or I could tell you that rarely in my decades-long career as a gamer had I seen a location as spot-on as a New York made unrecognizable by the jungle and the vicissitudes of time. But it wouldn't make sense, and it would remain just a mere backdrop because the essence is all here: in the relationship that establishes between the two, between yin and yang with a digital performance that rarely reached levels of such "human" expressiveness.

Ultimately, "Enslaved" is a good title, that flows away and engages more for the great empathy that builds between the player and its characters than for its gaming merits. It's kind of the title a movie lover rents for a night only to be pleasantly surprised. Or if you want, it's the title that doesn't make the hardcore lament this expansion of the market. Because, let's face it, swearing at yet another failed Mario Bros jump after a hard day's work is not always the best.