Enslaved is the latest game from Ninja Theory, the same developers as Heavenly Sword--which explains the uncanny resemblance between Trip (Enslaved) and Nariko (Heavenly Sword).
Talk about rehashing your own designs. It doesn't help when Heavenly Sword was accused of being a God of War clone, and that Enslaved is based off of the ancient Chinese story of Journey to the West. It's almost as if Ninja Theory doesn't have a single creative bone in their body. Even worse, they're currently developing the new Devil May Cry reboot which has caught a lot of criticism for its questionable aesthetics, the most glaring of which is Dante's redesign.
Fans of Devil May Cry are understandably upset since Dante went from stylish badass to coke-addicted hipster.
It makes me wonder if we'll see another variant of Nariko/Trip in DMC, but I digress. We are here to talk about Enslaved, a third-person action/adventure game where you get to play as Monkey (voiced by Andy Serkis).
As Monkey, you wake up in a cell on a giant flying airship. Trip, a girl who manages to escape, ends up sabotaging the airship and you have to get out before crashing to your death. After flying off on an escape pod, you wake up only to have Trip put a mind control device on your head. This is where the title comes in, "Enslaved." You have to help Trip get back to her hometown or else you'll suffer horrible pain. She promises she'll take the device off once you take her back, but as most adventures with misfits go, the two grow close over the course of their journey.
The game breaks down into two parts: combat and platforming. The developers try their best to blend the two into a coherent whole, and for the most part, they succeed. Each side is a little rough however.
Combat suffers from an unsteady framerate the dips below 30fps on occasion, which doesn't make for the most fluid combat experience. The fighting engine is simple enough, giving the player a slew of options that most can expect from the genre, a combination of dodge rolls, blocks, parries, light, and heavy attacks. Monkey wields a staff that also doubles as a projectile weapon. Each move is upgradeable using orbs that are collected from enemies and the levels. These enhancements to your combat arsenal make it so that you can keep up with the tougher enemies later on.
While not terribly complex, the combat holds an elegant simplicity. Certain attacks can be blocked while others have to be avoided. The game manages to throw a good mix of enemy types at you, forcing you to stay on your toes.
Platforming mixes in elements of Ico where you have to solve environmental puzzles and makes pathways for Trip to follow you. You can also put Trip on your back as you jump and climb around. Trip's technological hacking skills help you navigate through the levels and advance. Platforming apes its mechanics from Uncharted, driven mostly by automatic animation with the press of the "action" button. Context-sensitive commands allow Monkey to lift up heavy objects and interact with the world.Despite running on the Unreal 3.0 engine, Enslaved is one of the most colorful games in recent memory, painting a rather lush post-apocalyptic world. Broken buildings are covered with vines, vegetation, and greenery. Moss and nature infest the destroyed landscape. As you make your way west, you'll run through the ruins of New York City, jump through Trip's hometown, sail across deserted wastelands, and escape from giant airships. The only caveat, as with most UE3 games, is the lack of anti-aliasing and uneven framerate. The music and voice-acting does its job.
The game will last about 10 hours and replay value is limited with no multiplayer component.
While it isn't the greatest, it's still a journey worth taking if you like action/adventure games. If you feel like bashing robots to death, helping a girl get back home, and solving the mystery behind a post-apocalyptic world, give Enslaved a shot.
