" The game sounds great on paper, but the execution gives you nothing but a game full of problems."

Shadow of the Colossus appeared to be a very promising game when it was shown for the first time. Upon its release I was very eager to try it out, so I rented it from my local store. Sadly I was very disappointed with this game once I started playing it. The game suffers from to many serious issues that prevent it from being an enjoyable experience, the most important being the sluggish framerate, the poor camera angles and the sub-par visuals.

Story:
Apparently, if you kill 16 colossi this dead girl you are shown at the beginning of the game can come back to life. This right off the bat is something pretty irritating about this game because you are never given any information about this girl whatsoever. Who is this girl? Why did she die? Why does the main character want to revive her? I really don't know, and you won't know either. I find it hard to be motivated to play through this game when you really have no back story on the current events to explain to you as the player what on earth is going on.

What was most disappointing about the story is that there is absolutely no story after the beginning of the game. There is no development, and there is no motivation to continue playing. The only reason there was to continue playing this game was for the exciting battles. Well actually these battles could have been exciting but thanks to the terrible graphics, terrible framerate, terrible controls and terrible camera this game is nothing but a flaw-infested adventure.

Gameplay:
Here we go, the part you've all been waiting for. What looked promising about this game were the exciting colossi battles. Sadly these battles are extremely frustrated and hard to enjoy because the framerate it so sluggish at some parts it downright kills the game. Usually though the framerate is just sluggish enough to frustrate you because it never really seems to go away, its like this lingering presence that is constantly there to annoy the hell out of you so you can't enjoy the battles the game has to offer.

The next problem in this game is the camera. The camera is just outright terrible; there is no other way to put it. While fighting the regular ground colossi the camera does a decent job of staying in a good place to give you a good angle of the action, but everywhere else it makes you want to get in your car and drive over this game back and forth repeatedly. Yes it can be that bad. Not to mention the terrible camera this game has, just trying to turn around on your horse is a medal-worthy achievement in Shadow of the Colossus. I swear it was almost impossible to do, the camera was having a seizure flipping all over the place and my horse refused to turn around normally. The only way to turn around was to go full speed into the edge while pushing the control stick as hard as possible in the opposite direction hoping that the horse will turn around eventually. It somehow makes turning around difficult and I really can't comprehend how this even managed to happen.

Something I found rather disturbing actually is also the fashion in which the main character walks and runs. It is kind of freaky actually he runs as if he has something lodged up his rear. He puts one hand on his hip and flings his sword around and about in his other hand while moving his hips from side to side and it looks rather disturbing. I would like to ask the question, since when has any single human being on this planet ever ran like that?

The controls in Shadow of the Colossus are also quite unresponsive, in early areas of the game while trying to climb up the side of the mountain combined with the camera with a mind of its own makes this extremely challenging. And if climbing up something which is stationary is challenging than you can imaging how frustrating it is trying to climb up one of the colossi which is moving.

The only redeeming qualities in this game are the epic colossi battles, but because of all the outright ridiculous problems in this game it's really hard to enjoy them. What you do in Shadow of the Colossus is try and exploit the colossi's weaknesses, but again thanks to this game's terrible flaws it's harder than you would like.

Another thing you are supposed to do is try to stay on the colossi, since they aren't to incredibly happy that you're climbing around on them. Fortunately thanks to our little pink circle thing in the lower right-hand corner of the screen we have a certain amount of time we can hold on for. Wait to long without recuperating and you will fall off, "wheeeeeeeeeee.... oh crap now I have to climb up all over again?"

Graphics:
This has got to be one of the worst looking PS2 games I've ever had the misfortune of laying my eyes upon. The character models are horrendously ugly, and like I mentioned before look like they were handpicked right out of a Playstation 1 game from yesteryear.

Fortunately the game does have some redeeming qualities in the graphics department. The game does a good job of creating an extremely immersive environment that looks absolutely huge the first time you wander out into it. But yet again thanks to this game's flaws, like the crappy framerate it's harder than it should be to enjoy the games open-ended feel.

Sound:
The sound department is most likely the best section of the game. The game has some neat voice work and a pretty good musical score that really helps immerse you in the colossi battles. Although the music is fairly average and the voices get pretty irritating since they are talking in another language. I still haven't figured out if it's even a real language or not.

The sound effects are pretty good to, and the sounds from the environment help immerse you in the world of the game, but unfortunately all the other problems in this game totally outweigh these good qualities of the game.

Value:
I really can't see any reason why someone would want to play this game again. It is one of those one time deal kind of games. You play through it a bit and you either beat it or you don't, but ultimately it is one of those games you won't pick up again. It is neat the first time you play a couple of the colossi battles, but really even if you have the patience to wait through all this games flaws there is really no motivation to want to suffer through this game one more time. I couldn't even finish this game because of the huge problems in this game. Thankfully I only rented it, because if I bought this game I most likely would have thrown it out the window in frustration. The only kind of neat thing is that this game has a time trial mode, so the game has some redeeming quality for you time trial fanatics out there.

Score:
Gameplay: 4
Graphics: 5
Sound: 7
Value: 2
Tilt: 5

Overall: 4.3
If you really want to experience enormous boss battles that are like puzzles than this might be a decent game for you to play, but overall I really can't recommend this game to anyone. I have had an extremely hard time imagining how all these people could love this game. There are to many problems in this game that it just waters down the entire experience to something completely less than average. The only thing saving this game is it's outstanding premise. Hopefully this game may have a chance at a sequel on a system that can actually handle it, and if they ever make something like this again I hope that they really don't make the same mistakes they made here, because I just don't think I could take it anymore. If I really wanted to suffer through a game with problems as bad as this I should have gone and bought Big Rigs instead, I mean at least I already would have known that that game has problems, but with Shadow of the Colossus I was really expecting a game that would be fun and polished. Shame on you SCEI.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/27/06