This is an archive review, from the olden days of The Game Show. Enjoy!
For a game originally conceived as a feature-length movie, Enslaved has a lot to live up to as a video game. Developed by Ninja Theory – who’s only release to date was the mixed-bag that was Heavenly Sword – you would be forgiven for missing this game altogether seeing as it is released in a market currently awash with prominent sequels and Namco seem to have done their best to keep this obscure title hidden from the masses. Despite the seeming anonymity and the additional complications that come from an inexperienced developer, Enslaved has a rock-solid storyline, a unique visual style and is genuinely attempting to offer a game that does things differently.
The story in Enslaved is based on the Chinese myth Journey to the West (hence the subtitle) in which a Buddhist monk named Xuangzang travels from India back home to China, charged with the task of delivering scriptures from one temple to another. Along the way Xuanzang encounters many strange demons, spirits and animal totems in the wild and exotic lands between the two countries. Ninja Theory have taken a fairly brave stance on the story by transposing it from a tempestuous ancient world to the untamed wilds of a post-apocalyptic future. Alex Garland (The Beach, 28 Days Later) wrote the screenplay here, so the sights are set pretty high for a mere video game.
The monk Xuangzang is portrayed as Trip, a female hacker who is trying to get home. Incidentally, in the Japanese version of the original tale, the monk is renamed Tripitaka which strikes me as a nice detail.
Trip is unwittingly thrust into the company of our game’s protagonist, Monkey whilst escaping from the clutches of evil robotic slavers in the beginning chapter. Their journey together begins on a huge airship which is tumbling from the sky – the ship belongs to a mechanical race of slavedrivers who have captured – amongst other slaves – Trip and Monkey. This introductory level not only quickly teaches the player the extent of Monkey’s skill but it’s a darned fun stage to boot – your initial foray into combat is brilliantly overshadowed by Monkey’s fluid and impressive climbing prowess and the pacing of the level feels truly cinematic as the ship’s engines fail and burst into flame and as the ship itself hurtles towards earth, colliding with structures along the way. Having escaped the scorching wreckage and finding themselves jointly plunged into the heart of Mech territory, Trip forces Monkey to help her find her way home by attaching a control ring to his head; Monkey’s brute strength, agility and physical prowess are traits that she sorely lacks so she forces Monkey to do her bidding upon pain of death – their two lives are now intertwined, if Trip dies, Monkey dies too. This introduces a nice balance to the gameplay – not entirely unlike Ico – where Monkey provides the brawn and Trip provides the ability to open locks, hack terminals, create holograms and scan the mechs to garner information on weak spots. It makes sense that Monkey would want to keep her alive – her skills will come in handy if he wants to get her home in one piece.
Without giving too much of the story away – the tale remains impressively faithful to the Chinese myth in that several more characters are encountered, various great monsters and demons are represented in one way or another and the general pace of the story feels nothing short of an epic yarn spun by fine wordsmiths. The script itself is exceptional with all the depth and character development you would expect with a story as ambitious as this. Monkey’s gruff character in particular is great – he’s a little shallow and vacuous but I get the feeling this in an intentional decision to render him more brutish and indifferent. Little details to Monkey’s character make me smile; the fact that he wears a scarf around his waist which flaps around whilst he’s climbing, emulating a tail; his staff, capable of shooting bolts of energy; Monkey’s personal hoverboard, The Cloud and the myriad similarities to his mythological counterpart are are tasteful and well-executed. If you’re familiar with the original myth or the Japanese story of Son Goku then you’ll get a few kicks out of the way it’s been portrayed herein.
Visually the game is stunning. Executed beautifully in Unreal 3 it stands to reason that the initial proposal for Enslaved was that it was to be an Unreal-powered animated feature – the first of its kind. Each character is laden with detail and is afforded ample character in their design. Monkey’s hulking frame and dancelike agile movement are at odds with Trip’s petite, slender body and her inability to perform the physical feats which her simian counterpart is capable of. Later characters like Pigsy also have unique visual appearances, which are further enhanced by their movements and abilities.
Movement itself is almost entirely supplied by performance capture, including some infinitesimally-detailed facial animation. Andy Serkis donned the spandex and supplied a great deal of the performance capture for the characters – specifically Monkey – and even lent his face to the game in the various flashback sequences.
The locations in the game range from crumbling, windswept cityscapes to feral organic locales and are all impeccably modelled and are steeped in atmosphere. The post-apocalyptic ambience is enriched by having untamed plant life strangling and consuming entire city blocks, the entire area bleached with stark lighting and bereft of any sound but for the mellifluous echoes of nature. The design of the world carries a deep sophistication and a level of realisation not oft-seen in modern games and that in itself is highly commendable.
The only thing left which could bring Enslaved down would be the gameplay and unfortunately that’s exactly what it does. With all the emphasis on getting the emotional concinnity that is the story, the characters, the locations and the visual style all near-perfect it would seem that Ninja Theory have scrimped in the one place where fault can always be levied: the gameplay. I’ve discussed before how I believe games are a balance between emotional response and technical design – a great game is one which embraces both aspects full-bore; a game can never be more than good if only one avenue of consideration is incorporated. This is what appears to have happened in Enslaved.
The combat on offer in this title is hopelessly rebarbative; repetitive robot fights stacked onto repetitive robot fights. Monkey’s abilities can be upgraded but it is futile to sink points into health regeneration, shield strength or anything remotely tactical; take only the combat boosts and smash the robots up before any damage can be imposed onto you. Conflict offers little in the way of variation – indeed, there are different enemy types that can mar Monkey in a myriad of ways, but your way to combat them is invariable; mash the attack button until they are destroyed. Sometimes a personal energy shield needs to be negated – this is a simple, one-button press followed up by the ubiquitous mash attack until dead. After a few hours of this, the gamer will be bored stiff of wildly hammering the same button in an all-style, no-substance fighting system. This reviewer really cannot say enough bad things about the combat in Enslaved – it’s boring and rebarbative. The boss fights are often quite fun and do require a small application of grey matter, but more often than not, they’re quickly reduced to a slugfest too.
Another element to the gameplay is the climbing and exploration. This part of the game shines – the use of NaturalMotion middleware in conjunction with some impressive keyframed animation makes for some outstanding climbing sequences. Monkey’s movements are fluid and his motion is smooth, which strikes an interesting dichotomy with his weighty, bulky physique. His climbing techniques are as graceful and natural as his namesake and rather than being an otiose distraction, the climbing is an integral part of the game progression. It’s easy to express admiration for this part of the gameplay as the level design shines through here as thorough, detailed and very enjoyable. There’s enough collectable gumpf off the beaten track to keep you exploring, but the egregious way in which climbing sections have been built mean that it’s hard to get lost and the correct path remains fairly obvious.
The biggest problem with these sections is that they are rarely long enough to feel like anything other than punctuation between robot fisticuffs. One of the biggest flaws in Enslaved is that the climbing sections of the game – by far the strongest part of the game – demarcate the charming, graceful scramble over the ruined cities of the world from the frantic, shambolic punch ups in-between. Had the game been heavy on the clambering and lower on the pummelling then this would almost certainly have been rated higher. As is, it seems Ninja Theory have tried to design a game by some design by numbers code. By trying to “balance” the game’s elements, or to design by the book they’ve actually done themselves a disservice. A game like this should have been designed from the heart, not from the brain.