Shadow of the Colossus

[iloveannie]

Something dark with no foreboding (that's already present). I picture the most brilliant black. Flashes of neon light cutting through like slithers of glass. Exacting and digital (but not technological).

It was half way through my bran flakes when the drugs really started to take hold...

[iloveannie]

Are we allowed to link to other sites? Could read the rules but really how many people actually do that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_colossus

[Mayhem]

but, when you finally take down one of those colossi, do you...feel sorry for the big guy?

I wrote the SotC spiel for the upcoming 2005 awards thread, so read and compare when it appears

[stroppa]

another tug on the heartstrings...

->Open Spoiler<-

fighting the 2nd colossus I think, the one with the 4 legs and the week points under it's "hoofs"? yeah...I fire my bow under it's hoof...it goes down, I mess up when trying to climb, so I reposition myself again as bait so he'll raise his front legs again. I notice, as soon as the colossus gets up, he shakes his foot in pain, and I think, "I did that..."

[Keith]

is it just me....?

but, when you finally take down one of those colossi, do you...feel sorry for the big guy?

I do, I feel guilty, it's the slow motion effect after you've knifed the ****er in the head, and watching it crumble to it's knees...poor thing.

quality game.

I felt that with every single one of them. Especially the third one, for some reason.

[nero1001]

Finished Ico today just in time for SotC tomorrow, I can`t wait!

What a great game that Ico is. I`ve often wondered what all the fuss was about, and now I know 8)

[dataDave]

This game sure does weird things to people!

I have no intention of ever playing this game nor have I even thought about it since launnch yet last night I had the strangest dream that I was looking through the games concept art for some random reason. Some very freaky pieces including a giant arm coming out of a rocky valley o_O. I woke up feeling quite compelled to check some stuff out.

[Synthesthesia]

Why wouldn't you play it?

[sj33]

It's quite shocking that, given the huge amount of emphasis placed on the atmosphere and the soundtrack in particular, that there is no built-in support for Pro Logic II.
Of course, you can use your existing Pro Logic II device to upmix the sound - I do this and it sound absolutely stunning. But I'm suprised there's no native support now it's such a common tech in games.

[Bib]

My PAL version came through today

I never managed to get into ICO in any big way. Been looking forward to this though.

[NekoFever]

The PAL version has such a nice box, and thankfully for those who don't have the import but have a decent TV they left progressive scan in there.

I picked up SOTC today but I'm keeping it as a collectible since I own and have finished the US version, but I also grabbed a brand new copy of Ico for ?20 (when was the last time we could say that?) so I'm going to be playing that. Somehow I never finished it...

[Concept]

I don't think Colossus looks that great at 480p but it's nice to have it in there. On a CRT the background pixelisation is nowhere near as evident (foreground looks lovely all the time, but at a non-native 480p resolution on LCD the technical flaws in the game become quite apparent on the far off scenary).

I didn't think I'd be saying this a few months ago, but I actually think Colossus looks better through RGB on a standard CRT.

[sj33]

Certainly the many graphical... er.. (hate to use the word) shortcuts... are more evident on an LCD TV, really caused largelly by the relatively low resolution of the game itself.
I still find the game to still look quite beautiful mind, but this is shades of RE4 in a sense, in that the 480p mode really cannot hide the corners they cut in order to pull off such spectacular looking levels... makes the corners more evident in fact.

This has been the final push to get me to order an XRGB3 when it comes out in March - hopefully the game will look much better on that

Ico fairs slightly worse... same resolution as SotC (I think), so the game has all the same shortcomings on an LCD, but my set seems to have trouble deinterlacing the text properly.

[Concept]

Well, I'm using the same set as you, so I do agree. However, with regards to the low resolution comments, playing Colossus on my CRT completely negates this and actually looks better in terms of resolution (odd, I know, but I presume it's due to the fact there's no upscaling involved).

The game really does look stunning at both near and far distance (it's as though the scan lines makes the pixelisation of the distant landscape softer - almost free AA in a sense).

ICO runs at half SotC's resolution I think, so I was actually surprised to see it doesn't fair as badly as I feared on LCD (I still play it on CRT due to the fact the game's 4:3 and my CRT is 4:3). Either way... as you say, nothing can stop the quality of the art design shining through in both games. It's amazing.

[Kungfu]

Well just started SOTC after finishing We Love Katamari, 2 very different games eh?

I have defeated 2 colossi and thankfully its exceed my expectations however I think I will continue playing this at the weekend. Don't want to rush this gem.