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**Cobertizo** · 05-03-2006, 09:05

While I'll agree with the fact that SotC beautiful, I can see where Escape-to-88 is coming from. It's got a lot of that PSone style shimmer. It's beautiful in a similar way to the way in which Vagrant Story is beautiful - though technically the console struggles, the style manages to gloss over this so that it really doesn't matter.

And you are way off beam with the doom and gloom over SotC being forgotten. It was number one in the all-format charts in its first week, and number 4 in its second. It seems to actually have some marketing and press coverage too. There is no trampling going on here.

**Concept** · 05-03-2006, 09:30

I think it's easy to underestimate how far SotC is pushing the PS2 - it's up there with Snake Eater and San Andreas in my opinion for best use of the hardware available.

Draw distance is huge, the PS2's ability to shift large amounts of polygons (as opposed to texture amounts) is exploited very well. All the subtle details... the lighting, the streaming, the scale of it all is handled superbly.

However, I've said this before. ICO definitely has more subtle lighting that I personally favour (you can see it in the Nico project video, which along with the more 'epic' sky, really stands out against SotC), and it also manages to handle its LoD changes off-screen, helping with the consistency and believability of the environment.

What Colossus does well (and it's something I mentioned on the review) is that the team have hidden the game's defects as best they can by re-compensating through the game's art style... i.e. when the landscape is being loaded in you get a lovely exaggerated HDR-like bloom, or the motion blur hides frame rate problems when you rotate the camera... it's little things like that, and the way the art design that hides them, which makes the overall asethetic seem clever to me.

Do I think the streaming system is as powerful or as versatile as San Andreas'? No, I don't, but the pop-in and LoD changes are nowhere near as offensive.

In some ways, Colossus by far technically trumps ICO... in others, due to the ambition, it suffers... you're reminded that you're playing a game when there's abrupt changes in the landscape. It probably would have benefited being a PS3 launch title, but I can understand why it isn't.

When you've worked on a game for three and a half years... got all the assets, the technology and the design nailed, the last thing you want to do is more or less have to start again (i.e. designing a new engine, brand new upscaled textures, re-designing levels for more polygons/effects/etc)... that probably would have added at the very least, two years onto the development time, which meant by the time Colossus was released, it would have been five years in the making. If you look at it from the perspective of the team, I think it's probably better to have risked pushing the PS2 further than it was meant to go, than knocking yourself several rungs down the ladder.

I'm sure they were so close to completion, and the possibility of starting a new, fresh project on the PS3 being very enticing, meant that Colossus wasn't going to do an ICO, and move platforms/generations (I don't think ICO was three years into development when it was moved either, could be wrong though).

As for Escape-to-88... are you playing the game on progressive scan? The 'Super Low' parts of the landscape look far more blockier through that particular signal than on RGB CRT (which hides the changes in near and far detail more convincingly).

**Escape-To-88** · 05-03-2006, 09:59

Interestingly enough I've played on Prg. Scan, RGB and through an old 1084s monitor - which gives a great picture! And the best picture I'm getting is on the old Amiga monitor with a custom lead, the game appears smoother and crisper. I was trying to make a point of substance over graphics when I said Psone graphics...

**Concept** · 05-03-2006, 10:09

I can see where you're coming from, but in the case of SotC it's impossible to distance substance and graphics since the two are directly related to each other. A large part of the Colossus' appeal is based on its art and landscape design. This in itself forms the power of the atmosphere, which is a large pillar in the substance of the game.

It's why, for me, traditional game criticism (graphics vs gameplay) is beginning to break down and become more and more outdated. These days art design is becoming a much more prominent factor in defining strength of atmosphere, which often underlines one of the main driving forces to progress in a game. It's always been there of course... I believe it's as technology becomes closer to achieving the outset of a vision, so it is that the divisions and barriers of compartmentalising videogames becomes more and more difficult to do.

**MattyD** · 05-03-2006, 11:46

I think my girlfriend is about ready to kill me. I spent ten hours straight yesterday, playing through the time attack modes and wandering the land in search of lizards, all so I can reach the secret garden. I still haven't reached it yet

Something that has struck me in my wanderings, though, is how utterly empty the game is. It sounds trite to say it but it really is one of those games where you could just stop anywhere, throw your hands up and say, 'what's it all about, eh'?

The lonliness is, for me, slightly opressive at times. It's one thing to be sitting indoors on your own, playing videogames, and quite another to have it made so apparent. Paradoxically it feels worse precisely because the landscape is so free and open.

**Izayoi** · 05-03-2006, 22:05

Don't know if anyone one else has made this parallel, but does this game remind anyone of...

[IMG]http://www.rubypersson.com/mononoke/big/PM_A****aka_3.jpg[/IMG]

**Darwock** · 05-03-2006, 22:34

Only slightly, in terms of the big shadowy being stomping around.. but the atmosphere's are completely different. Mononoke's all about man infesting and destroying nature, and SotC is the complete opposite - a free land more or less untouched by man!

**Izayoi** · 05-03-2006, 22:55

Well, I kinda see the whole

->Open Spoiler<-

Dunno, probably just me I guess.

**MattyD** · 06-03-2006, 00:26

Finished the game a third time and I still can't reach the secret garden

**Darwock** · 06-03-2006, 08:17

Has anybody actually managed it in the PAL version? I thought I was onto a winner when I fell and landed on a platform below - thought it may have been another path to the top, but it was just a dead end :-(

**Harman** · 06-03-2006, 08:25

Originally posted by Darwock

Has anybody actually managed it in the PAL version? I thought I was onto a winner when I fell and landed on a platform below - thought it may have been another path to the top, but it was just a dead end :-(

I am very very close now, just need to down another couple of colossi and I should be there.

**Mardigan8** · 06-03-2006, 08:48

Been rattling this in intervals over the weekend and to say I am happy with what I have played so far... I have read through all the comments of the previous pages on visuals, etc and I was quite surprised to hear them compared to a PSOne output. On reflection, like Concept said I can understand where that view would come from but given the overall presentation of the adventure I find it hard to refer to this as anything other than a console defining title!!

The sheer scale of what this game offers us is amazing, riding through the deserted land to meet your next foe only to be stunned to a freeze when you eventually see them emerge, the really is some awesome design on show in here.

For me the best thing the game does is let you do things other games wouldn't... the way you fight these beasts is something other games have only hinted at so far (God of War) buit never really delievered. The realisation of this came for me last night fighting Colossi 6

->Open Spoiler<-

... each time I get to grips with one of them it blows me away and this the moment described above was the best so far. The freedom you are given to take down each Colossus is awesome and if people are getting hung up on things like the frame rate and the way Wanda looks then I think they are missing the point.

Next to DMC3 this is one the most fantastic games the PS2 has produced and I just hope all who play it appreciate it as much as I have so far.

**Atticus** · 06-03-2006, 09:24

Finshed this yesterday morning. The final colossus definitely felt like a major event, even if it wasn't as much fun as some of the others (but it must have the most satisfying final, fatal thrust of the sword). Then comes a rich reward ... an ending comparable to Panzer Dragoon Saga.

Overall a wonderful experience (can't wait to start it all over again). Ico's been my favourite PS2 game since the moment I played it, and I think it probably still is. But Colossus is a very close 2nd. Can't wait for the team's next project, if there's to be one ... but for now there's lizards to catch, a harder difficulty level to tackle, plenty of time attack action, a secret garden to find, etc, etc.

**Mayhem** · 06-03-2006, 09:46

Admitedly when playing through most of it so far, I've seen a few white tailed lizards to hunt, but I've been blind completely to any apples. So anyone care to point me roughly where to see some to get, just to try it out?

**Mardigan8** · 06-03-2006, 09:51

Originally posted by Mayhem

Admitedly when playing through most of it so far, I've seen a few white tailed lizards to hunt, but I've been blind completely to any apples. So anyone care to point me roughly where to see some to get, just to try it out?

You will find them on the various trees that are scattered around the land.

->Open Spoiler<-

... mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, tasty

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