Enslaved As It Should Have Been

[Tjoubou]

At least his idea sounds much better than the pretty lame enslaved... Pretty similar to Mass Effect though, at least the thing about traveling around space with your ship, exploring planets and stuff.

 

[Strave]

Holy crap, Yahtzee? A game with an actual story that has gameplay mechanics that make sense, AND could be a hell of a lot of fun to play? I can scarcely believe it. Maybe all it takes to get a decent game idea out there is for the games industry to not assume all their consumers are a bunch of gibbering retards. Or maybe the industry is itself inundated with gibbering retards for writers. I prefer the former explanation.

IDEA!

You could even have a bit in a cut scene where the colonists are deciding what to do with the Monkey robot (right before they decide to shut him down for a few centuries) and one guy has the idea to install a subroutine that makes him cooperate. But they eventually decide that it's still not worth it to bother, and simply shut him down. That eliminates the question of "why didn't they think of doing that before."

This story can have actual continuity and no loose ends! It's a miracle!

 

[Neferius]

Wait! So this little gem of Interactive Storytelling was crafted by none-other than team Ninja Theory!?

Well that explains Everything!!!

I mean these were the same guys who thought (re)making Dante into a Heroin-addict would be "cool" ...how can this Game NOT be a Masterpiece

 

[Sonicron]

Solid. Now give me some decent gameplay footage and I'll gladly place a pre-order.

Oh, right. You don't know your way around anything more complex than 8-bit. Oh well.
Guess you'll have to settle for me buying Mogworld out of sheer morbid curiosity.

 

[jaketaz]

I'd play the MESS outta that game. What the hell is wrong with developers these days?
Oh, right... they have no brains or souls.

 

[badvibration]

You, sir, have been awfully creative this week. And let me say that I love it. This and the video were totally unexpected in the way that they were done and a very refreshing take on your reviews/ramblings. So thank you.

 

[Illusive DiZ]

Someone pay Yahtzee for this idea and make the damn game! the myth itself makes for compelling gameplay the way Yahtzee described it!

I know. It actually sounds better than what I just got through playing. The ending in this game didn't even make sense to me.

 

[Dirty Saint]

I demand this game.
I will pay for it and play it.
My money is yours.....

 

[mikespoff]

Now that game, I'd play!

 

[mikespoff]

... Pretty similar to Mass Effect though, at least the thing about traveling around space with your ship, exploring planets and stuff.

Umm... I think you mean "sounds like science fiction"??

 

[Oyster^^]

Weird. I can't think of any game that involves taking advantage of a robotic playable character in order to mess with the timeline like Yahtzee was talking about.

In fact, I can't really think of too many games that you play as a robot. Clank I guess? Glitch from Metal Arms? There could be some cool stuff done with that. And most lead characters don't have any personality or fleshy vulnerability anyways, so there's no loss!

It was a lot more common in the 80s, most likely because i) the whole decade was on a sci-fi kick thanks to Star Wars, both the movies and Ronald Reagan's crazy lasers in space ideas, and ii) it was easier to make appealing looking robot characters with the crude and boxy graphics at the time. So we had Robotron 2084, Vectorman, Ninja Warriors, the really bad Commodore 64 Transformers game, Alien Storm, some of the Phantasy Star games, and Mega Man.

Aha. Mega Man. Whoops.

I wasn't alive in the 80s, so I can't say I'm too familiar with any of the things you mentioned. With the exception on Mega of course.

I would think that there would be a myriad of interesting gameplay quirks and changes made available by robotic playable character. Mega Man is a great example. But I guess you can also just make you can take the nintendo route and make them out of yarn, which works too...

Also: Metal Arms was wicked. I wish blizzard hadn't eaten swingin apes

Also: This is getting quite off topic. I'll stop now

 

[pepitko]

That's actually a very solid effort at making the story. Still many games out there lack a good story. But I'm actually quite happy that there is visible progress, Fallout New Vegas had a very good story, for instnace.

 

[LostAlone]

In all honesty, Yahtzee's idea sounds a lot better than the original dross. At the very least it sounds like something I could get engaged with... Epic story line and deep characters. Could be all action, could be an RPG, could be a little of both. Could be a really good game.

As for the 'big and alarmingly bemuscled guys' thing, he keeps bringing it up because its still retarded. Even going back to the perfect example of ridiculously over the top macho-men, Duke Nukem, is actually not body-builder size. He looks pretty buff, but he also looks like like a person not a mutant.

I have NO idea why mediocre game designers keep going to the freakishly huge stereotype (and also the freakishly tiny for female co-stars) because it doesn't even look like a cartoon... cartoon artists can draw people who are in proportion.

Particularly when you look at real people who kill people for a living (Army/USMC etc) sure they are in awesome shape, but they don't look like bodybuilders. Theres a difference between being a big strong physically capable guy, and being someone who just pumps iron all day. Even then, most retard-space-marines look like your strapped two terminator era schwarzeneggers together. They don't even look like people.

What annoys me the most is that the best protagonists (JC Denton, Garett, etcetcetc) look just like regular guys. Ok maybe in good shape, but they aren't deformed. They are average height and weight. The reason why you connect with the characters is because you can project onto them and empathise with them. It also makes the character feel more 3d, because I don't just look at the character and know exactly what his deal is. When I look at a giant-muscle-guy I know that he's just going to kill things, and I'm never going to care. And I feel the developers have the same feelings. They drew the guy to tell you everything you need, so they just don't bother putting in anything that adds to him, making for a shallow game.

 

[Macq Stena]

I didn't know Escapist payed for rambling about and criticizing things you're not familiar with. Maybe I should apply.

 

[minarri]

I have a question.
Why do you seem to have a problem with men who are strong looking strong? Seriously you bring it up in almost every review.
You can't have climbing trees, lifting heavy things and fighting giant robots as regular parts of your life style without gaining some serious muscle mass. ...

There's a difference between having a strong body and looking like someone nicked the muscles from five anatomic models and had them implanted. Honestly I find it pretty repulsive.

OT: I'd definitely check out a game like the one Yahtzee dreamed up. Journey to the West is really an interesting story and it could make for a fun game.

 

[MailOrderClone]

Thanks alot Yahtzee you malignant humanoid something-or-other, you've made me want to read Journey to the West.

You made me want to read a book.

A book that's not American.

You monster.

 

[mr_rubino]

We already had a faithful...ish adaptation of Journey to the West on PS1 (Although things went off the rails in the last chapter or so, and someone added Xiaolongnu and a dryad named Lady Kikka to the "main character" pool), and it was called Saiyuki: Journey West.

EDIT: Actually, the company who made it apparently mixed in characters and concepts from an unrelated myth that they made a video game adaptation of. But since the actual plot is still Journey to the West, it's still a more faithful storyline.

 

[Cobalt Lion]

The Monkey in Enslaved doesn't seem to have much of a character at all. His backstory and motivation are absent without leave and he's pretty much just a big wooden club tied to the plot with string.

Please sir. That's "a big wooden club tied to the plot with string and a time bomb on his head."

I agree with the assess emnt that "Journey to the West" would have made a interesting game, but I think that what occours much of the time in the game-development line, (and if someone has personal experiance in game storyline development and can counter this argument, please feel free to correct me.) is that developers get loosly inspired by something and try to use it as a springboard to come up with something that is new and innovative. Sometimes it works, and sometimees it dosen't. I can respect the attempt at trying not to be a cookie cutter game, but this seems to be one of the cases where it just didn't work.

 

[supermike6]

Yahtzee, your problem is your completely judging the story of the game on what you think it should be. They don't have to be extremely faithful to the story, they're just being honest by saying it inspired them instead of just copying it. Your adaptation had just as much to do with the source material as theirs did. Are you saying that because your basing your story off another one, you can't have any creative licence? Because you sure gave yourself some. Enslaved's story is actually really good, even if it doesn't stringently follow this story you love so much despite having never read. I think your reviews are usually awesome, but man, you really came at this game's story the wrong way.