Shadow of the Colossus Member Review for the PS2

Have you ever been to the zoo and wondered what it would be like to climb on an elephant or giraffe? Have you then wondered what this would be like if the elephant or giraffe was 12 times its normal size, covered in long hair and covered in types of armor? Have you gone on to wonder what it would be like to stab that giant, armor clad elephant or giraffe in the head six times? Well if you have then I must say, who the hell are you and why are you thinking of this kind of stuff? Leave the damn animals alone.

If you haven't guessed already, the above descriptions are very similar to Shadow of the Colossus. You are a guy, you want a girl to be brought back to life, you are told that you need to kill these giants in order to get what you want, case closed. This game's simplicity allowed the designers to put a lot of attention into the visuals which look fantastic. The game feels very vast and lonely as you ride your horse miles looking for your next victim. This part of the game is alright when the colossi are close by, but when you need to travel farther, it gets a little old. For a little added difficult during the later parts of the game, the colossi tend to hide from you. Bastards. When you finally find your foe, the actual battles are very fun, the only lame thing is that you need to find that special way to kill each monster. Untie the shoes of the colossus, run around him five times,  wait for him to bend over and retie his shoes, climb onto a rock placed perfectly behind him, and then jump off the rock and give the colossus a drop kick to his head. It all feels very scripted and linear. It takes a lot of the fun out of trying to defeat your enemy when you know there is truly only one way of doing it.

The controls are easy enough to use, with handy items on the screen telling you when you are about to loose your grip or drown. The sound is good with not much background music except during battle which adds to the desolate feeling of the game. Overall, I enjoyed the novelty of this game, but in the end, there was just more and more of the same thing. Find the colossus, find out the preprogrammed way to kill it, then kill it. Rinse and repeat.  Definitely a game worth playing, but not one for the long term.