symbolofmylife
New member
ICO and Shadow of Colossus (SOC) were released recently in all its HD-remastered splendour for PS3.
Now the reason for Sony’s mission to squeeze some extra dough out of consumers by re-releasing old titles that have been jacked up graphically to fit today’s gaming-trends can be debated, but so far it appears that titles selected for this purpose all carry valid street-cred to warrant the re-issue. Well, from the ones I’ve replayed of course.
Anyway, so these two titles have also received the HD treatment and two-games-one-disk-formatting, and this short piece serves to tell a bit more about them, and whether it’s hit or miss.
I was unfamiliar with ICO but from what I’ve read and heard through the years it was supposed to be on the must-play-on-ps2 list back in the day. From what I gather the story (without giving anything away) is about a boy being locked up in a castle, then meets a mythical girl, and from there their goal to escape said castle and its surrounds. Like mentioned, I was unfamiliar with the title so I cannot really compare it graphically to ye-olde ps2 version. But I was pleasantly surprised that the game looks amazing! Textures and shading display amazingly and even on full zoom in via the controls it looks great with no noticeable pixel breakup or the like.
I have to add that the God of War collection Vol 1 (GOW 1 & 2) was a bit of a letdown in this department as you’d expect those guys to really bring everything to the table. Graphically, it just looked like a bad port/upscale job, despite them remaining awesome games.
Anyway, ICO is nothing like this and looks bloody awesome considering which console it originated from.
ICO’s and SOC’s control schemes are a bit weird and not exactly the norm at all if you’re used to playing action-adventure titles featuring family-murdering Spartans. But the controls can be reassigned to keys that you feel more comfortable with. It just appears that those settings aren’t saved and need to be changed at every startup of the title.
ICO is in a sense a typical Japanese release in the sense that the player gets dropped into a story, and from there needs to figure out what to do and what the deal is. It does create a platform of frustration when you get stuck early on but also a plateau where the player can figure things (actions and story) out for themselves.
SOC is another beast (excuse the pun). It was also hailed back in the day as one of the best and I have actually spent some time on it on the ps2 until I got stuck and left it at that, to my own eventual regret. So SOC was one I was looking forward to.
The story is simple. A young Japanese warrior’s girl is killed and he takes her to a temple to have her revived. However, to revive her, he must kill 18 Colossi. The colossi, as the name suggests, are massive (no, really GIANT) creatures roaming the lands. This is basically what the game revolves around. Accompanied by a horse and armed with a sword, you make off to first locate these creatures on the massive map, and start killing them off one by one. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, to some this may sound pretty bland but believe me, it isn’t.
The Colossi are truly massive and after locating one (which can take a while), the fight begins by first locating the weak spots on the creature. This is accomplished by physically climbing them. Awesome awesome and much harder than you’d think! Once you kill it, you actually feel sorry for the creature(s) as they posed no real threat to you to begin with.
SOC looks ok graphically compared to ICO, but it’s not an eyesore at all. It actually looks fine. ICO just looks better.
In my opinion this is a great opportunity for those that missed out on these titles, especially SOC.
It currently retails at around R350, and i’m sure I’ve seen it on PSN also.
Now the reason for Sony’s mission to squeeze some extra dough out of consumers by re-releasing old titles that have been jacked up graphically to fit today’s gaming-trends can be debated, but so far it appears that titles selected for this purpose all carry valid street-cred to warrant the re-issue. Well, from the ones I’ve replayed of course.
Anyway, so these two titles have also received the HD treatment and two-games-one-disk-formatting, and this short piece serves to tell a bit more about them, and whether it’s hit or miss.
I was unfamiliar with ICO but from what I’ve read and heard through the years it was supposed to be on the must-play-on-ps2 list back in the day. From what I gather the story (without giving anything away) is about a boy being locked up in a castle, then meets a mythical girl, and from there their goal to escape said castle and its surrounds. Like mentioned, I was unfamiliar with the title so I cannot really compare it graphically to ye-olde ps2 version. But I was pleasantly surprised that the game looks amazing! Textures and shading display amazingly and even on full zoom in via the controls it looks great with no noticeable pixel breakup or the like.
I have to add that the God of War collection Vol 1 (GOW 1 & 2) was a bit of a letdown in this department as you’d expect those guys to really bring everything to the table. Graphically, it just looked like a bad port/upscale job, despite them remaining awesome games.
Anyway, ICO is nothing like this and looks bloody awesome considering which console it originated from.
ICO’s and SOC’s control schemes are a bit weird and not exactly the norm at all if you’re used to playing action-adventure titles featuring family-murdering Spartans. But the controls can be reassigned to keys that you feel more comfortable with. It just appears that those settings aren’t saved and need to be changed at every startup of the title.
ICO is in a sense a typical Japanese release in the sense that the player gets dropped into a story, and from there needs to figure out what to do and what the deal is. It does create a platform of frustration when you get stuck early on but also a plateau where the player can figure things (actions and story) out for themselves.
SOC is another beast (excuse the pun). It was also hailed back in the day as one of the best and I have actually spent some time on it on the ps2 until I got stuck and left it at that, to my own eventual regret. So SOC was one I was looking forward to.
The story is simple. A young Japanese warrior’s girl is killed and he takes her to a temple to have her revived. However, to revive her, he must kill 18 Colossi. The colossi, as the name suggests, are massive (no, really GIANT) creatures roaming the lands. This is basically what the game revolves around. Accompanied by a horse and armed with a sword, you make off to first locate these creatures on the massive map, and start killing them off one by one. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, to some this may sound pretty bland but believe me, it isn’t.
The Colossi are truly massive and after locating one (which can take a while), the fight begins by first locating the weak spots on the creature. This is accomplished by physically climbing them. Awesome awesome and much harder than you’d think! Once you kill it, you actually feel sorry for the creature(s) as they posed no real threat to you to begin with.
SOC looks ok graphically compared to ICO, but it’s not an eyesore at all. It actually looks fine. ICO just looks better.
In my opinion this is a great opportunity for those that missed out on these titles, especially SOC.
It currently retails at around R350, and i’m sure I’ve seen it on PSN also.
Last edited:
