Ico

The more I played the game Ico, the more I thought that this would be an increibly easy game to describe. So many third person adventure games are so loaded with cutscenes, missions and collectibles, but Ico has nothing like that- there's a simple story, simple gameplay, and just a whole lot of relatively simple puzzles. The premise involves a young boy (Ico) born with horns, who is shunned from his village and held captive in an abandoned castle. After breaking free from his cell, he runs into a girl (Yorda) who speaks a language he does not understand, but communicating through gestures and calls the two work together to escape the castle. Ico is the more mobile of the two, and is the one players control- he can do just about every action in the game, as well as drag Yorda along in whatever direction he chooses. Yorda on the other hand can't climb ropes, attack enemies (all of which aside from the final boss are exactly the same), or jump large gaps, but unlike Ico she has some sort of spiritual connection to the castle that allows her to open up doors telepathically. Clearly, the game is based on the 'teamwork' mentality, as it's impossible to get far at all without bringing Yorda with you. And in my opinion, it worked. You could call the entire game one long escort mission, but that would be doing it a disservice. Yorda is relatively easy to protect, and you can only reach a 'game over' screen in two ways- failing to protect Yorda from enemies, or having Ico fall a great distance. Enemies won't even try to hurt Ico! Like I said before, the combat and puzzles are all fairly simple and forgettable; even the scenery, beautifully updated in HD for the remake I played, starts to get old pretty quickly. The whole point of the game seems to be to truly emulate 'companionship'- Yorda can't even speak to Ico, but she's his only friend inside this huge, mostly empty castle. You lose her for a brief period towards the end of the game, and the loss is truly felt, unlike in other games where you'd be thankful to not have to defend some AI companion anymore. While the game was successful in this way though, I can't ignore that almost all of the gameplay involved looking at the same objects and fighting the same enemies over and over. There's no depth to the game beyond your first play. Still though, it's an experience unlike any other game I've played, and is one of the classic examples brought up in the whole games-as-art debate. I recommend playing through it, but don't expect to be blown away by brilliance; it's a game that's subtle with its storytelling.