Gamers Daze: Under the Radar: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

We all know about the some of the bigger blockbuster titles coming this year. God of War, Halo, Final Fantasy - these are all titles that have been given the spotlight just about anywhere you look. Certainly all of these titles are worthy of the praise and attention but here at GND we like to highlight some of the other under the radar titles coming this year that have a lot of promise.

You may remember back in 2007 a little title for the PS3 by the name of Heavenly Sword. Heavenly Sword was one of the biggest exclusives for the PS3, showing gamers what the fancy Cell and RSX were capable of. Developer Ninja Theory delivered one of the most visually beautiful games for its time, and in the process cemented the PS3’s first huge visual leap this gen.

Heavenly Sword was not the blockbuster success that Sony wanted, but the title still to this day impresses with amazing production values and superb voice acting. Heavenly Sword in my humble opinion deserved far more love from gamers but I digress. After the launch of Heavenly Sword, Sony and Ninja Theory decided to depart ways and in the process called into question the development of any further titles in the Heavenly Sword franchise… at least by Ninja Theory. While Sony still owns the IP and could possibly charge another studio with the development of a sequel, Ninja Theory will not be the development chair for it. Still, Heavenly Sword was met with somewhat moderate success, thus allowing Ninja Theory to start developing their latest and greatest new IP - Enslaved.

Enslaved takes inspiration from the famous Journey To The West and builds on it replacing magic with technology and telling a grand new tale for this generation. Enslaved takes players on a gripping, surprise-filled journey as two dissimilar characters (the red head Trip and Monkey) form an uneasy union in order to survive their way through a perilous, post-apocalyptic America. A tactical action-adventure game, Enslaved centers on the complex relationship between the two main characters and challenges players to employ a mix of combat, strategy and environment traversal. Similar to Heavenly Sword, Ninja Theory is again taking a cinematic approach to gaming to another level.

Enslaved will once again bring a fresh new way of doing cut-scenes. Using different angles and post-processing effects similar to what we see in film, Ninja Theory wants to present something similar to a huge summer film, only playable. To help in this endeavour, Ninja Theory is again working with Andy Serkis who will be playing Monkey. Yes, King Bohan is back! Motion captured performances will be a landmark feature of the title. 

While it would be good enough for some developers to just up the ante on graphics and audio, Ninja Theory wants to do more. Despite some of the issues some had with Heavenly Sword’s combat, graphically the game was superb. Well Ninja theory has learned from their experience with Heavenly Sword and will now be using a unified set of character models for both the ingame and cinematics. But it’s not just the improved visuals which are the big thing but the schooling that Ninja Theory has obtained since Heavenly Sword. Bringing in a cinematographer from the British Film Institute to teach them the tools of the trade along with working with several film directors on how to make their cinematic camera from Heavenly Sword better.

So what’s the deal with gameplay right? Think the latest Prince of Persia  but with far better combat and you may be on the right track. 

More than 150 years in the future, the world has transformed into an unrecognizable state where all that remains are a dwindling human population and merciless robots left over from wars long past. In Enslaved, players take on the role of Monkey, a strong and brutish loner, and his AI partner Trip, a technologically savvy but sheltered young woman from a peaceful community. Both become captured by a mysterious slave ship, which are rumored to harvest people and take them out west never to return. As they each attempt to escape, Trip realizes quickly that Monkey, with his raw strength and power, is the only hope she has of making the perilous journey back home. She hacks into a slave headband to enslave Monkey and link them together – if she dies, he dies. Her journey has now become his.

Monkey will be the muscle of this outfit while Trip will be the brains… and the good looks too. Similar to the Prince, Monkey will be doing a good deal of platforming parkour style and have a very acrobatic but powerful combat style. Don’t think that it’s going to be a cakewalk like 2008’s Prince of Persia though, Ninja Theory has stated that Enslaved is going to be a hardcore gamers game. You can die and die plenty you will. As you’ll be facing mechs, and all sorts of mechanical troops and monsters.

Enslaved is still in full development mode and the pics you’ve seen here are… as you guessed it all pre-alpha stuff. The good news is that E3 is just around the corner and should bring new details on the title as well as its first gameplay. Enslaved is actually due to release this fall on both the PS3 and Xbox 360 with Namco Bandai publishing. So will Enslaved be one of this years surprise hits that no one sees coming? It could be. The promise is there… I guess we’ll all find out more in June. But this is one title to definitely keep an eye on.