Shadow of the Colossus Preview

PRE-E3 2005: Hands On

The love of his life has died but hope lingers in the heart of the young warrior. He hears the legend of a temple with the power to return her to life – all he must do is accomplish the tasks set before him. The tasks, however, are not meager ones. To have his love restored, he must find and conquer 16 colossi.

Shadow of the Colossus is a pending PlayStation 2 fall release from the developers of the critically acclaimed title, ICO.  SCEA showed off the title at a recent Pre-E3 Gamer’s Day in Santa Monica. Against the backdrop of the love story, Shadow of the Colossus puts a young man on a horse, armed with only a magical sword and a bow, against incredible odds.

That tiny speck in the foreground is you. The big thing approaching
from the distance - and it is a long ways away - is what you have to fight

There are no minions to fight through, only 16 boss battles against the colossi, each the size of a small mountain. The task is three-fold – first, find them, then discover their weak spots, and then kill them. Finding them is where the sword comes into play. It can help direct you toward the location of the colossi. But the actual task of reaching where they are results in a bit of a minor puzzle challenge. (For the hands-on demo, players were tasked to climb a mountain, jumping over small chasms, then jumping and climbing from ledge to ledge. Other locations will present different challenges.)

There are more than 50 areas in a seamless world, with each colossi area approximately 600x600 meters in size.

And lest you think that battling a colossi will be an easy task, think again. These beasts are huge, the size of mountains; and in some cases, the location of the weak spots will take some work to get to.

Getting on this one may prove a challenge

The horse is not a vehicle you drive. It has a mind of its own and guiding it can prove difficult at times, until you get a feel for it. Leaving the temple, the sword pointed a path that lead to a narrow break in the mountains. There was a small draw, and then ledges – obviously the way up. Climbing was not that difficult, and the warrior soon bridged the top of the plateau. But the sight that awaited him was daunting, to say the least. The lumbering beast was huge, with the warrior’s height barely reaching its ankle. The sword pointed out the weak spot, which was atop the beast’s head. There was only one way up, which was by crawling up the monster. Of course, it knew you were there, and while it may not have moved too fast, it was not about to simply stand still.  

If it found the warrior on the ground, it would stomp or try to use the massive club it carried to squish the young fighter.

A developer on hand estimated that each of the battles should last at least 20 minutes or so before you move along to other colossi. And not all of them are conveniently anchored to the ground. Some are flying and the gameplayer must find a way to get on them; others are underwater, and some have multiple weak spots that must be attacked.

Visually the game was impressive, with a lot of that “wow!” factor coming into play. Just the sight of that first “medium-sized” colossi was awe-inspiring. The sound did a terrific job of supporting the graphical elements. 

The taste of the game afforded at the pre-E3 event was tiny, at best, but Shadow of the Colossus is a game that any fan of high adventure should mark down on his or her list as having to see.