Ico
Yet another amazing, unique game that you'll find nowhere else, Ico dazzles while making you think your way out of situations instead of button mashing.
Published: May 29, 2001
This year's E3 was so replete with amazing games that we still haven't been able to pick a best game of the show. Among these amazing games is Ico, a game that defies most genre-defining conventions, and instead offers a serene, cerebral gaming experience that you'll truly find on the PlayStation 2 alone. This is the kind of game many have been waiting for from Sony, a unique, completely original game that actually uses the system hardware and that couldn't be found anywhere else.
Ico tells the story of a young boy (conveniently named Ico) who was born with horns on his head, the one boy from his generation that is born with such a defect. Unfortunately, villagers fear children like this, thinking them a bad omen, and they take the boy off to a nearby castle and leave him to die in a coffin. Ico tires of his wooden prison, however, and has no desire to die here, so he starts to rock the coffin back and forth, eventually knocking it over and knocking him out. While unconscious, he dreams of a gorgeous girl, and when he awakens, he's amazed to find she's quite real. This girl, a princess, has been trapped in the castle with Ico by an evil queen, and needs his help to escape. See, the princess can't speak, and desperately needs the boy to guide her out of the castle. And so, Ico and the princess begin their exodus from the castle, using puzzle-solving elements to help each other.
What's truly cool about Ico is that there's no interface. No health bar, no menus, nothing. Everything is accomplished on-screen with an intuitive, easy-to-use control scheme. Ico can take the princess' hand and lead her anywhere he wants, or leave her to "explore" her surroundings while he finds a way to get her out of the castle. At any time, he can call to her, and she'll come running. This allows Ico to climb up surfaces, for instance, then call for the girl and pull her up to his vantage. In one incredibly cool sequence that we played out, Ico let the princess go, hopping on a windmill that slowly spun over a perfectly reflecting pool of water that reflected the environment EXACTLY as it would in the real world. After exploring a bit and throwing a switch to extend a rickety bridge, he called to her. The princess came running and jumped across a chasm to the bridge, but fell a bit short. Ico reached out and caught her as she fell, then pulled her up. The animation was absolutely perfect, and when the girl jumped and it was obvious she wouldn't make it all the way, I found myself holding my breath.
It's this sense of immersiveness that's so amazing. Within seconds of picking up the controller, I forgot where I was, and was drawn into the game like nothing else at E3. Considering there were about 10 people watching me play, and a guy sitting next to me that was standing uncomfortably close, it's amazing that I was sucked in like I was. I've seen people describe an odd calmness that comes over you when you play Ico, and it's absolutely true. There's something about the pacing or the lack of music or the animation or something that just sort of lulls you into a peaceful mood. It's perfect for the game, because I found my mind working overtime to assess the situation, and was able to beat the E3 demo on two tries in about 5 minutes.
The attention to detail was also stunning. While playing the game, a Sony rep was eager to point out that the individual stones that made up a ton of the castle's inner sanctum were all unique. I'll say that again: every stone was unique, not a repeating texture. This insistence on creating a fantasy world that is deeply rooted in this one - at least in terms of looks - that makes Ico so amazing visually. The aforementioned pool of water resting quietly under the slowly spinning windmill's blades reflected the world around it like a mirror, distorting perfectly when I decided Ico should take a dip, with ripples warping and contorting the reflection exactly as it should. There's also a ton of texture variety, so just when you think you're going to become sick of all these square stones, you spill out into a grassy courtyard. All this detail is never wasted, and further serves to flesh out this world that, when the game hits this August, I'll be all too eager to hop into.
Ico tells the story of a young boy (conveniently named Ico) who was born with horns on his head, the one boy from his generation that is born with such a defect. Unfortunately, villagers fear children like this, thinking them a bad omen, and they take the boy off to a nearby castle and leave him to die in a coffin. Ico tires of his wooden prison, however, and has no desire to die here, so he starts to rock the coffin back and forth, eventually knocking it over and knocking him out. While unconscious, he dreams of a gorgeous girl, and when he awakens, he's amazed to find she's quite real. This girl, a princess, has been trapped in the castle with Ico by an evil queen, and needs his help to escape. See, the princess can't speak, and desperately needs the boy to guide her out of the castle. And so, Ico and the princess begin their exodus from the castle, using puzzle-solving elements to help each other.
What's truly cool about Ico is that there's no interface. No health bar, no menus, nothing. Everything is accomplished on-screen with an intuitive, easy-to-use control scheme. Ico can take the princess' hand and lead her anywhere he wants, or leave her to "explore" her surroundings while he finds a way to get her out of the castle. At any time, he can call to her, and she'll come running. This allows Ico to climb up surfaces, for instance, then call for the girl and pull her up to his vantage. In one incredibly cool sequence that we played out, Ico let the princess go, hopping on a windmill that slowly spun over a perfectly reflecting pool of water that reflected the environment EXACTLY as it would in the real world. After exploring a bit and throwing a switch to extend a rickety bridge, he called to her. The princess came running and jumped across a chasm to the bridge, but fell a bit short. Ico reached out and caught her as she fell, then pulled her up. The animation was absolutely perfect, and when the girl jumped and it was obvious she wouldn't make it all the way, I found myself holding my breath.
It's this sense of immersiveness that's so amazing. Within seconds of picking up the controller, I forgot where I was, and was drawn into the game like nothing else at E3. Considering there were about 10 people watching me play, and a guy sitting next to me that was standing uncomfortably close, it's amazing that I was sucked in like I was. I've seen people describe an odd calmness that comes over you when you play Ico, and it's absolutely true. There's something about the pacing or the lack of music or the animation or something that just sort of lulls you into a peaceful mood. It's perfect for the game, because I found my mind working overtime to assess the situation, and was able to beat the E3 demo on two tries in about 5 minutes.
The attention to detail was also stunning. While playing the game, a Sony rep was eager to point out that the individual stones that made up a ton of the castle's inner sanctum were all unique. I'll say that again: every stone was unique, not a repeating texture. This insistence on creating a fantasy world that is deeply rooted in this one - at least in terms of looks - that makes Ico so amazing visually. The aforementioned pool of water resting quietly under the slowly spinning windmill's blades reflected the world around it like a mirror, distorting perfectly when I decided Ico should take a dip, with ripples warping and contorting the reflection exactly as it should. There's also a ton of texture variety, so just when you think you're going to become sick of all these square stones, you spill out into a grassy courtyard. All this detail is never wasted, and further serves to flesh out this world that, when the game hits this August, I'll be all too eager to hop into.
