Tuesday, 21 July 2009

• Great Games Revisited: Ico

  
  

  
  Ico is one of the first games that stripped away my expectations of what a video game could be.
  
  Released in September of 2001, Ico shares the same post-9/11 moment as Grand Theft Auto III, Final Fantasy X, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Silent Hill 2, other games that deal with death, loss and tragedy (in FFX's case - on a massive scale... okay, in GTA3's case as well depending on who's behind the wheel) in ways no one thought video games capable of. They were harrowing, haunting and hopeful, and unusually zeitgeist-friendly, yet Ico was the one to get lost in the shuffle that Christmas season (I blame the piss-poor American box art), a game reserved soley for the critics who adored it and the few enthusiasts who gave it a chance.
  
  Since then, it's been the poster child for the tiresome "games are art" argument and when its spiritual sequel Shadow of the Colossus came out everyone who discovered that suddenly looked back, searched for Ico in GameStop bargain bins, and exhausted the world's supply.
  
  Seriously, it's become very hard to find this game. New copies go upwards of $160 on eBay, with old copies at $40. Hopefully Sony will release this on the PSN.
  
  Because it needs to be played. You know how Ulysses, Catcher in the Rye, and The Great Gatsby are required reading? That's Ico. It's required playing. Next to Earthbound and Mother 3, Ico is the closest games have come to literature. There's rising action, a climax, falling action, a denouement, and a few twists between. The story dances by so elegantly, it remains the greatest example of how to marry plot and gameplay.

   

  It's a brilliant exercise in minimalism. There are only three characters in the whole game, with little to no dialogue, and only a few cutscenes.
  
  You play as Ico, a boy who gets imprisoned in a vast castle for having horns on his head. He manages to break free of his bonds then meets a mysterious, angelic girl named Yorda. They can't understand each other's language, and Yorda's awfully frail, so it's up to Ico to hold her hand the entire way out of the castle. They need each other - Ico needs to beat up the shadow beasts sent by the castle's Queen, who wants Yorda for some dark purpose, and Yorda has the magical power to unlock the castle's various gates.
  
  The way the story unfolds throughout - the Queen's appearances, the gradual transformation of the shadow beasts, Yorda's secret, Ico's pain - is heart-achingly beautiful stuff. Just thinking of the final few scenes is enough to get my chest heaving. Few games center around such a powerful emotional bond as Ico's and Yorda's. Even such a simple thing as saving your data carries a weight you wouldn't expect. Holding hands, the two of them sit on a glowing, stone "save couch" and the save data screen comes up.
  
  Besides the saving thing, fewer games have such a stripped, eamlined interface. The whole time you play there is no intrusive heads-up display - no life meter, no inventory screen, no indicators at all. The controls are as friendly as they can be. You can call to Yorda if she's far. You can pull on her hand to make her run at your pace. You can pick up objects, swing them, jump, and climb.

  

  Besides the shadow beasts, the environment is your main enemy. As an environmental puzzle game in the same vein as Lemmings or the old-school Prince of Persia, you have to figure out how to get past bridges, through caverns, up windmills, around chasms... And it's all seamless and logical, thanks to breathtaking architecture and design.
  
  The castle and surrounding nature's graphics look like they haven't aged at all. Employing soft natural lighting, washed-out colors and broad vistas, the game can look like living watercolor at times. You can thank (or damn) Ico for every game using bloom lighting now.
  
  Ico's "holding hands" gameplay and aesthetic also influenced countless games including Resident Evil 4 and 5, the new Prince of Persia, Gears of War, Army of Two, Metal Gear Solid 3, Portal, Half-Life 2, Left4Dead and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Guillermo del Toro, director of Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies, reportedly loves it, and Steven Spielberg's is-it-canceled-or-is-it-not Project LMNO cites Ico as a primary inspiration.
  
  It has always irked me that Ico's successor, Shadow of the Colossus, got everyone's attention - mostly because the hero has a sword, I bet - and don't get me wrong, Shadow of the Colossus is a brilliant game, but Ico came first, and it still tugs at my heartstrings - heck, it plays me like a mandolin.

  Hopefully the next entry in "the Ico series", The Last Guardian, will affect me the same way. Judging by the trailer it looks like an even bigger spiritual successor to Ico than Colossus was - boy and griffin depending on each other's survival. Clearly, series mastermind Fumito Ueda knows what he's doing.

  Have you played Ico? Or Shadow of the Colossus for that matter? Do you think storytelling in games evolved much beyond what Ico displayed? Does it deserve high praise?
  

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