The game is a like a fussy parent hiding behind the bushes while you go trick-or-treating, and won't even let you jump unless you're pointing directly at the next ledge. But the platforming is linear to the point of being prohibitive. That and slapping robots in the dick - that becomes clear when you get a slow-motion close-up for killing the last robot in the room and Monkey's got this look on his face like he's getting sucked off in a wind tunnel.īesides mechanical dick-slapping, there's a slightly Uncharted-y ledge-climbing aspect, although the environment art is so cluttered, all the ledges have to glow like you're following the trail of the radioactive mountain goat. Tripitaka, are you a vulnerable flower or a sassy action girl (on top of not being a monk)? Could you decide whether you have the upper body strength to pull yourself onto a ledge or whether you're going to dangle there screaming for help before falling off onto a mine and making me start the damn section again? And Monkey, are you a feral, amoral beast or a put-upon, cynical everyman? And, if the latter, why did we even need the bloody slave headband when you just blithely agree to do whatever Tripitaka wants to do? There are times, and one scene in particular, when I get the extremely strong impression that Monkey secretly gets off on being dominated. But anyway, with that in mind, each character needs to sit down with a cup of tea and figure out what their personalities are. Assume that it's an original story, although admittedly in today's games industry, that may be even harder to swallow. So let's just put that whole Journey to the West thing out of our minds, because after a while the developers certainly did. It's like renaming Master Chief to Elizabeth and arguing that Halo was "inspired by" Pride and Prejudice. Basically, the only bits of Enslaved that are "inspired by" the story are the character names, some of Monkey's weapons, and the headband thing. Perhaps Tripitaka is still reeling from the shock of having grown a vagina since the original text. Once or twice, the flaky bitch popped my seal of freshness because I moved more than thirty yards away while hunting for secret tokens. After surviving a spaceship crash into post-apocalyptic New York in the middle of the robot monster beauty contest, Monkey wakes up to find a skinny teenaged girl named Tripitaka has accessorized him with the Magical Headband of Clinginess that will blow his head off if she dies or he runs away, the exact definition of "running away" being quite open to interpretation. But his name is Monkey, so that's all right then. So while Journey to the West was about a mischievous and arrogant Monkey King forced to learn discipline by escorting a Buddhist monk on a pilgrimage, Enslaved is about a bloke slapping robots in the dick. Enslaved isn't inspired by Journey to the West, is it? That is something I find considerably difficult to swallow, because the game takes liberties with the original story in the same way that Jason Voorhees takes liberties with cheerleaders. Hopefully this will keep us going until someone makes Space Pilot Jesus Christ Versus Mecha Pontius, but don't delude yourselves. But wait, there's a new sheriff in Sci-Fi Reimagined Mythology Town, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, a post-apocalyptic action-adventure inspired by the classical Chinese epic called Journey to the West, in which the Monkey King is replaced by a sweaty white guy with neck muscles like mating dolphins. If you said to me, "sci-fi reimagining of another culture's mythology mostly concerned with robots", I would immediately think " Too Human", and punch you in the bollocks for reminding me of it.
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