Enslaved: Odyssey to the West Preview

Namco Bandai hasn't had a great recent track record at creating big hits. It's had some decent titles, in the shape of Chronicles of Riddick and Tekken 6, but nothing that could be considered a blockbuster. That looks like it might change with its current collection of in-development titles, and leading the line is Ninja Theory's Enslaved, a game that we've covered a lot over the past year and is finally almost ready for the public. Having sat down with a near complete build of the game and sampled the first seven chapters, it's easy to see why the latest game from the team behind Heavenly Sword is gaining a lot of positive buzz.

We've covered the basics many times over now, so I'm going to focus on the relationship between the game's two central characters: Monkey and Trip. The pair find themselves forced to work together after escaping from a crashing airship, although their initial hostile feelings towards one another quickly start to thaw - soon there are definite signs of a strong bond forming between the improbable duo.

Monkey is fitted with a slave headset (Enslaved, get it?), which allows Trip to make him do things. That really doesn't have much of a bearing on the gameplay, as Monkey is soon willing to do whatever she wants, but the high-tech equipment does allow Trip - who's a bit of a computer wizard - to put a load of info on your heads-up-display, including the location of enemies, your health and, importantly, her own status.

This is important, because Enslaved feels very much like a single-player co-op experience. If you've played Ico you'll have a rough idea how this works: Monkey is big, strong and agile, able to fight enemies and cross huge chasms; whereas Trip is weak, can't fight, but is able to operate machinery and computer terminals. The two need to work together, but Monkey is the protector, getting into scraps against large robotic foes while Trip hides. There's also a fair amount of carrying her around and throwing her up to platforms Monkey can't reach.

Monkey would be dead very quickly if it weren't for Trip, though. By accessing a radial menu, you can make your female companion perform tasks. The most basic is to run somewhere, essential if you're trying to solve a fairly complex puzzle and she needs to be in a different position. This nicely leads to context sensitive actions, such as pulling levers - again, vital for solving puzzles - and distracting enemies. The latter is especially useful as Monkey's shield can only withstand a short burst of enemy fire.

It's a relationship that feels very similar to Elika and the Prince in 2008's Prince of Persia from Ubisoft. The pair share a lot of dialogue and you slowly learn more about them as the game progresses. Ninja Theory excels at creating believable and likable characters (easily the best part of the relatively disappointing Heavenly Sword), and the studio has outdone itself here. Although Monkey is initially shown to be a bit of a thug, his character slowly seeps through to reveal a much more complex personality.