Developer : Namco Bandai Games
Release date : October 8, 2010
Synopsis :
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is an action-adventure video game developed by Ninja Theory and published by Namco Bandai Games. Announced in 2009 as Enslaved, it was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in October 2010. As a loose adaptation of the novel Journey to the West, the game is set 150 years in a future post-apocalyptic world following a global war. Only remnants of humanity survive, along with the still active war machines left over from the conflict. The game’s story follows Monkey who is forced to escort Trip home safely after they survive a ship crash. Players play as Monkey, who must combat enemies using his staff from a third-person perspective, engage in different platforming challenges and solve puzzles.
Initially pitched as a CGI film, the game’s development began after the team’s had halted the development of a sequel to Heavenly Sword. Life After People inspired the game’s setting, while the video game Ico inspired the dynamics between the two protagonists. Alex Garland was invited to write the game’s story, but he became involved in the game’s design to ensure the game was consistent throughout. Andy Serkis and Lindsey Shaw provided performance capture for the game, and Nitin Sawhney composed the game’s soundtrack. The team used the Unreal Engine 3 game engine to power Enslaved.
The game received generally positive reviews. Critics praised its graphics, world design, Serkis’ performance and Garland’s script, though the game drew criticisms for its gameplay and technical shortcomings. The game was a commercial failure. Sales failed to meet Namco Bandai’s expectations. A single-player downloadable content, titled Pigsy’s Perfect 10, was released in November 2010. A complete version, featuring all downloadable content, was released for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 3 on 25 October 2013. A sequel was planned but later cancelled due to the game’s financial underperformance.
Enslaved is set 150 years in the future after a global war has ravaged the Earth, destroying most of the human race and leaving the world plagued by robots, known as “mechs”, left over from the war. Mechs still follow their programming and seek to eradicate hostiles, now surviving humans.
The game opens with the main character, Monkey (Andy Serkis), awakening in a containment cell aboard a slave ship. He escapes and accidentally causes the vessel to crash. He reaches Trip (Lindsey Shaw) leaving the ship using an escape pod, but she ejects the pod without allowing him to enter. When Monkey regains consciousness after landing, he discovers Trip has placed a slave headband on him, which forces him to follow her orders; a Termination Trigger will kill him if she dies. Trip explains she wants to return to her village, and she needs his help to get there. Monkey is angry but has no other choice. As they travel across New York City, glitches in the headband expose Monkey to visions of what appears to be life before the war. When they reach Trip’s village, however, they discover it was attacked and is now overrun with mechs. After clearing the village of them, Monkey and Trip discover Trip’s father is dead, along with a large amount of other villagers. Assuming there are no survivors, Trip refuses to remove Monkey’s headband, explaining her intent to find and kill the person responsible.
Trip takes Monkey to meet a friend of her father’s named Pigsy (Richard Ridings), who she believes can help them. Pigsy explains that a nearby mech base is building a ‘Leviathan’, an enormous and incredibly powerful giant mech. The three infiltrate the base, commandeer Leviathan, and steer it to the mysterious Pyramid, where the slaves are being held. Along the way, Trip apologises to Monkey for breaking their deal and deactivates the headband, but Monkey tells her to turn it back on, hinting they have developed a romantic relationship.
When the Leviathan reaches Pyramid, they are confronted with several mechs. The Leviathan’s main cannon fends them off for a while, but one eventually climbs aboard and tears the cannon off, forcing Monkey to destroy the mech himself. With the Leviathan now defenseless and surrounded, Pigsy announces that the only way for them to destroy the opposing mechs is for him to overload the engines. This would blow up the Leviathan and kill Pigsy in the process. Trip frantically tries to convince him not to, but Pigsy demands that Monkey take her away from the blast radius. Monkey and Trip get away just in time to watch the Leviathan explode, destroying all of Pyramid’s mechs with it.
In the epilogue, Monkey and Trip enter Pyramid and discover the slaves are under the control of a single individual. The man introduces himself as Pyramid (Serkis) and explains that he lived before the war, and that he offers the slaves solace from the cruel world by sharing with them his memories of a happier era. He believes he is saving them and pleads with Monkey and Trip not to take away what he has given them. Monkey recognises the memories as the visions he has been seeing with the headband on. Pyramid shows Monkey what he has giving the slaves through a mask. Monkey becomes enthralled with the images, but Trip violently disconnects and kills Pyramid, shutting down the system and freeing the slaves. The scene ends with Trip asking Monkey if she did the right thing, leaving those in the pyramid and their future unknown.
Source : Wikipedia
