Great story driven game, no skills required. Excellent choice for new gamers.
This game is in many ways a completely linear game which will let your character do amazing stunts with a lazy press of a button, driving the story forward in dramatic ways.
The intense action and your character's fantastic acrobatic skills makes you feel all powerful and cool, even though you in fact just pressed the button A to make him do all those incredible stunts by himself. New gamers with absolutely no gaming experience from before will be very surprised they can play such a complex looking game right off the bat.
The world is pretty much closed up though, clearly marking the only path which your character is allowed to take with glowing pipes, ledges and so forth. You will never be lost, however you will also never have any real freedom to explore much.
But, the game succeeds in making you feel you are really already exploring a huge, colorful and rich world despite these limitations. The constraints feels more like a helpful way to avoid getting lost than a real constraint.
So, basically the game is a super dumbed down action game, which even grandma can play, wrapped in nice graphics to fool you into thinking you are playing a "real" game. Usually I would give these kinds of games a pretty poor score, but here is why Enslaved still works, even if you are a seasoned gamer:
The story in Enslaved is great and even touching! Not so much the content of the story as the way it is being told. The relationship between the two main characters is evolving through the game in an believable way, and they are both likeable and fun to watch.
Often in such games I find myself frantically pressing a button to skip past boring cutscenes, but in Enslaved they just work and feels like a reward rather than some annoying distraction keeping you from playing. Voice acting is great, and even the facial expressions are superbly done.
The game is also fairly varied, offering puzzles, strategy elements, fast action driving sequences and pure combat. You can also explore the surroundings to collect energy orbs which can be used to upgrade your skills. The game keeps throwing in new ingredients as you play, to keep your interest up, and ensuring you are never overwhelmed until you gradually find yourself mastering a whole arsenal of advanced powers.
It's also nice to see a post apocalyptic world does not have to be in all brown and gray, like Fallout 3. The graphics is so colorful and radiant you might worry your TV will be damaged by it. It looks amazing, and long drawing distance, great shadow effects and in general an superb art style is simply a joy to watch.
I love this game, and it's great to see something original coming up from nowhere and just blast most of its big branded competitors right out of the sky.