Playable art?
I'll get to the point on Shadow of the Colossus, if the developers were trying to make playable art, then I have but one word for you...perfection! I usually give games a benefit of the doubt, but I also never go overboard with telling my peers how great or horrible I think a game is.
A friend of mine was going totally nuts over SotC so I decided to check it out. Being short on coin, I opted to rent the title. Here's exactly what I did. Sorry for including the obvious steps, but this is an account of how it went down...kinda 1-2-3 or bing-bang-boom. I opened the case, popped it in my PS2, watched the opening, starting playing. After picking my jaw up off the ground, I grabbed my car-keys, jumped in my ride and went directly to my favorite local game retailer and bought the game!
Oh and if you were wondering why did I waste a rental...trust me...a broke gamer NEVER wastes a game-rental. I took it back to the video-store (keep in mind it was literally less than an hout after renting) and traded it for another title after telling...err...lying to the clerk and remarking on how stupid I was to rent a game my roommate just purchased. So I p/u Half-Life² for the Xbox just to check it out and see how well the ol' box could handle such a sweet game. Which I gotta say I was a little surprised, the game isn't bad at all on the Xbox. But that would be a review for a different place.
Wow, this got kinda long. I know I went on and on w/out really reviewing the game. So I'll say it like this...just buy or rent this game and play it. I don't want to tell you anything because I want you to be just as blown-away by SotC as I was when I fired it up. It's a game of nothing but boss battles that look, feel, and sound amazing. This game truly is "playable-art". Oh and one last side-note...I can't really put a finger on how, but the designers actually do a great job of making you feel kind of bad for your foe's after you slay them and steal their souls so you can save your dead girl...who needs to be saved...trust me.
Aloha
JJ