“Enslaved: Odyssey to the West” is captivating gamers everywhere. It was just released on October 5, and it’s worth 15 to 20 hours of game play, depending on whether you go searching for all of the upgrade orbs and hidden items. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic, killer-robot infested earth, featuring incredibly richly colored and detailed environments. The main characters are a young and slender girl named Trip, who is a major technology buff, and a big muscular guy named Monkey, who has amazing climbing skills.
The game starts out with our heroes both abducted and taken aboard an air vehicle to be shipped off to be made into slaves. Trip manages to escape her cage and begins to make her way off the ship while simultaneously sabotaging it. Monkey wakes up and sees what’s happening and begins wriggling around until his cage falls off the wall, and he breaks out and begins following the strange young girl toward freedom.
After the two crash-land and escape the slave ship, Trip enslaves Monkey by putting a modified headband on him, forcing him to do as she commands or else she fries his brain. Against his will, Monkey must help Trip get back to her home by fighting off mechanical monsters of all shapes and sizes and assisting her in solving some well platformed puzzles. Along their journey, the two heroes must come to work together as partners instead of just master and slave.
After some twists and turns, the two finally make their way to the end of their journey, but not without heavy losses. All-in-all the combat and mechanics in the game work great, the environments are awesome looking, and the story is fairly solid. As an avid gamer since about age five, I give this new game four out of five stars.