Ico & Shadow of Colossus Classics HD PlayStation 3

Ico & Shadow of Colossus Classics HD Product Details

Released on 30-Sep-2011

• Team Ico hard at work on The Last Guardian, promises Sony

  Eyebrows arched sceptically around the world when it was revealed that The Last Guardian, the latest creation from Fumito Ueda, creator of the critically acclaimed Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, would not be on display at this year's Tokyo Games Show. Work on the long-gestating game dates back to at least 2008, and it was recently bumped from a 2011 release to sometime in 2012.

  In a posting on the official PlayStation blog, Sony sweetened the pill by saying that " we can assure you that Ueda-san and the rest of the development team are hard at work to bring his lofty vision to life and deliver the very best gaming experience possible ".

  Also helping to ease the pain is the upcoming release of the clumsily titled Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection HD, which spruces up those early PS One and PS2 classics with a shiny new coat of graphical paint, Trophies, 7.1 surround sound and 3DTV compatibility.

  Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection HD is released exclusively for PlayStation 3 on September 30th. The Last Guardian will be released in 2012. Honest.

• Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Classics HD Review

  Classics reborn

  What's the difference between a good game and a great game? It's pretty simple, really: a good game can be fun while it lasts, but a great game will be great forever. You can come back to it years later and still be amazed by the way it works and the places it takes you to. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are both great games. They were great when they were first released back in the glory days of the PlayStation 2, and they're great now, years later, in the new HD collection for the PlayStation 3.

  In fact, they're better than great now, thanks to an amazing digital remastering that sees the original games' blurry textures and wonky frame-rates updated to the kind of standards that modern audiences expect. Running in glorious 1080p and at 30 frames-per-second- and in stereoscopic 3D if you've got a 3D telly - these two classics don't look like old games anymore. They look like they could have been released yesterday. And how do they play? Even better!

  Castle Crasher

  Ico's the first game, and it's wonderfully atmospheric stuff: a true video game fairy tale. Players are cast in the role of a young boy with horns growing from his head, who finds himself trapped in a mysterious cliff-top castle. It's up to you to find a way out, and that's going to mean engaging in some challenging platforming as you climb chains, shimmy along battlements and jump from one mossy ledge to the next. It's also going to involve mastering some ingenious puzzles as you coax old machinery back to life and mess around on a windmill. Best of all, it's going to throw you together with Yorda, a strange ghost girl who's been imprisoned along with you. Can you ensure that you both escape the castle and make it to safety?

  With Yorda in tow, Ico quickly blossoms from a smart platforming game into something a lot more involving. Although the tale may be simple, this is one of the best video game stories of all time, and the relationship that starts to blossom between the two heroes is amazing to behold. Now the game's been remastered, it looks better than ever too: the castle's drawn in sharp lines and rugged textures, while you can now see all the details of the game's astonishing animation. Ico is not to be missed- and this is the best version of it that we've ever seen!

  Life in the shadows

  If Ico's all about escape from confined spaces, Shadow of the Colossus provides a real change of pace: it's a spiritual successor to the first game that swaps out the castle for huge rolling plains and jagged mountain ranges, and lets you explore to your heart's content. It's still a lonely wilderness, though, and one where your mission is to hunt down 16 huge stone colossi and kill them, in order to bring a beautiful girl back to life.

  Luckily, you're not alone: Agro, your huge black horse, is there to keep you company, and you'll spend a lot of this adventure in the saddle, racing across the landscape on the trail of those vast monsters. Once you catch up with them, the game really comes into its own. Each of these giant creatures is like an end-of-level boss and an ingenious platforming challenge in their own right.

  The key to success is exposing each colossus' weak spots, and then scrambling up their massive rocky limbs in order to attack them. You'll cling to ledges and clutch chunks of fur as you race over a terrifying range of animals, from huge skeletal horses to magnificent eagles the size of air-liners. Platforming revolves around stamina- you can only hold on for so long, so you have to time things perfectly as you take these vast critters down.

  Stories that stay with you...

  Shadow of the Colossus was an ambitious game when it was first released, and it frequently proved too much for the PlayStation 2, with a frame-rate that stuttered and could often hit single-figures, while the huge monsters could be hard to make out through all the blurry textures and screen-tearing. Now the game's in HD, though, you'll be playing it as it was intended to be played: the landscape's richly detailed, the colossus are huge, terrifying, and beautifully animated, and the game never skips a beat or drops a single frame. It's like encountering the game for the first time.

  Both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are amongst the best games ever made, and you'd be crazy to let this HD collection pass you by. If you're a fan of great action adventures, and of stories that stay with you long past the closing credits, these are two classics you need in your life!

  

  Masterful:
  + Amazing 3D
  + Two brilliant games
  + Gorgeous HD graphics

  Monstrous:
  - Um....
  - Er......
  - Can't think of any problems!
  

• Ico and Shadow of Colossus Classics HD - Review

  Classics remastered

  High definition remakes and collections are becoming commonplace this console generation, but Ico & Shadow of Colossus Classics HD (PS3), which unites two of the PS2's greatest adventures, has arguably been the most demanded and anticipated by fans.

  The former is a puzzle-focused game that revolves around a boy who has been imprisoned in an ancient castle. He breaks free from his cell and together with a fragile princess named Yorda attempts to make an escape. The more action-focused Shadow of the Colossus is essentially a series of epic boss battles broken up with exploration of a vast landscape, in which you play as a young hunter who agrees to slay a number of giant creatures in order to bring a mystery girl back from the dead.

  Escape the castle

  Ico is basically one long escort mission, which isn't entirely a great thing. Ico and Yorda don't speak the same language, so you must guide her to safety by calling her to you and holding her hand, while protecting her from shadowy figures that can only be fought off with melee weapons. Fail to do so and Yorda will be dragged away, leading to a game-over screen.

  The most enjoyable parts of the game see you exploring the castle's treacherous architecture, climbing and pulling switched experimentally in an attempt to find safe passage past obstacles like crumbled bridges and blocked doors. Yorda can't jump but you can, meaning solutions to the castle's puzzles can be pretty challenging.

  Yorda can be slow and unresponsive at times, but her delicateness and obvious fear make you want to keep her safe. The atmospheric game world sucks you in completely, and there are some heartbreaking plot twists in what's an unusually sweet tale.

  Slay the beast

  Shadow of Colossus tasks you with slaying 16 creatures at the behest of an ambiguous spirit in order to bring a girl back to life. Each of the beasts is unique, from towering, humanoid giants to smaller creatures that look and act like bull / tiger hybrids. Some are dangerous, others are seemingly harmless, and each carries its own puzzle or hidden weaknesses.

  You roam around the massive game world on horseback, using beams of light from your sword as a compass to locate your targets. Once you find their lairs you have to navigate your way across treacherous ledges and obstacles, generally involving a lot of climbing, before finding the right spot from which to engage them.

  Often you'll need to weaken or distract the creature before grabbing onto them and clambering around their furry bodies to find a glowing weak spot to stab, while managing a grip meter which slowly decreases and repeated attempts to shake you off.

  The thrilling battles are accompanied by a brilliant orchestral score and a constant sense of peril. At first it feels immensely satisfying to defeat the frightening creatures, but as the story develops you begin to question your selfish motivations for doing so. Are you actually the bad guy of the piece? It's never made explicit, and like Ico, the game evokes a melancholy feeling, raising more questions than it delivers answers, leaving plenty up to interpretation.

  Showing their age?

  Those spoiled by the convenience of modern games will occasionally find Ico and Shadow of the Colossus a little frustrating in design terms. Whether it's Yorda's helplessness or being thrown from a giant beast yet again, they can be repetitive at times and require a healthy dose of patience. Both titles feature only ten save slots per game, which also seems like an unnecessary throwback, but these niggles are never enough to be outright discouraging and the challenge level simply makes the payoff even greater.

  Presented in high definition and with 3D visuals, the games benefit from now-consistent frame rates, providing smoother motion compared to the choppier PS2 originals, although they still look dated in a few regards. Ico's movements are a bit jerky and some of the textures in Shadow of the Colossus pop in suddenly while you're roaming the vast landscape. However, this is the best they've ever looked, and their moodily atmospheric, stylised worlds more than stand the test of time.

  Worthy updates

  As noted at the outset, high definition remakes have become something of a trend, yielding dramatically varied results. On the weaker end of the scale they can come across as cynical cash-ins, poorly produced updates that don't deserve to carry the 'remastered' tag and serve only to sour the memory of great older games. On the other, they can breathe new life into ageing classics, allowing developers to realise their original vision and players to experience the game as it was meant to be played, while exposing classics to players who missed them the first time round. The Ico & Shadow of Colossus Classics HD collection sits firmly in the latter camp.

  Both games are worth a revisit if you've already played them, while for those that haven't this is a must buy.

  GAME's verdict

  Good:
  + Two fantastic games in one package.
  + Both titles look better than ever.
  + Arguably one of the best HD updates yet.

  Bad:
  - Still a few visual hiccups.
  - Some moments of frustration.
  - Save slots are limited to ten per game.

   

  Review by: Tom 'Colossus Slayer' Ivan
  Version Tested: PS3
  Review Published: 20.09.11

  Published: 28/09/2011

• Shadow of the Colossus movie gets a writer

  There's a fresh wave of videogame movies headed our way in the next few years, with Need for Speed, Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed all in active development at various Hollywood studios. Now it seems that SONY's 2006 PlayStation 2 hit, Shadow of the Colossus, may join that list. A movie version was first mooted back in 2009, but the project is gathering pace.

  Last May it was announced that the director would be Josh Trank, who burst onto the scene with the found footage superhero hit Chronicle. It's now been announced that he'll be working from a script by Seth Lochhead, co-writer of the offbeat teenage assassin movie, Hanna. No release date or cast has been confirmed, but with a director and writer in place, it's surely just a matter of time.

  Shadow of the Colossus is the sequel to the cult hit Ico, both the work of enigmatic Japanese developer Fumito Ueda. It follows the story of a young knight who must roam the world on horseback, seeking out sixteen giant beasts and killing them in order to resurrect a girl. Melancholy and atmospheric, it's long been used as one of the key arguments in favour of games being a legitimate artform. Hollywood doesn't usually combine giant monsters with subtle emotions and moods, but there's always a first time.

  If you want to try the game before the movie comes along, SONY re-released both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus in an HD compilation for PlayStation 3 in 2011. Fumito Ueda's next game, The Last Guardian, is now in its sixth year of development, leaving fans bursting with anticipation.
  

  Published: 08/01/2013

As a valued customer we now offer you the facility to sign up to email price alerts. Please enter the price you want to be, or below, and if drops to that level we will let you know...