Enslaved - Demo Impressions

Another Action Adventure title fighting for your attention this October, is Enslaved - Odyssey to the West. The demo kicks off with you; the unnamed protagonist trapped inside a jail cell. Quickly things take a turn as airship your imprisoned upon is sabotaged by a redheaded woman. From there it's up to you to, pretty much climb, jump and fight your way to survival.

The first thing you'll notice the enslaved demo, were the graphics and lighting. As you first get your hands on some gameplay, every thing's exploding around you, steams pressuring out the sides of the walls, the game looks great, and intense. The controls them self are pretty simple, you press X to jump, or climb from one object to another... and that's all you're given at the start.

The climbing itself is pretty basic. You can only climb across predefined environment objects, like railings and airvents. I noticed that they often shine to indicate what you need to climb onto to progress. It's a good system and the games climbing mechanics feel much faster paced than Uncharted's or Assassins Creed's.

As you progress through the demo you're introduced to new gameplay mechanics such as combat. First impressions of the combat system are unfortunately that it's extremely simple. There appeared to be very few combos and it didn't really matter what you pressed, the enemies went down pretty easily. Although I'd imagine the game will be changing up the combat mechanics as the it progresses. The combat does at least do an excellent job of making itself look, awesome - the camera moves as you strike enemies, occasionally going into slow motion for the final blow. It's very well done and makes combat feel intense.

Check the video for a full playthrough of the demo 

The demo progresses further with more platforming and occasional scripted scenes. As you progress the airship deteriorates further and further, there's a definite sense of urgency. Finally you catch up with the red headed woman, who's just about to ride out on the last escape pod... she's locked in so there's nothing you can do but hang on to the front as the escape pod shuttles to the ground below...

I'm not going to spoil the very end cutscene of the demo for you, but it does a good job of setting the scene and overall tone of the game. It definitely had me intrigued as to how the relationship between the two characters is going to play out.

Overall Enslaved definitely has me interested. It looks great, plays reasonably well and I found myself immediately interested in the story after just a short time. I definitely suggest giving the demo a go.