10 things you need to know about Enslaved

We got excited about Enslaved: Odyssey to the West when we finally got our hands on it recently. We're worried that this possible sleeper may just get ignored by the public since it's not obvious what the game's really about, and it's hard to tell why it's different from anything we've played in quite some time. So here are the ten things that make Enslaved so much more than just another fall action game in a fall choked with action games.


1) It%26rsquo;s a sci-fi take on a beloved Chinese myth


Above: The word is still out on the source of Monkey's cyber-ish scars

Instead of a monk trapping him in a magic crown, Monkey is enslaved by Trip, a beautiful scarlet-haired girl who has a talent for hacking, and so hacks a slave headband in order to force Monkey to help her get home. It looks like the relationship will develop into a romance, as Trip clearly isn’t comfortable with enslaving Monkey and shows increasing signs of guilt about it, while Monkey learns that she’s not so bad over time. Monkey still has his expanding staff, but of course it’s sci-fi technology instead of magic.

My new approach to play all games on Hard mode straight off the bat has proven satisfying. Sure there is some frustration, but I've decided it's the lesser of two evils when weighed against the boredom of easiness that Normal difficulty has become in the era of casual gaming.