The Shrine

<div style='font: bold 11pt ; text-align: left; '>thought i would make this topic for Gentz. ICO might be the sleeper hit of the year. i think this game should rank right up there with GT3, MGS2 and Madden 2002 for the best PS2 games to come out this year.

there is a demo of it on the new Jampack. try to get your hands on it if you could.

basically, you are a little horned kid trapped in a huge castle and you have to get out. while you are in the castle you meet a mysterious girl and you have to help her get out of the castle as well. both of you speak in two different funky languages that cannot be understood. fortunately the boy's words are translated in textboxes but you won't know what the girl is saying (supposedly, if you beat the game and replay it her words will be translated as well).

to get out of the castle you have to solve puzzles. [demo spoiler] one of the puzzles in the demo requires you to hang on to a windmill, get on top, cross over a chasm and extend a bridge. [end spoiler] there are enemies and supposedly bosses but in the demo you are only shown one enemy.

one of the buttons lets you drag the girl by the arm and pull her around. the same button when far away will call her to come to you. the animation of the boy dragging the girl around is amazing. the animation of the boy climbing up a chain is also really well done. the area with the windmill and a pond is the most beautiful scene ever in a video game.

oh yeah, for some reason the game is incredibly relaxing.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.thegia.com/psx2/ico/ico.html ... co.html</a>

I want this game.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>I just played the demo, and holy shit is it neat. The pond reflection isAWESOME.</div>

<div style='font: bold 11pt ; text-align: left; '>why is the name Andrew Vestal so familiar?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>He started the Unofficial Squaresoft Homepage, which became Square.net, which he left, and has since sucked. Him and a few others founded GIA.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Helvetica; text-align: left; '>He posted here for a bit actually... I think Crono knows him or something.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>He stopped posting because somebody had beef with him....I think Mental was the one that knew him, the 2 Andrew RPG nuts. :P</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman"; text-align: left; '>Yeah, I belive they were roommates at Stanford or something.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt Plakatbau; text-align: left; '>Then there was that gay moogle picture that's incredibly captionable.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>(makes to kick eric in his RPG nuts)</div>

<div style='font: bold 11pt ; text-align: left; '>i was thinking that i saw him here before, it's good to know my brain still stores a lot useless yet accurate information.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>Yeah, Sine didn't like him and had made quite a fuss about him with Mental.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>Do we really need to dredge this up?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>Yes.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>The topic came up....so what?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Errr why?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Baskerville; text-align: left; '>...we'll leave the hot oil rubs and late night gladiator movie marathons out of it <b><big><big>;</big></b>^<i>)</i></big></div>

<div style='font: 12pt Baskerville; text-align: left; '><i>...I especially like the way the characters are rendered. Very soft and anime-like with expressive and fluid movements. Graphically it does some amazing things without pushing the system very hard. Much more artistically than technically impressive. I also really like the mellow and non-confrontational aspects of it. It mainly consists of exploration and puzzle-solving, which I dig. A daring design approach considering the general flow of game design towards bigger, faster and more violent lately.

The only thing that could make the game fall apart is if it doesn't play consistently. It would be very easy for a game like this to get boring. When your gameplay is based on puzzles and exploration, those puzzles have to get better without becoming too obscure or repetitive. Not an easy thing to do. And the environments need to remain interesting or exploration will become a chore, getting from A to B while looking at C over and over and over.

The developers have set a big challenge for themselves. If they're up to it, if they can maintain those high levels, we could have a unique little masterpiece to enjoy. If not, it can always be used as a sleep-aid...</i></div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Well I do technically know him... he's a cool guy. But yah, it was Mental and he who were roommates at Stanford (the two andrews).</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Really. I still have my issues with AV, but I don't feel like drudging them up again.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Huh. I was completely unaware he had a history with this place.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>Taboo!</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>Me needs to play the demo but I've got a feeling the problem solving is similar to the first two Abe's Oddysee/Exoddus games. Correct?</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman"; text-align: left; '>As was I.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>Hard to judge from the demo. There's only four screens, and only one "puzzle".</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>Newbies. =)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Right. How long have I been here now, two years?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>Not exactly sure. It was a couple months after FF7's release, methinks.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>Hey! Those were completely consensual.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>That early doesn't sound right. I looked up my ICQ logs with Sine, I'm pretty sure I started two years ago, summer before freshmen year of college.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>That's nice. I have witnesses. I didn't always go by this name, yo (was 'Goo' until sometime in '98 or '99). What's your problem?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Problem? I hope you're joking. (And I don't recognize the name Goo.)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "arial narrow"; text-align: left; padding: 0% 5% 0% 5%; '>Well I don't really understand where you're coming from here, or why this has gone beyond my little joke.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Because it caused me to think about how long I've been posting here, something I hadn't thought of before.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>I'll note that it only started to suck when all of those members decided to quit and formed the GIA.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Sounds pretty cool</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>Who let the monkey out of his cage?</div>