Cheap Ico (Video Games) (PlayStation2) Price

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Ico weaves the tale of a young boy trying to escape his imprisonment in a large, vacant castle. Along the way, he discovers another captive--a beautiful princess named Yorda. Players control Ico with the goal of escaping the castle with the princess safely in hand.

Although it looks like an adventure game and has some rudimentary action sequences, Ico is mostly about solving puzzles. Players will run, jump, and climb their way through the gargantuan castle as well as figure out which objects and environments are interactive. Yorda is very much a damsel in distress, and isn't nearly as capable as Ico. A great deal of the puzzles require the player to create a safe path for Yorda, who isn't physically able to get to the places Ico can. The puzzles are quite brilliant, although a few are so tough that players will feel like ditching the princess.

Graphics, particularly the lighting effects and animations, are fantastic. The developers did a superb job of conveying the enormity and beauty of the castle. When Ico and Yorda move and interact, their actions seem totally lifelike. The ambient soundtrack and simple controls let the player focus on the tasks at hand. Sony has crafted a very unique game that anyone can play. Few games are as elegant in their simplicity as this puzzler from Sony. --Raymond M. Padilla

Pros:

Excellent puzzle design
Aesthetically and stylistically brilliant
Appropriately understated sound

Cons:

Most players will finish it in fewer than 10 hours
Battles are too easy

PLATFORM:	PlayStation2
CATEGORY:	Video Games
MANUFACTURER:	Sony Computer Entertainment
ESRB RATING:	Rating Pending
TYPE:	Video Games, PS2 (PSX2), Sony Playstation (Play station) 2, Playstation2 (Play station2), Role Playing Games (rpg, rpgs)
MEDIA:	CD-ROM
# OF MEDIA:	1
ACCESSORIES:
UPC:	711719711322

Customer Reviews of Ico

Fun, medium-challenging game with amazing graphics
For those who played the Ico demo, the actual game is a hundred times better. I personally thought the demo was a little boring, and the game didn't seem to make any sense. The full version of Ico, however, is amazing.

Ico is a beatifully made game. It reminded me of Riven (for the PC) except with people. Most of the game's puzzles aren't too hard to figure out, but they are challenging enough to keep you interested. The graphics are amazing, and the story line draws you in. I think that this is by far the best PS2 game I've seen.

Throughout the game, Ico is exploring a huge, aging castle and figuring out how to keep progressing through the various rooms and levels. As an added twist, he must protect the strange girl he finds imprisoned there. She cannot climb ropes and things like Ico, so you must find alternate routes for her. Leave her alone for too long while trying to figure this out, and the demons will attack her, forcing Ico to rush back to save her. Ico and the girl cannot communicate in the same language, but sometimes if you watch her she will provide clues to what you need to do next.

A few negative points (heavily outweighed by all the positives):
-The game is relatively short; I beat it in a few days while renting it. But, I think that if it was any longer, it might start to get tedious and repetitive (like Dark Cloud in the end).
-I didn't like having to get to a save point (couch) before I could save my progress. It seemed like some of the "couches" were very close together, and then at other times I'd go an eternity without being able to save. This made it hard to play for an hour and come back later without having to repeat some things. The end especially is like this--there are no save points in about the last hour or so of gameplay. This does make the game more challenging. Just be sure to leave yourself plenty of time when you sit down to play.

Overall, though, I thought this game was fun to play and awesome to look at. Rent it and see for yourself!

Videogaming catharsis
Add one more star if you can see video games as a form of art. And like great art, it's not necessarily what you do see but what you don't see. It seems as if the more simplistic a game is, the greater it is in terms of gameplay. N64's Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Dreamcast's Jet Gring Radio, and even old classic like Pac-Man and Pong were like that. There is no inventory system in ICO to fumble around with, and you run, jump, and swing your stick weapon to fend off enemies, all the while guiding a princess out of the puzzling castle walls, and that's about it...literally. As far as graphics goes, ICO is simply, and I stress the word simply, gorgeous. This goes to show that no matter how powerful a system says it is, it all comes down to individual skill and talent in aesthetic design. In other words, you either have it or you don't. And it's plainly obvious the makers of ICO have it. I expect these guys to only get better (ICO is amazingly their first game) and to be around for many more games that will delight the most jaded videogamer.