The Last Guardian

So recently I just finished The Last Guardian and considering that we all waiting about 10 years for the bloody thing to actually get released I feel it would be rude to not say a few words about it.  I'll keep it as spoiler free as possible so don't worry if you've not played it.

So if you've been living under a rock and you don't know what the fuck you're looking at, The Last Guardian (Also known as The Man Eating Giant Eagle Trico in Japanese) is an action adventure/puzzle type affair created by the same guys that brought us Ico and Shadow of the Colossus.  Considering how good those games were, if you weren't running outside of your house to pick this shit up on release day then I feel like you might need to see a doctor for your severe brain problems and I don't say that lightly considering I usually hate buying shit day 1.

The game starts out with a nameless young boy stuck in a pit with a big dog, bird, griffin type thing all chained up and hurt and after you help it recover a little bit and free it from it's shackles you go on a grand adventure to escape the shit pit that you find yourself stuck in.  Escaping involves riding Trico around the environment, platforming and puzzle solving.  To hinder your escape there are sentient suits of armor trying to carry you off into blue doors and unless Trico is directly by your side encounters with these things should generally be feared. 

From a game play stand point I really enjoyed it but I can see why people would get frustrated with it.  The boy controls a little strange which will very occasionally cause you to fuck up platforming sections but if you aren't complete trash at playing games you'll adapt fairly quickly.  The real problem comes with controlling Trico who has been painstakingly programmed in order to act like a real animal.  That means that sometimes you'll know what to do in a given situation and you'll be using your gestures to try and make him do it but he'll just wander of and scratch his balls or stare at wood for a while instead.  While it is a sort of annoying aspect it does make it feel like your companion is an actual animal rather than just some AI helper than helps you scale large gaps.

I'm really glad a game like this game out now though because this is finally the thing that you can point to and be like "THIS is how you make a proper interactive "experience"".  Whenever anyone starts talking about these shitty walking simulators and they start raving about how good they are as "storytelling experiences" you can officially tell them to shut the fuck up and point to a nice modern game to rub their face in it.  The Last Guardian provides and experience far more powerful from anything in that genre and still manages to function as a game, it's brilliant. 

So with that said, you should just go and play The Last Guardian.  While it's a bit of a draining experience it's one you'll never forget and if you happen to be scared of heights like I am it'll probably be the best horror game of 2017.