video game review

October 18, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

“ENSLAVED: ODYSSEY TO THE WEST”

Grade: A-

Details: published by Namco Bandai for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360; $59.99; rated Teen

Lots of games feature two characters working together.

The PS2 game “Ico,” for example, was built around a young boy with a stick helping a strange girl with magic powers — the girl is helpless against the shadow monsters Ico can defeat, while Ico can’t proceed without the girl’s ability to clear obstacles.

“Enslaved: Odyssey to the West” has a similar dynamic at work, but the pairing of its two leads is hardly a happy one.

The player’s character, Monkey (voice and motion capture by Andy Serkis, who was Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” movies), is a big, agile guy with a powerful range of martial arts moves who starts the game trapped in a cell on a slave ship.

He’s sprung free by accident when a fellow captive, Trip, escapes from her cell and overloads the ship, causing it to start disintegrating in midair.

Monkey’s escape nearly kills him, and when he comes to, he finds Trip has attached a slaving device to his head and wired it to her own life signs — she can compel him to obey, and if she dies, he dies.

But Trip isn’t evil, just desperate: She wants to get from the ruined city of this futuristic tale to her home city, 300 miles away. She needs help and protection to get home.

It’s been so long since civilization ended that Monkey and Trip don’t know how or when the people of the ruined New York they explore vanished. High technology is still around — Monkey’s staff and shield and Trip’s computer tricks are impressive.

True to his namesake, Monkey can grab onto small handholds and climb and jump to places Trip cannot and must often make a path for her or toss her over a long gap. He can battle mechs with his electrified staff, a weapon capable of firing energy bursts, blocking attacks, stunning foes or simply smashing robots to bits.

For her part, Trip can create distractions to let Monkey get close to deadly enemies without dying on the way, upgrade Monkey’s equipment and help out in other ways.

—Justin Hoeger, Sacramento Bee