14 DAY TRIAL // There have been a lot of big surprises this year in terms of video games, but for me, personally, the biggest one was Ninja Theory's Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
Up until its release, I only heard fragments of its premise: a third person action adventure, with elements borrowed from Prince of Persia and visuals from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, even if it ran on Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3.
Also, seeing as how it appeared during the busy fall season, up against heavy sequels like Fallout: New Vegas, Medal of Honor or Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, I pretty much considered both Ninja Theory, its developer, and Namco, its publisher, sent it out to die.
Fortunately, that wasn't the case and I was greeted with one of the most visually-stunning titles of the year.
Even if it used the Unreal Engine 3, there were colors I didn't know the engine could render, and environments that combined the right amount of open-end design with the functionality required by a platformer.
While the story was pretty decent, the character design was also very impressive, even if it strayed a bit from the traditional Chinese novel Journey to the West, on which it is based.
Even if you wouldn't believe this at the beginning of the game, the two main characters, Monkey and Trip, as well as their friend, Pigsy, manage to forge a close connection with the player and you really start to care about what they go through and where they end up.
While the conclusion does venture into a pretty philosophical direction, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is still one of the titles I recommend to my friends if they want something different, but not that far out.
If you're tired of all the usual first person shooters or the role playing game/shooter hybrids that are flooding us these days, then you owe it to yourself to try out Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
It may not be perfect, but it will deliver an interesting experience.
The game is currently available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.