With video games getting more and more popular, they’re beginning to take the movie approach.  That is,making big budget games with mediocre stories.  These games dominate the landscape and leave smaller games to the wayside.

With the market being oversaturated with these mindless blockbusters, games like “Enslaved: Odyssey to the West” are that much more refreshing.

“Enslaved,” released in 2010, was part of a new wave of games in which the story became more important than gameplay.  It tells the story of a man and woman (named “Monkey” and “Trip”) who are trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic Earth.

What separates the duo apart from other on-screen pairings is that Monkey doesn’t like Trip at all. In fact, the reason they are together is because of an ancient headband that she put on Monkey.  This headband makes it so that if Trip dies, or Monkey doesn’t follow her orders, the headband will explode and he will die.

This makes for an interesting dynamic in that Monkey doesn’t want to help Trip, but he must in order to survive.  This dynamic is improved with great writing that makes the characters feel real.  The acting is made even better due to the use of Motion Capture performance.  All of the characters are acted out using this technology which makes the game feel just like a movie.

Now, even though the story is the most important part of the game, the actual gameplay is still fun.  There is a mix of combat and platforming which is very enjoyable, and the characters all feel very responsive when you are controlling them.

Despite how incredible the game is, most people don’t know about it.  The game came out around the same time that heavy-hitters like “Call of Duty: Black Ops” and “Halo: Reach” came out.  With such big games coming out, “Enslaved” fell to the wayside.

“Enslaved” was originally released only on consoles, but this past December, it was finally released on the PC.  That makes this the perfect time to play the game, with it being cheap on both consoles and now PC’s.  This game has my highest recommendation and is a game that everyone should play.