Like Nothing Else
There's just nothing else like this game.
Like Frank Morgan said about the horse of a different color in, "The Wizard of Oz" :
"There's only one of him and he's it!"
ICO is truly one-of-a-kind.
It's impossible to review this game and break it down by traditional scoring methods. You can't just separate the pieces - gameplay, graphics, sound, story, etc. - and then score each part and add up the scores to get the total of the game.
ICO defies almost every traditional standard in videogaming and as such it defies traditional videogame reviewing as well.
With ICO, you either love it or you don't get it. I honestly haven't seen any middle ground with this game. Once people play it, and experience it, they are captured by it's charm and magic or they are completely disgusted they wasted their time on it.
Unfortunately, there's nothing I can tell you - or anyone else for that matter regardless of all the reviews out there for this game - that can put you into the former category and prevent you from ending up in the latter.
You just have to play ICO for yourself.
So far as gaming mechanics, I can tell you this: ICO has no health meter. No life bar. There's nothing on the screen showing you how many points you're racking up, when you're low on health from taking damage or any other thing. There are no coins to collect, no bosses to fight between levels, there's no levels to gain from defeating enemies, no gold to gain from picking their pockets or any other gaming staple you can think of.
There's ICO (an adolescent boy), a girl, a castle and an evil Queen.
Your "job" in the game is to get the girl out of the castle before the Queen can sacrifice her.
Along the way you'll jump, climb, push, pull and do all you can to save the girl.
You'll also do it in as fluid, real-life animations as has ever been coded to disc.
Which leads me to mention the artwork for this game. It's truly astounding. Every image you'll see on screen - collectively and separately - has been created with the most care and attention to detail I have ever seen in any video game.
ICO sets a new standard for art in videogaming.
Personally, I was always impressed with the level of art that went into a Final Fantasy games. Dozens - hundreds maybe - of artists working on characters, buildings, landscapes, etc.
That said, I believe ICO achieves a standard even higher than that of a Final Fantasy game. It's world is truly immersive.
No, the game isn't very long. One could easily complete it in a day or two - depending on the amount of hours you invested into it during that day or two.
However, what you gain over that short amount of time is well worth the price you pay to get in the door.
Since ICO has been out awhile, you can probably even find it for a very good price.
I would recommend that every gamer experience ICO for one, simple reason:
Ten years from now we'll still be talking about the precedent ICO not only set, but the influence it'll still have on the industry.
Don't be left wishing you had played it.
Play it while you have the chance.