Two of the greatest games of all time on one PS3 HD remastered disk. I urge you to get this game if you haven't already.

User Rating: 10 | The ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Collection PS3
From what I can say these are two of the greatest video games on the PlayStation 2, but it doesn't stop there. These two video games aren't exactly games, but they're works of art.

You heard me. ART.

It's just hard to explain the greatness of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus - mainly because they're two completely different games. But since this is a video game review, yeah - I'll try my best here.

ICO was a Sony PlayStation 2 title released in 2001 by director and lead designer Fumito Udea, the same one who directed and designed Shadow of the Colossus.

The story of ICO is simple - boy named Ico with horns is exiled to sarcophagus in a freaking huge castle - finds a girl named Yorda locked in a cage - saves girl - both try to escape the castle. That's pretty much the only way to explain it without revealing key plot details.

It's hard not to notice how beautiful ICO looks - it's such a beautiful game that utilizes motion blur, soft lighting, bloom lighting, and keyframe animation. Ico animates well as a small child, and his clothing's art design is as stunning as the way it's animated. The way Yorda animates when Ico's holding her hand pulling her around is beautifully and masterfully done.

The music in ICO is mainly the sounds of birds chirping and the water roaring against the walls of the misty castle. There's some music, like when saving upon a bench - but I'll get to the benchwarming later. Weapons are used in this game, but for the most part you'll be defending yourself and Yorda with a wooden stick to fight off the shadows.

The gameplay is done in a minimalist-like style; it's simple. The gameplay is mainly constructed of holding Yorda's hand, escorting her outside of the castle while trying to avoid the shadowy creatures that are attempting to take Yorda back to where she "belongs". The game is long, so there are save points scattered all over the game as white-colored benches.

You can't save anytime you want, though - you need Yorda around to save. If both of the characters aren't sitting on the bench at the same time, the player can't save the game. It's a pretty decent save-system - however later in the game the benches are so far apart you'll occasionally spend half an hour trying to find a save point.

If the player's stumped, Yorda will sometimes help Ico out via her Emotion Artificial Intelligence - a feature new to the PS2. If Ico has an object but doesn't know where to put it or what to do with it, Yorda will run off and nod toward a point of interest. It works sometimes - sometimes it doesn't.

The game's pretty short; on my first playthrough I beat it in eight hours. But the game has one of the most emotional endings ever made. It's hard not to get choked up at the end.

That's not to say that Shadow of the Colossus' ending isn't as good.

Shadow of the Colossus was a PS2 game made in 2006. It's known as the "spiritual successor" to ICO - but it's the prequel to ICO apparently.

Shadow of the Colossus is a game about a teenager named Wander who ventures into a forbidden land with his horse Agro to resurrect a girl who was sacrificed because of her (unspecified) cursed fate. Wander makes a deal in a shrine of worship with a deity of numerous bodies named Dormin.

Dormin tells Wander that the only way for him to bring his love back to life is to slay all sixteen colossi scattered throughout the land. Again - it's a simple concept - but this game is unique. The game consists of no enemies other than the sixteen boss battles with the colossi. It's amazing because each and every colossi is unique in their own ways.

Shadow of the Colossus is an eye-stunning game. It utilizes the same graphical touches seen in ICO, but to a further extent. There's a lot of motion blur in this game, which causes a lot of texture and model pop-in, but since the scale of the forbidden land is so massive, it doesn't impede the game's greatness in any way.

The music is beautifully orchestrated. Each colossi may not have their own respective soundtrack, but since they're all boss battles - it's forgivable. The music is epic to put it short.

The gameplay is hard to describe - because it varies from colossi to colossi. It's pretty much an open world when Dormin sends you off to slay your first colossus. The only company you have is your large horse, Agro. She's a beaut - but she's a little large for a horse. Agro behaves realistically - sometimes she'll ignore your commands when you tell her to go faster or when you tell her to move a certain direction. It's immersive horse-back riding.

The colossi can vary from hundreds of feet tall to about ten meters in length. The smaller ones may not be as menacing as the larger colossi, but that makes them all the more dangerous. The gameplay is so well-designed, because it really makes you wonder if it's worth killing such innocent creatures to save a girl's life.

Shadow of the Colossus took me twelve hours to complete - combined with ICO that's over twenty hours. Shadow of the Colossus' ending is just the greatest ending ever made in a video game in my opinion. It's just like something out of a Hayao Miyazaki film - it almost makes you cry and makes you wish it didn't end just yet.

In short, ICO and Shadow of the Colossus are two of the greatest video games ever made on the PS2 and pretty much two of the best games of the decade.

I can't really compare ICO to Shadow of the Colossus in terms of which is better, so I'll leave you to figure that out.

If you have a Sony PlayStation 3 or a PS2 but don't have these games, you owe it to yourself to pick these games up.