Games, games, games!

Two of the best games on anything, ever, are "Ico" and "Shadow of the Colossus," which are stripped down, refined, elegant and artistic in a way that makes most other entries in the genre seem like childish doodles.

Every other game, ever

(In a world where games often seem to be competing to fit as many bald, testosterone-drenched space marines with unfeasibly enormous guns wading through the guts of their enemies on screen at once, Ico and SotC feature, respectively, a small boy and girl wandering through a ruinous fairytale castle waving a stick to scare away shadows, and a bloke on a horse riding about a vast, empty, forbidden land filled with ruins and forgotten histories.)

Imagine my delight when a video leaks of the next game by Team Ico. A year old, now, and probably using placeholder assets...but still.



(Watch in HD if you can.)

Clearly animated by a cadre with such monumental talent I wouldn't be surprised to find we were actually just living in a world they'd drawn. What I find particularly interesting is the scale of what I presume to be the sidekick (the ...er...catbatrat, in the absence of any better name...). Normally, emotion in games comes through in movement because of the relatively small sizes - think of the dog in Fable II, or Yorda in Ico - but here, the size is such that the facial expression actually conveys emotional tone.

Oh gods, the game's going to end with the heart-rending death of kid or catbatrat or both, isn't it?