Ico Reviews

In this game, you play as Ico, a young boy emprisoned because he has horns. Soon the shell-like cell where he's held captive breaks and Ico manages to get free. That's where you take up the reins.

Upon visiting your prison, you stumble across the girl Yorda and save her from a bunch of shadow-like monsters. Taking her by the hand, you can now escape together. You'll have to help her, and she'll sometimes help you in return. Don't leave her alone for too long or more shadow wraiths will try to drag her back to their holes.

In short, the game is series of puzzles where you have push crates, light torches, climb up chains and ladders, activate switches or throw bombs to open your way further, with a kind of "mix between Zelda and Myst" feel to it. But summing it up to this isn't doing Ico justice. Granted, it is rather short, with only about eight to ten hours of gameplay. However, it's set in a world so fascinating, so poetic and mysterious, the whole game taking place in one huge, breathtakingly beautiful fortress of sun-bathed sand-coloured stone with patches of bright green grass, that it's definitely worth a try.