I just beat Shadow of the Colossus, a game that everyone else on the internet was shitting themselves over. My review is not quite so rosy.

It’s a beautiful game once you get out into the world, and the Colossi are outstanding, so why the hell is the temple so ugly? The textures are so bad they remind me of the caves in the first Tomb Raider.

Other than that, I thought there were a lot of tedious parts. The game is essentially 16 boss battles with travel time, and the travel time is the problem. Yes, it’s great that it’s a huge seamless world. Maybe I’m just not fit for serene traveling.

I don’t know, maybe it’s not the traveling. Something just felt missing. The ending makes it abundantly clear why the story doesn’t start until the very end of the game, but lacking any real motive for killing these guys, while old school, just makes the experience feel hollow at first. I spend the first two-thirds of the game, which I was very excited about playing, trying to convince myself to keep going, that I had to at least see the ending.

Overall I give it a 2 out of 4. The idea itself is awesome, but it needs something just a little bit more “spicey” to get it going. The game is fun, the atmosphere is nice, but it just didn’t completely click with me. I’m glad I played it, but I doubt I’ll ever play through it again.

And that’s my mini-review of the game a lot of people want to call the Game of the Year. Right now I say Resident Evil 4 for that.