Ico 2?

This weekend (my first long weekend since I now don't work fridays, did I mention that?), I bought my first computer game in months. Now, for those of you who know a bit about computer games, you'll know I bought the most exciting game to come out in the last 12 months. If you don't, this game is absolutely THE most awesome thing to decend on the playstation 2 since its predecesor, Ico, was released to coincide with the playstations debut.

"Shadow of the Colossus" wipes the floor with every other game out. In 3 days, I've played it for 11 hours (which doesn't sound like much, but equates to the same amount of sleep I had this weekend). Its stunning. Horse riding across beautiful landscapes that stretch for miles in a palette of washed out greys and blues. Levels that paralyse you with their scale and difficulty. Graphics that you would never expect for a PS2 and speed which you wouldn't expect from any console. Its awesome.

If you don't know about this game, come to my house and play it. The basic jist is that in order to revive some dead brunette (which I assume the lead guy had a fling with at some point from the way he looks at her), you need to defeat 16 MASSIVE colossi. These guys are huge. some of them are like 10 storey high buildings, some of them are winged flying monsters, some are like massive pitbulls that throw you around and shake you to death. The idea - each colossi has weak points which need to be found and destroyed. Each massive monster needs to be navigated, from scaling body parts covered in grassy fur, jumping between stony scales (read: platforms) protrubing from their arms, to attacking weak points on their head by hacking wildly into their flesh. and if working out how to get onto these huge things is bad enough, you also have to ensure you don't run out of grip while being constantly being tossed around and hanging on for your life. Its one of the most exciting and addictive, if frustrating, platform games to have come out on the PS2, and almost matches the brilliance of Ico perfectly. £30 for a computer game? I'd have paid £50 for this bad boy. Money well spent.