Hidden Gems of the Gaming World is a new post series here on J Station X that talks about the games that you should buy (though probably won’t). This week’s post discusses how awesome Ninja Theory’s game Enslaved is but why it’s just too weird for you to spend money on.

Hidden Gem Number 1!

Image via worthplaying.com

Enslaved : Odyssey to the West. A game that I would describe as ‘Uncharted-esque’ with it’s core gaming mechanic being that you must climb around the scenery like a monkey (Monkey being the main character’s name too) and fend off your captor from some war-crazed, not-so-dormant robots who have reinstalled their software (or whatever it is that robots do to be reanimated) and are now on the rampage, attempting to get yourself away from the metal menaces to safety.

The premise is a bit eccentric but the graphics are astonishing, with every speck of rust surrounding the beautiful layers of overgrown vegetation being formed in crisp HD. So I suppose you’re wondering ‘why is it a Hidden Gem of the Gaming World?’ because, believe it or not, despite all of its developer(Ninja Theory)’s best efforts, the game just didn’t sell well, even though it is a game that most would and indeed should be proud to own as part of their gaming collection.

Click ‘Read More’ to find out why you should get Enslaved : Odyssey to the West

Monkey totally reminds me of Nathan Drake.

Image via justpushstart.com

Perhaps it’s the fact that this game was based on an old Chinese story. Being realistic about things, I think us gamers in the west aren’t always very keen to play games based on random eastern novels that a) aren’t that approachable and b) are completely unheard of to our society and basing a game on an unusual concept is only going to hinder its sales as opposed to encourage them.

There’s also the fact that Enslaved’s full title is ‘Enslaved : Odyssey to the West’. There’s nothing like a super-long title to make somebody buy something! But really, those few added words make the game sound like a typical J-RPG that’s made by a Japanese developer that has a penchant for characters with oversized eyes and even more oversized hair. For example, I reckon that it must have a taken a lot of ‘gusto’ for you to bother clicking a link and reading this post because the rather large title put you off, right? If it didn’t, thank you for reading (leave a comment to say hi if you are still reading!) but I would fully understand.

Enslaved Tip Number 1 : Always run away from the robot dog!

Image via forcedisconnect.com

While Ninja Theory are a great and extremely talented developer, their ‘thing’, as it were, is that they consistently produce, very good, very niche games, take Heavenly Sword for example – did you buy it? Me neither. Although it was extremely praised and was given some fairly decent reviews too.

Nonetheless, I still think that you should still go out and buy it, it’s poor sales have meant that it has been quite heavily discounted and even if you still haven’t decided on getting it or not, try the demo first – the Enslaved demo is actually one of the rare demos that I am willing to keep on my hard-drive and play for a second time.

Thanks for reading and be sure to visit the site again to read another ‘Hidden Gems of the Gaming World’ post!