Review: Shadow of the Colossus is a giant killer of a game

A giant colossi towers over you in Shadow of the Colossus.

When you meet your first colossi, it's an impressive moment. He trudges past, towering over you, breaking the earth with every step he takes with his giant concrete feet. Debris is strewn in his wake.

Your job, as a warrior called Wander, is to take him down. And another 15 just like him. One looks like a lumbering woolly mammoth. Another resembles a lizard. A third swings a giant concrete structure like a sword.

Why are you doing this? For a girl, of course.

To win, you'll need to kneecap them, pelt them with arrows, climb up their backs using fur as handholds, swing around their chests and faces, and plunge your sword into heads and knees and backs as black blood spews out. It's an intense experience.

Welcome to Shadow of the Colossus, the latest reboot of a Playstation 2 game from 2006 that's already had two reissues. This one, on Playstation 4 and Playstation Pro, looks best.

Look up those old Playstation 2 videos on YouTube and you'll see just what a spectacular job they've done making Colossus' minimalist scenery incredibly detailed - every rock and structure rebuilt from the ground up, every lake and canyon disappearing into the distance.

To track down those colossi, you'll need to do a fair bit of wandering around the game's impressive scenery, and though that can expose some of the game's remaining janky bits - the horseriding can be hair-raising - it also provides a breather between all that giant killing.

You'll need to do a fair bit of that. Each colossi is like a puzzle code you'll need to unlock, hitting them in the right places, climbing the right way, utilising your stamina so you don't fall off. Falling? Yep, you'll do a fair bit of that.

But every time you take one down, it feels like an event, one that left me in two minds.

Sure, I felt elated at bringing these giant beasts to the ground. But I also felt bad at toppling such a rare, beautiful beast.

That quandary is exactly why Shadow of Colossus is a genre giant that continues to stand the test of time.

Shadow of the Colossus

Platform: Playstation 4
Rating: M
Verdict: Ageing title remains a genre giant