Enslaved is a potential future ruled by slavers, killer robots, and a crumbling world where nature has taken hold. You wake up after she tried to kill you. Your head hurts because she has put a slaver headband on you, if you don’t help her get home she kills you, if she dies, you die. You have no option. From that point in the game, you are not just Enslaved, you are enchanted.

The starting action of the game is a fairly simple tutorial that sets the level for you. You are a lone jungle warrior man, a survivor in a hostile world that nature has grown over. In the world with you there are enslaved humans doing the bidding of an unseen power as well as mechs and killer robots with no remorse that lay waste to anything living. And plenty of ledges, handholds, and gymnastics to be performed to avoid and outwit said slavers and mechs. Except for one problem — you are now enslaved by a difficult teen who is missing home and wants to go. She has repurposed a slaver headband and taken control of you. You must do her bidding to get her home safely… then you can kill her.

Enslaved takes the dreaded escort mission, makes it the focus of the game, but it does it right. You keep the girl, Trip, alive and she helps you (also you don’t die). It’s more of a smart co-op game than an escort mission. Trip has a few tricks up her sleeve that are necessary to proceeding safely, primarily throwing up distractions and scouting ahead. She’s not completely useless as she can defend herself and she is a key character to the story, helping to pull the game together.

The game is made in such a way that the environment and the characters drive the player forward, the glue of the game. You keep playing not just to proceed the story but to learn more about the world, the setting, and the characters. The hints of back story, little glimpses of the world before the devastation, thanks to a glitchy headband, add a little bit of ambiance that help drive the player forward.

Each area the player must navigate will contain a puzzle of some sort, platforming, or a fighting segment. Across the board gameplay is well varied, solid, and not too boring at any point. Controls are smooth and vehicle controls are great, practically fluid. Platforming is simple and guided by subtle highlighting which works well as you expect a character like Monkey to have a good idea of what he can jump to and can’t. The highlighting and platforming has been a point of complaint for others, though I found it helps prevent you from spending hours on impossible jumps only to find the simple solution once you swing the camera around. Sound and music are spot on, so good that the soundtrack might just find its way to my iPod. The cutscenes are well paced and welcome with high grade voice acting and visuals.

The game as a whole does feel a bit too glued to the rails on a macro level, but each section can be played a different way (except the combat sections) giving a misleading feel of replayability. Enslaved wins with the story but loses out when there are parts that seem to be massive plot holes, where a little more back story would have gone a long way. Some may find the ending as different than expected, but it’s suitable. Maybe a better ending and some more back story will come with DLC because the world of Enslaved was fairly deep, very pretty, and extremely well made. It would be great to expand the world of Enslaved, perhaps a few more Odysseys are in order. Get on it Ninja Theory — if there is DLC this is a solid buy, otherwise Enslaved is a must rent.

I found Enslaved to be a great action adventure and worthy of the time to play. Hopefully there will be a few more adventures in this beautiful landscape with the team of Monkey & Trip. Solid title from Ninja Theory.