Enslaved: Odyssey to the west notes

Minimal menus for a blockbuster, no videos on loop just a futuristic  background and some text.
The menu shows easy normal and hard modes. I am not sure what to choose, I have heard the game can be easy, but you can never trust people online. There are those who say things like Demon Souls and Megaman are easy.

What the hell, I will plump for hard mode.

Controls
Usual analogue sticks for camera and movement.
A to jump.
X is light attack and Y his heavy attack.
A and direction to dodge roll.
Right trigger to block.
X and A to do a wide attack.
Holding X charges up a stun attack.

Chapter 1: The escape
We see a bunch of pods in a bay on what looks like a rusty example of spaceship or seaship design. This is obviously a high tech future where things have went wrong and people have regressed to a primitive state.
The hero has been captured and is on route to the life of a slave.
He stamps about in his cell and looks angry. We see the female getting out of her pod somehow and going to the controls. All hell lets loose because of what she does and explosions rock the heroes pod and it falls. He breaks out.
Another prisoner is blasted by an exploding pod and we are told to run and jump over the gap in the platforms.
We can vault over obstacles.
Climb up head height walls and vault onto beams all by using A.
We come into a room and the entire place starts to disintegrate. This is a flying ship as we are in the clouds.
We have to jump and vault in a tomb raider style back up and then we come to a robot which is shooting the prisoners who have escaped.
We go up and over it and come to a human guard. He reluctantly helps us to find our gear and is terminated by the computer voice for his trouble. His head starts to glow and he falls dead to the ground.
We now get our gear.
This is some gauntlets and a stick which can grow and shrink in size.
We now go back and fight the mech.
Then into another room for more mechs to fight.
More mechs and we learn about wide attacks.
We follow the girl through the ship and she locks a door on us.
I have to climb around the outside of the ship.
We clamber on struts and poles and then onto platforms of the wings.
The ship is badly damaged and listing to one side. a part of it clips the statue of liberties torch and we see that we are nearing the ruins of New York.
I clamber around the wings and body of the ship, avoiding timed gouts of flame.
Some robots come for a fight on the platforms.
Eventually as the ship is really coming apart and bits are being ripped off as we clip skyscrapers we get to the escape pod. With the hero outside it hanging on and the girl inside she ejects just seconds before the ship crashes.
Robots can be seen on the Brooklyn bridge watching it go down.

Chapter 2
The hero wakes to find the girl staring at him, she has placed one of the slave headbands on him and tuned it into her.
She can cause him pain. If she dies he dies.
She asks him to take her home as she will never make it on her own.
Our hero agrees a little too easily.
A heads up display appears that the girls says she is making. She has a screen that projects from a wrist unit.
If we press left bumper we are focused on the girl.
A bridge needs to be lowered and we clamber over to bring it down for her to walk through.
Two mechs attack and these ones need their shield brought down using the charge attack.
We come to a large area and there is a machine gun mech and two groups of two mechs to fight.
There are little red orbs lying around to collect and they are counting up on the right hand side of the screen. Don't know what they are for yet.
We go through a door that Monkey lifts for the girl and two mechs are waiting for her. She uses an EMP blast which stuns them for a few seconds.
We then go through a security door.
There are two machine gun mechs in the opposite building and they are shooting into the large gaps in our building.
I need to make a run for it then press Right bumper to distract them.
If I press Left bumper it brings up a command menu that gives the girl commands.
The only one available just now is follow.
When on the other side I distract then tell her to follow.
We come to another wider gap.
A new command appears this is her distract mode and she uses her emp to make a light show that attracts the mech's fire. I can get across.
We now need to hack the security door which will take time. Monkey needs to go and take out the mechs.
Her distract lasts a few seconds and recharges in a few seconds. We need to get to cover and do it in stages.
In the next area there is a large tree and fairly large area to explore and pick up orbs.
I come to a place where the girl is standing and Monkey tells her that the area is mined.
She tells us to catch one of the large dragonflies that is flying around the tree.
We have to vault her up to a ledge to let down a ladder so Money can reach the handholds.
We then have a fairly long and fast clamber scene that feels more Assassin's Creed than tomb raider.
Eventually I catch the dragonfly and take it to her. She reveals it is a mech and hacks it.
The mech flies over the  area and marks the mines on Monkey's hud, this means we can see them. The girl can't and we press B to carry her through the minefield.
We come to another area with more mines.
Sometimes even going slightly in the wrong direction kills you as you go too far away from her. It's annoying.
I have to throw her across a gap.
Then we find a sentry bot. There is a loose structure above it we could use to drop on it's head. I use the distract feature of Trip again.
I Then come to an area crawling with mech's. The dragonflies scan reveals their area of perception and I can use it to sneak past them.
I come to the area where i can bring down a large sign on the sentry bot. I am now allowed to use staff blast. Which means I can pull Left trigger to aim and right trigger to fire a blast. I shoot three targets and the sign falls on the sentry. Three robots start chasing Trip and I have to get down to her and kill them.
we then go through a co-op door.
We come to another large area with a sentry and mines. There is a large petrol tanker sitting in the middle of the area. Trip tells us to get up to the sentry and she can let us take control of it.
I clamber up to it using the distract along the way and then get to it and attack it.
I can now use it to shoot. Blowing up the tanker clears the way forwards but brings the mech.
We can use the turret to clear them away. A special mech that is broadcasting appears. We have four seconds to kill it before it brings in reinforcements.
I manage to do it so I don't know what would have happened if it had managed to make the call.
We clamber around and back to Trip, she tells us we can now get upgrades. Hopefully this is why I have been collecting the red orbs.
There is shield, combat, staff and health sections. I can't buy much.
We move through a building and come to an area with a large statue and a fish tank which has real fish in it still after all the years. Monkey says it has been 200 years.
The fish are in a closed ecosystem which gets all it needs from the sun. The fish survive on the plants and the bigger fish survive on the smaller fish.
Trip tells Monkey that her home is like that, built by her father.
Monkey tells her that these delicate things won't last in this world.
Which is proved right as a huge mech appears and smashes the fish tank to get at them.
We now have a boss fight  with this mech.
It attacks with demolition ball type fists, either one or both.
It alse does a ground pound attack.
I get in some staff plamas blasts but I only have four oe five.
I manage to take down it's health and it starts to glow red and spark. When this is going on you have to distract it and get it to run into the statue.
The statue cracks and looks like it's going to be in danger of falling on the mech. You have to do this three times then it falls on the mech and kills it.
Trip is devastated by the death of the fish and monkey gets her to keep going.

Chapter 3 : The Metal Tower
We come to a huge ravine which is impassable. There is a crane and Monkey thinks they can use it to get across. There are of course Mechs in the way.
We find a way above the mech's that are siting idle in the way.
Then through a barrier made by an old car.
I have to throw trip and catch her and help her up again.
Also throwing her up to rungs higher up.
Another new trip ability is revealed here, I pick up a special health pack which gives Trip the ability to heal me using it. Like storing health packs for later use. Up until now I if had full health and picked up a pack then it just said my health was full and did nothing.
I see a mask icon glowing in the environment and Monkey touches it and sees a vision of the past.
We come to an area where a mech is guarding, this one has a shield.
trip tells us that it's gun arm is detachable.
I get to the robot and attack it. Using stun to get rid of the shield. I then hit it until told to press B. This triggers an animation where Monkey grabs it and rips off it's arm.
We can now shoot the other one using the gun arm.
Trip climbs through a small gap and monkey has to go a long way around.
She opens another security door.
Another area with turrets, gun arm mechs and normal mech's.
I kill the gun arm mech and use it's arm to kill another three that come for me as a result of the commotion.
Next we have to get a ladder down. This means we have to bring trip to us past the turret and avoid getting her shot by distracting it.
Now to the turret which we flank and then have to use  while Trip hacks the door and mech's attack.
Inside a house a mask shows more images of people.
Trip thinks she is going to die here like everyone else. Monkey reassures her.
I get stun ammo for the staff.
Pressing left and right on the dpad switches between plasma and stun ammo.
I have to fight about four mechs and the last one calls for help. If you don't get it another four arrive.
Just when you think you are smug another demolition mech arrives.
same drill wear it's health down. Only this time there is no statue. You have to make it charge into a wall then you get to trigger a takedown animation.

Chapter 4
We are now trying to get up to the crane.
Monkey has to climb and Trip is told to stay in hiding in a box while he does so.
Halfway up the building we are attacked by an electro bolt mech, which shoots plasma at us.
Introduced recently are crumbling handholds.
I come to a section where we have to climb up through heavy mech gunfire until we get to the mech's and kill them.
Then a fight on top of the building.
The crane crumbles as we jump onto it and there is a very uncharted like sequence as we climb up the disintergrating crane.
I get onto the crane's controls and let the load drop which makes a bridge across the ravine.
Trip is now under attack from a large dog like mechanoid.
Monkey distracts it and it falls from his makeshift bridge. Trip comes across and Monkey now has to get down from the crane.
We then meet Trip at the bottom and have a chase sequence where we guide monkey with Trip on his back as they flee from the dog.
They manage to escape into a building and the dog is too big to follow.
We climb up into the building and escape the dog for a while.
We come to a large theatre like room and Trip spots a power cell, she wants to get it and persuades MOnkey to help.
I get her up to the power cell and Trip tries toextract it from the opera house systems.
Monkey sees one of the mask glitches and we are told to go see what it is.
The glitch shows a man in the audience of the theatre watching monkey on stage.
Then the holographic systems that Trip has aactivated with her tinkering start a holo stage show of shakespere. we now have to cllmaber around the hall getting three lighting rigs in line. When we do we see Monkey make the lighting rigs fall on the dog.
Trip has her power cell. Monkey asks her to scan the dog for weaknesses.

Chapter 5
We now have to cross the Brooklyn bridge.
Monkey shows a new gadget here, his cloud, which is like a glowing hoop we can use to surf.
We can jump with it and there are little glowing embers in the water which make the cloud speed up.
We have to move obstacles for Trip so she can progress.
Then we get to the bridge and it's clambering time.
At the top we get onto the bridge and there are more mechs.
A new self desructing mech.
More turrets, more mech's, some distracting to get the gunner mech's.
We come to a section of the bridge that is littered with turrets. Trip thinks the power cell she got earlier will be able to start a derelict vehicle.
When she does it's out of control and we go on a rampage ride trying to stay in the cover of the vehicle and then on top of it as it careers around the bridge. We get to the end and are at the crash site. However the jubilance is short lived as the dog turns up for a boss battle.
This is in an arena and we can use Monkey's cloud. We basically have to stun it and batter it then run away on the cloud and rinse and repeat.
It has two energy bars. In between it runs from us and we have to catch it and press B to damage it.
The fight was easy compared to the demo mech's.
We see Monkey get his bike. Trip and he ride out of the city, she rests her head on his back in an affectionate manner.

Chapter 6
We arrive at Trip's commune. There is a bridge to access it. Defence systems are activated and they have to go on foot.
Trip tells Monkey that her dad can be weird with strangers and to let her do the talking.
The defence systems are up and Trip tells us that we will need to radio in to be allowed in.
The lookout is missing and we have to find a clambering way to lower a bridge for Trip.
The defence system is made up of bridges which raise and lower. They need to be done in sequence so that both you and Trip can make it.
This is supposed to stop the mech's getting in as they can't reason it out like humans can.
We get to the watchtower after another bridge puzzle.
The watchtower is empty and there is blood. Monkey knows that things have gone wrong, but Trip is in denial.
She slides down a zipline into the main camp and we see mech's in the camp.
Monkey has to get to the next tower to get across with another zip line.
Every inch of the way to the next watchtower is filled with mech's at least ten set of three at a time. It's like they suddenly remembered this was a melee combat game and gave you all the enemies that have been missing so far at once.
I get to the tower and zip line down.

Chapter 7 Finding Trip
When Monkey lands he finds lots of charred corpses. Looks like Trip's commune have been wiped out.
we have a lot of fighting with combinations of Mech's, an interesting bit with two gunners above the arena makes it imperative to take them out using staff blasts before you can even think of fighting in the arena below.
I come to a long street type area with gantries above littered with shooting mech's. There are lots of ground based one to fight as well.
We now come to a large circular arena which is like a gears fight box to start with. A shooting gallery of Mech's then some new larger mech's arrive. One to fight at first then a few mixed with smaller mech's.

Chapter 8
Trip is despondent, she thinks all is lost when monkey eventually finds her in the wreck of what must have been her actual house.
Monkey asks if there was a place where survivours might have retreated to.
She tells him of a war room.
There is a bunker type door with a red light flashing. Trip seems to think the way to open it is elsewhere and we have to follow her.
There is a wind turbine, which is a huge structure at the end of a bridge. If we can overload the power it will allow trip to bypass the door locks.
We have an electric gate that we can't pass and have to do some clambering to get across the bridge. A walkway needs to be lowered for Trip.
More clmabering gets us to the base of the windmill.
This is a huge puzzle. We have to get to the top of the windmill first. The first sail can be unfurled just by climbing to the top.
The next sail means we have to find our way to a side platform and use Trip to stop and start the now rotating windmill at the right time to jump on a pole we can reach. The sail then needs to be moved to the top and we can unfurl the second sail. The last sails pole can't be reached form the same place so we have to use the sails to get to another building on the other side of the windmill to get back onto it on the right sail. Once the all the sails are unfurled we have to climb down the windmill avoiding the now whirling machinery.
Mech's have gathered at the electric fence and when trip does her thing they will be let in.
She does the thing and the mech get in, lots of them and this is the hardest fight yet.
After this we go back to the large arena and another dog attacks. Same pattern, stun it, hit it. use cloud to run away when you have no stun bullets left.
Two times down the health bar with a chase it and B to takedown at the end of each chase.
We then get into the bunker and find Trip's dad dead.
She vows vengence on the slavers and renounces her deal to free Monkey.
He does not seem to care.
We see Trip and Monkey ride on his bike to a large junkyard type area.
Trip claims to be looking for a friend of her father.

Chapter 9
The friend of her father has a flying vessel, Trip wants to use it to follow the slavers to their base.
We move through the junkyard until we come to a switch which needs pulling, we can use to cloud to drive around in this large area.
Some mech's are around but only low level ones.
I get to the switch and then we have to follow trip around the area to a door.
We need to use a boat to get to this friend.
The boat needs to be moved to an accessible position.
Sorry the boat does not move there needs to be a path made for Trip.
We basically have to clear the mech's and shoot two bolts holding up a giant mech's arm which lowers it down to make a bridge to the boat.
We now have an on rails ride on the boat. Full of cliche, shoot the mech's on the banks of the river, then the boat breaks down and Trip fixes it while we shoot loads of incoming mech's. We then have to get off the boat to open a gate.
We pass through a scanner designed to detect Mech's. It seems that the headband Monkey is wearing sets it off.
We have to find our way up to two turrets in a large area.
Then driving the boat a little way.
Monkey is off the boat clearing junk out of the path when a dog ambushes them.
Trip flees in the boat and monkey gives chase to her and the dog on his cloud.
I don't know what to do here, i follow the dog using the little speed boost points. Dodging the instant death mines. Every time though the dog catches her and kills Trip.
Oh and the cut scene is loaded before every retry, which just makes it infuriating.
Turned off in disgust after about thirty attempts.
Eventually I manage it and Monkey trips up the dog and kills it in cut scene.

Chapter 10
Piggsy appears and recognises Trip. We go to his house and he talks of a huge mech that we can use to attack the slavers.
We need to get a part which is high up in the junk pile.
We race Piggsy as a getting to know you bonding session up a junk pile to get the part.
Piggys has a grappling hook which can be used to descend and to make a skyline.
We come to another area where we are looking for another part. This time we have a basic arena after some manipulating of platforms anda demo mech to fight.
Piggsy uses his gun to shoot at the  mech but it never seems to damage it too much.
We then have a little clamber to get the part.
Piggsy now throws a sticky bomb which monkey can shoot to open the way.
Now we have clambering in the mech factory with some moving machines.
This is precision precise in the way of early tomb Raider, they ditched that annoying gameplay for a reason guys.
Then we have poles with poles which turn on Trips signal, a little puzzle.
We then come to a large open area with cranes that need to be moved in sequence. There is some fighting here as well.
Once we get to the top we chuck Trip up to the part and she is ambushed. We have to save her quickly and keep the mech's off of her.
Once done we have the stuff and back to the boat in cut scene. Piggsy tries it on with Trip. Then gets jealous of her and Monkey even though there isn't anything to be jealous of yet.

Chapter 11
We are now looking for a power cell.
We have two long trenches to fight along with lots of ammo and shooting mech's.
Then a little area with some mech's to fight.
We climb down a giant arm into the palm of it's hand.
The power cell is sitting in the middle. Unfortunately so is a boss mech called the Rhino.
Piggsy throws bombs and we have to shoot them when the mech is close to them to harm it.
Then Piggsy knocks down a fuel cell which we have to get the mech to run into.
The next fuel cells needs to be shot down by shooting the targets.
The final one needs to be clambered to.
When the mech is down Trip is scanning it, it comes back to life and stampedes with her hanging from it's back.
We have another chase, thankfully all the practice from the first one made this one easier.

Chapter 12
We see piggsy's flying camper van following the slaver ships. The base comes on the radio and asks for codes.
I missed the cut scene here because of a distraction and you can't pause them.
When I go back we were all standing in a corridor.
The giant mech is in an underwater tank.
We see a sub servicing it and Trip thinks we can use one to get on board and steal it.
Piggsy is sent to open a bay door but he breaks it.
We then decide to blow the door, we have to get the sub ready on it's launch tracks before that though.
There is a puzzle room here where we have to use two switches to get rotatable cable cars out of the way of the sub.
In the next room some mech's harrass us. The another obstacle to getting the sub into the water.
I open this bridge then Piggsy gets stuck and we have to shoot out a fan that is going to dice him up.
Mech's come to fight to make it harder.
Then we have a large room where the sub is a sitting duck for mech gunners and we have lots of fight.
I thought I would have to clear the room but just heading for the sub ends the mission.

chapter 13
We see the sub going towards the leviathan.
It is shackled up and we have to free it.
We have to climb up the inside.
And find the pinion points and shoot them.
We have lots of clambering and shooting between the spinning gears.
Then we go back to the core room and we have to get the engine online.
This means we have to defend four pillars from huge mech attack.
Hordes of mech's and gunners attack the pillars more than they do you so it's a little easier to get them.
When you do you see the whole mech get up and go blowing the hoover dam and marching off down the grand canyon.
Trip turns off Monkey's slave headband and he asks her to turn it back on in a touching moment.

Chapter 14
The leviathan approaches a huge glowing tech pyramid in the desert and is under heavy attack from squid like mech barrage.
Monkey leave the  bridge to go and stop the squids that are getting through. We go outside and fight all over the outside of the leviathan. many hard fights  with lots of mech's and clambering through flaming vents.
Then the scorpion mech sent from the pyramid jumps on the leviathan and starts shooting it up.
We have to do a sequence where we turn a wheel to release fuel under it then shoot three points on it's claws. Then climb and turn a wheel.
This is done twice. You then have to shoot around six points on the scorpion
A bit more clambering and finally it's down.
The mech cut's it's own head off with it's laser and falls dead. The leviathan approaches the pyramids and another four or five scorpions emerge.
Piggsy perfroms the noble self destruct in the middle of them to take them all out. Trip and Monkey carry on to the pyramid on their own.
Inside the white pyramid thousands of people stand in line wearing the suits and headbands of the enslaved.
A controller, an old man, half machine sits at a chair working furiously.
A screen lights up and a man claiming to be pyramid talks to them.
He claims that he is saving people from the wasteland and bringing them here to have a wonderful virtual life in the memories of this man. This explains the mask visions that monkey has been seeing. They are the basis for the world the people are living in.
The slaves are not slaves they are being cared for and living a life in this virtual benevolent version of the matrix.
Pyramid tells monkey to put on the mask and see for himself. As he does so Trip kills the controller and the lights go out and all the people are dumped out of their virtual life to stand in the cold dark like thousands of sardines. Has trip saved them or killed them?

625 achievement points
16 hours