Ico. Image: Sony Computer Entertainment
Two youths on an adventure together, having just come through dangerous territory, spy a nearby bench and sit on it to rest, taking a quiet, serene moment before their next trial.
If you saw that scene in a recent videogame, would it make you think of an old game called Ico? If so, we’re on the same wavelength.
I’d already been getting a bit of an Ico vibe from this new Xbox game I was playing, called Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, but the benches clinched it. These, I thought, had to be an homage to the similar repeated scenes in that cult classic, released in September 2001. It was a feeling I’d been getting a lot recently. Almost 12 years after its quiet debut on Sony’s then-new PlayStation 2, Ico (ee-koh) seems to be more popular now than it ever was then. What was once an obscure niche game is now increasingly cited as a source of inspiration for current games. And I don’t just mean indie efforts like Brothers. It’s also cited as an influence on the biggest of the big triple-A blockbusters, like Halo and Uncharted. Everywhere you look, you’re standing inIco’s shadow.
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