So, there I was, sitting on the floor a few feet away from the screen, hands tense and shaking, teeth gritted and heart racing. The noise blasting out back at me? Silence. A few gusts of wind ebbed around the television speakers; a couple of birds chattered and the gentle tap tap tapping of my footsteps echoed around the vast, desolated castle in which I was trapped. There was no roaring of an impending monster battle, no hectic ammo-firing gun chatter and no squeal of racing tyres being slid at an awkward angle around a tightening bend. The game world was serene. I wasn’t.

See, playing Ico is an experience that is rather hard to quantify. At approximately ten hours in length it isn’t the longest gaming experience you will ever find yourself, and with a gentle story that flows from point to point via some of the most empty, deserted levels and areas you can imagine it’s not really something that you’d really expect to get your pulse racing either. It’s something that when written on paper cannot even come close to being understood fully, but it’s certainly something special.

The game’s ‘hero’ isn’t exactly your archetypal good guy either; he’s a small boy – named Ico, of course - with no special powers other than his own bravery and his proficiency at jumping and wielding a stick. Escaping from a cell in which he has been imprisoned due to having the misfortune to be born with two small horns protruding from his tiny bonce, your task is to guide him from his imprisonment and hopefully outside of the giant castle walls to safety.

Throughout his travels he is not alone, for a short while into proceedings you come across an alarmingly white girl – Yorda - who, apart from her ability to walk and occasionally jump, is seemingly powerless and needs protection and guidance. Speaking in a language that game decides not to translate for you so as to keep the very tangible wall of silence and confusion between her and Ico, she’s crushingly vulnerable, and it’s because of this that your bond to her through the game become more tight and affecting than most video games could ever wish to form between player and character. You are two outcasts on the run; two very ordinary people trying to achieve an extraordinary escape.

The general idea of the game is simple enough; from the moment you escape your cell to the very end of the game you are progressing through room after room and environment after environment attempting to navigate the traps and pitfalls in your way. Be it shoving a box around to leap up to a ledge, jumping on a windmill blade so it takes you up to a seemingly unreachable platform or gently shuffling your way along a narrow walkway to get to a switch that’ll open a drawbridge or power a cart, each area has a set puzzle or trick that you need to discover and piece together in order to progress. A lazy man could call it a slower, more considered Zelda temple perhaps.

Of course, throughout all this your female companion, pasty and frail, must be guided, and with her limited adventuring capability there are periods when Ico must break the silent bond between her and himself and go out alone to set up the area so she can cross it and join him again. Whilst together you are able to hold her hand and run around with her to wherever you want, but once alone she is susceptible to attack and as a result the moments when you do leave her become increasingly tense.

Pretty soon after you find Yorda you soon realise that, as with Ico, she has been imprisoned in the castle for a reason, and that chasing the both of you throughout the game are abstract black blobs that will try to steal her from your grasp and drag her away into their black warp holes in the floor. Appearing at most locations from a pretty early point, your job is to fight them off with your stick and stop them emerging again so you can explore the area without the menacing thought of losing your partner. You are also made aware that Yorda is crucial to progression as she can magically open sealed doors, so if she’s lost then it’s game over.

Hence, your time with the game is always tense; always throwing puzzles and challenges your way at just the right time, and at just the right difficulty. There are none of the epic boss battles that the follow-up Shadow of the Colossus used as its staple diet – it’s you versus the environment, with a few hectic bits of monster-bashing chucked in for good measure.

The result is an adventure that is not only superbly paced (save points are regular enough, and you never feel you are being unfairly compromised by too many enemies), but also superbly judged in terms of difficulty and challenge. Early happenings gently teach you the various commands at your fingertips before the game really kicks into gear, but as you work your way through each puzzle is logical and greatly rewarding. As mentioned before, one section sees you guiding Ico toward a windmill and, having looked around for a while and ascertained that there are no ledges available, you start to wonder if you can grab hold of the windmill blades to give you a boost. It works beautifully.

It never relies on cheap shock tactics to handicap you, either. Once you have learnt that Yorda needs protecting and that sometimes you will have to leave her and hurry around trying to solve a puzzle (whether it be needed or it be due to your own nerves) you have pretty much got the game mechanic licked, and it’s the strength and diversity of the navigation puzzling that carries the game and makes it the challenge it is. You never feel particularly frustrated even when you spend a good few minutes pondering what to do next, and the fact that the game never throws you a cheap shot by suddenly introducing you to some new, unexplained ability makes it a pleasure throughout.

This is only furthered by the presentation of the whole thing, and to this day I still hold Ico as a shining example of video games dabbling in being pieces of art. Washed out pastel colours of outside areas mix with the ominous browns, golds and greys of your looming prison to create a desolate, tragic atmosphere, whilst Yorda and the shadow beasts provide startling and otherworldly dashes of bright white and deep black. The sound is kept to a minimum throughout too; most of your journey is accompanied by nothing but your steps, the howling of the wind and the crashing of the distant sea. Mix in a few instrumental pieces to set the mood during story events and you end up with something that is as beautiful to see and hear as it is to play, even some seven years after the release.

Thus, Ico is more than just a cult classic; more than just a curiosity that relies on its beauty to cover up some flaws in the gameplay. You could argue that at times the camera is a little awkward and that it’s a little short and to be hand-on-heart honest I would give you both points, and also say that’s why Ico doesn’t quite manage the full 10 marks that I initially considered giving it. With that out the way, though, you are presented with something truly unique in feel and brilliant in execution, and anyone without a next-gen game on their shopping lists should hunt down a copy as quickly as they possibly can. Just remember who pointed you toward it, eh?