Sony (PS2) Game ••••½ Graphics/Sound ••••½

Your quest is deceptively simple: slay 16 colossi. But these creatures are so large, they're living levels. This is David vs. Goliath, only super-sized - the strategy being how you scale these 40-story beasts to bring them down. Shadow's scope is tremendous, promoting the kind of wide-eyed wonder that you lose when you find out Santa's a sham. But this fantasy is as real as that widescreen plasma TV plunked in your living room, those goosebumps on your arm (provoked by the dramatic choral score), and that sweat bucketing from your brow after you've just grounded a 500-foot flying monster with several swift plunges of your sword. Wow is the word.