Let's talk about "Shadow of the Colossus" and "Punch-Out!!" -- two masterful games that are remarkably similar and yet have nothing in common.

"Colossus" is a new game for the PlayStation 2 from the same Sony team that created "ICO," an emotionally intense game about a horn-headed boy and a mute girl being chased by shadow creatures. In "Colossus," players control a studly young warrior who must hunt and kill enormous creatures called "colossi" to restore the life of the woman he loves. If this story sounds thin, it is intentionally so. It is not until you've finished the quest that the significance of killing colossi is revealed.

So, armed with a sword and a bow you ride off on your horse to do battle with genuinely enormous creatures. The smallest foes in this game are 10 times the size of a man. The biggest make King Kong look like a pygmy. Locating the beasts and the vulnerable spots where you can kill them is a matter of magic. As you might guess, you don't find the 150-meter bison colossus munching sushi at your local Lawson's. Once you are told which colossus to hunt, you use the magic tracking beam in your sword to locate the leviathan. It may be in the deserts, the mountains, the plains, the sky or the deep.