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REVIEW: PRINCE OF PERSIA

Reviewed on Xbox 360. Also on PS3, PC. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal. Published by Ubisoft.

Prince of Persia as a game series has one of the more interesting origins stories which we won’t go into. PoP as a Ubisoft franchise has a less interesting background. The formerly 2D Prince made the leap to 3D with Mattel’s PoP 3D. To all intents and purposes, it was rather ordinary. In 2003, Ubisoft (who had acquired some of Mattel’s gaming library a year or two previously) released Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Here, in order to lesson the rather punishing lessons of trial and error the play would often endure in a PoP game, the reversing time mechanic was introduced. It was a great game with fantastic atmosphere, a great story, brilliant platforming based on contextual button presses and some button mashing combat that was neither here nor there. It came out and didn’t sell all that well until Ubi cut the price rather substantially wherein the game found its audience. For the followup a year later, Ubi looked at what the perceived barriers to purchasing the game and decided to lesson the whole Persian aspect, darken it up, more combat oriented and flushed any atmosphere down the toilet. Warrior Within was shash. The trilogy capping two Thrones was better but by then the damage was done.
Flash forward a few years and Assassin’s Creed, flawed it may have been, sold gangbusters is followed by a new Prince of Persia.
The new game is a sort of return to the atmosphere of the first game, with more platforming, less combat, a better story.
And its a great game being held back by TERRIBLE controls
The controls are quite simple and the game likes to do things for you. Which, if you’re a person who likes to have more than minimal control over what you’re doing can be very frustrating. You jump across a gap onto a wall. But you don’t have to press jump again because that will just have you jumping off into a chasm.
Time and time again, the game’s control system will confound your expectations and having you leaping to your doom because your mind can’t accept you don’t need to press so many buttons.
Just as Sands of Time featured the rewind time mechanic so that you didn’t have to constantly restart at checkpoints, this game has your constant companion Elika as a magical princess who can rescue you if you fall.
Many people have praised the removal of death of an obstacle to playing the game. That’s so much bullshit. All it is is a checkpoint system hidden by a cutscene of some chick grabbing your hand.
The game is sort of an open world. You get to a new area, jump for a bit, are confronted by a boss. Once you beat the boss, Elika fertilized the area and there are little glowing lightseeds you much collect. Think of them as Agility Orbs and you’re close to the mark. So the game is frustratingly good in so many ways, but ruined by unintuitive controls that are fairly loose in response to you inputs. But the graphics are rather spectacular with very solid sound. Presentation is obviously Ubisoft Montreal’s strong point. Gameplay, isn’t.
As a fan of Sands of Time, I’m highly disappointed by this title. Fans of Mirror’s Edge and Assassin’s Creed (you know, people you can sell any platformer to as long as you say its parkour) will be just as disappointed as real gamers.

controller1.com rating 1/3 (should have been 3/3 if the damn thing was playable)

NOW PLAYING: Prince of Persia, Halo 3 DLC

The new Prince of Persia kinda crept on us like a stealth camouflaged Pedo bear. I was expecting a cel-shaded Assassin’s Creed and what we have Prince of Persia Sands of Time with an even more automated control scheme. Its like trying to type something with auto-fill on. Predictive text may be great on phones, but its not so great when you’re trying to pull off complex moves smoothly.

The new PoP apparently does away with death. Bullshit. All it does is put more checkpoints in and cover the fact with a cutscene. You will be watching that short non-skippable cutscene of Elika grabbing your hand many, many,  many, many times. Why? Because this is a game that expects you to ignore your instinct whilst playing.

Its hard to describe. In order to pull of the move list, you need to unlearn. Need to double jump? Press A to jump then Y to have Elika use her mojo to give you an extra distance boost. Jump across a chasm and press A to jump up? No the game does it for you automagically. If you press A again, you’re jumping backwards to your temporary death.

I’m very conflicted about playing this game any further. I like it and it shits me to tears within the space of five minutes. Its a great game to play in 20 minute installments. The reason you can’t play it any longer than that is because you realise that you’re spending so much time on one jump sequence because the controls don’t quite do what you need them to. Prince of Persia is in fact the best argument for Mirror’s Edge using a first-person perspective.

PoP is the last 2008 game I have left to play and is the last of my gaming Xmas pressies I had to play. We have a long weekend coming up so it will be interesting to see how much time PoP actually gets. Right now its level pegging with Halo 3 time.

So Grifball. What the fuck is that? I played this as part of the Mythic Map pack last night and its basically a room where two teams are only armed with melee weapons such as the Gravity Hammer and the swords. It was fun apart from one of the few instances of lag I’ve noted in Halo 3. Like, it was really really bad lag. There’s a bomb in there as well but dying when enemies were nowhere near me made it a little confusing.

The other team modes are just plain fun. Its a pity the bigger team games are so objective based as I want to shoot more than I want to capture flags. The question remains, why is Halo 3 easier to play (its P2P just like most live games) online than CoD WaW, where there is a noticeable lag between you shooting and hitting an opponent.

I’m kinda waiting for something to hit me in the face. Hopefully Infamous will be that game as its the only game on my radar for the month of May. Maybe I’ll look at some more DLC stuff like Burnout Paradise Cops and Robbers pack. Part of me wants to replay some faves like Bioshock, Crackdown and even the campaign from Halo 3.