Monday, February 14, 2011

Prince of Persia!

This week I decided to play through the Cel-Shaded "Abomination" that was Prince of Persia 4.  I was quite pleased.

Despite the platforming being almost automatic and the combat teetering on incredibly easy to outrageously difficult, the smarmy remarks made by the Prince and the fantastically performed musical score ultimately won me over.  The incredible visual effects were a definite high-point as well, with areas like "The Vale", with its flourishing plant life and overall steam punk style, standing high above the rest.  I was very glad I picked this up.  I wholeheartedly enjoyed its entirety.

Afterwards I stumbled upon a review of "Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands", a game of which stealthy evaded my knowing as I had never heard of it until then.  It turns out, being released around the same time as the "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" Movie, I had passed this off as some Movie cash-in.  It turned out I was pleasantly surprised.

It was relatively short, but quite refreshing.  A handful (read three) of new "Power-ups" were added to make the platforming segments feel new and enjoyable.  Though one couldn't call these power-ups as they are mostly methods of transportation, but nonetheless they add a great deal to the series' "stale" platforming.  The combat tended to be very simple and not much more than smashing the attack button.  There are special moves and magic attacks available but they don't add much.  Overall a very short game, which I completed in about 5 hours.  A tad disappointing compared to the 11 hours spent on the last one.

My first game happened to be "Two Thrones".  A throughly enjoyable game, it got me interested in the series.  I remember trying to play "Sands of Time" next but stopped halfway through for some reason.  I don't remember why.

I re-installed it today and gave it another run.  Less than an hour in I remember why I gave up.  The combat...

Now don't get me wrong, I love the idea of acrobatic swordplay.  Spinning around and slicing enemies deftly and gracefully is freaking awesome.  But I quickly found I lacked both patience and control to do so.  What resulted was me getting knocked over, blocked repeatedly and sliced to death numerous times until I found out attacking off the wall was unblock-able.  So I went through most of the game spamming the same attack because doing anything else risked being knocked  down or blocked over and over.  I quickly lost my patience once again and gave up about 2 hours in.

That being said I have settled on "Prince of Persia" as my favorite due to the whimsical atmosphere and brilliant environments.  Though the gameplay was not very engaging or interesting the rest more than made up for it.

5 comments:

  1. pop4 was actually well designed but really repetitive. i think they have reached their limit in game design to be honest. its only for the niche now...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice review!
    I must say that nothing can compare to original POP I played as a child. Was the most frustrating game ever!

    I can even remeber the sound the falling tiles used to make! and what it looked like when you inevitebly fell down onto the spikes!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Different music choice. I can't say I like it, but you seem to have a lot of passion for it, so I'm cool with that. Talk about what you lvoe msot!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yeah I have this game, I'd actually say it's not bad at all...but I hear the ending is just a big fuck you so I never played through it long enough to see...

    ReplyDelete