Prince of Persia (2008)

[Mr._Blinky]

Soooo...who's played it so far? I got a copy for Christmas, and I just beat it.

Overall I found it to be a really enjoyable game. The platforming puzzles were fun and required fairly quick reflexes in most cases, and the combat was largely the same. One of the things I liked most about combat was the one-on-one dual nature of it, so that every fight felt important to at least some degree, rather than "Oh yeah, another twenty random goons to slaughter." It was especially fun once I mastered deflecting enemy attacks, and was able to set the enemy back on their heels with quick counters.

The story was pretty good, and I actually liked the characters a lot. The plot won't be setting anybody back with its creativity, but the storytelling was well done enough that you can forgive a lot of its formulaic nature. Also, for once a video game romantic subplot that doesn't feel hideously tacked on, since they actually managed to find dialogue and voice-actors that actually had chemistry.

One of the criticisms most leveled at the game is how easy it is, since you can't die. I'd say yes and no. On the one hand, someone as platformer-challenged as myself was actually able to beat it, which is something in itself, so it can't have been too difficult. On the other hand, a lot of the challenges still required pretty precise timing, especially the fights.

But I don't actually think it was that easy of a game, for this reason: really, the whole thing with Elika saving you isn't an "I win" button. If I'd just died like in most games, I would have reloaded and just started fighting again. The saves by your companion really just bipassed the frustration and time of reloading, since your enemy generally regained a fair chunk of health, or you started the whole puzzle over again. I'd say that the reason I was able to beat it despite being bad at platformers wasn't because it was easier than most, but because I wasn't getting so frustrated by constant reloading that I just stopped playing. Cutting out the middle-man of reloads and just getting you right back in the action meant there wasn't that lull in gameplay that made you wonder why you weren't just doing something else, and so you just kept playing.

Lastly, spoiler for the ending:
Well...that was awesome/sucked.

The I totally called Elika dying to save the tree like half-way through the game, but I didn't call what happened next.:smalleek:

So, thoughts?

[Inhuman Bot]

I just borrowed it from a friend, and I have to say it's very fun.

For the "you can't die" part, think of it this way.
Look at games where you can save anywhere, or restart failed battles.

This PoP fits that well, and it isn't really a bad thing.

[Mr._Blinky]

I just borrowed it from a friend, and I have to say it's very fun.

For the "you can't die" part, think of it this way.
Look at games where you can save anywhere, or restart failed battles.

This PoP fits that well, and it isn't really a bad thing.

Exactly. It just cuts out the reloading process, which doesn't make it any easier, just less frustrating. You still have to do just as much to kill your enemy or get to that next platform, the only difference is that you don't have to spend a minute or two of repeated gameplay or no gameplay at all just to get back into the beginning of the fight or puzzle.

[Nevrmore]

Staying far away from this game. I'm sure that the platforming is just like any other PoP game, but The Pirnce (as I've taken to calling him) and Elika, from what I've seen, both seem like extremely, extremely annoying characters, and the plot is so stupid it makes me want to slice open my stomach so I can spill all the hydrochloric acid onto the faces of the chief script writers.

[Mr._Blinky]

Staying far away from this game. I'm sure that the platforming is just like any other PoP game, but The Pirnce (as I've taken to calling him) and Elika, from what I've seen, both seem like extremely, extremely annoying characters, and the plot is so stupid it makes me want to slice open my stomach so I can spill all the hydrochloric acid onto the faces of the chief script writers.

Not really actually. The characters are both far more believable than those found in the majority of games out there. They're not the best I've seen, and there's really just the two of them, but I found them far less annoying than the casts of say Gears of War or Fallout 3. I'd actually kind of started to like them by the end, which is helped by the fact that they've both got pretty good voice-actors.

I'll admit the plot isn't exactly first class material, but it does the job. It's a generic plot, but I'd hesitate to call it stupid: it's just not particularly original. The ending is awesome though, at least in my opinion, mostly because I called what I thought was going to be the ending about half-way through the game, and then turned out to be right. Except...not quite, as the game actually continued past my predicted ending and pulled off something I thought was pretty cool.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Staying far away from this game. I'm sure that the platforming is just like any other PoP game, but The Pirnce (as I've taken to calling him) and Elika, from what I've seen, both seem like extremely, extremely annoying characters, and the plot is so stupid it makes me want to slice open my stomach so I can spill all the hydrochloric acid onto the faces of the chief script writers.

Better a wise-cracking mercenary type than a whiny angst-machine, in my opinion.

[Nevrmore]

Better a wise-cracking mercenary type than a whiny angst-machine, in my opinion.
That's such a misclassification, and I don't understand why so many people claim it. While I did not play Two Thrones, The Prince in Warrior Within was far from a whiny angst-machine. Sure, he had become very embittered between Sands of Time and Warrior Within, but after the huge ordeal he went through, then getting chased by The Dahaka and told that it was definitely going to kill him, I don't really think you can blame him for not being as bouncy as he had been. Was he darker? Yes. Did he oftentimes smolder with generic rage? Definitely. But he never once whined nor angsted.

The Pirnce, on the other hand, comes off to me as your typical careless, wise-cracking protagonist who substitutes "witty" dialogue for actual characterization.

[The Evil Thing]

PC Gamer really tore this game a new one, so I was very surprised when I saw it being heaped with generic praise by just about every other reviewer on the planet - including Zero Punctuation - giving a score a full 21% below the second-lowest and 34% below the metacritic "average". It does make me wonder what's going on.

[Pronounceable]

That's such a misclassification, and I don't understand why so many people claim it. While I did not play Two Thrones, The Prince in Warrior Within was far from a whiny angst-machine. Sure, he had become very embittered between Sands of Time and Warrior Within, but after the huge ordeal he went through, then getting chased by The Dahaka and told that it was definitely going to kill him, I don't really think you can blame him for not being as bouncy as he had been. Was he darker? Yes. Did he oftentimes smolder with generic rage? Definitely. But he never once whined nor angsted.

No, the worst offenses came in the form of combat "banter" from baddies and rock music. ROCK? In a Prince of Persia game? Get out...

[Tom_Violence]

PC Gamer really tore this game a new one, so I was very surprised when I saw it being heaped with generic praise by just about every other reviewer on the planet, including Zero Punctuation, giving a score a full 21% below the second-lowest and 34% below the metacritic "average". It does make me wonder what's going on.

Well, that's easy enough to explain - PC Gamer is terrible, and shouldn't be trusted at all. :smalltongue:

[The Evil Thing]

Normally I'd agree with that interpretation but, as infuriating as it is, they always turn out to be right.

[Nevrmore]

No, the worst offenses came in the form of combat "banter" from baddies and rock music. ROCK? In a Prince of Persia game? Get out...
That I agree with.

[Kane]

Question: I've loved all the recent PoP games (SoT, WW, TT), but played them all on a gamecube controller. (Gamecube/Wii.) Basically, I don't have a 360, or a PS3, can't remember if it's on that. Sum it up; is the PC version any good? I have a friend who got SoT for PC, and he claims it sucks on the computer.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'd like to know that as well. My brother beat the Sands of Time trilogy all on a Gamecube. Is it just me, or are Nintendo console gamers really getting left out when it comes to good games?

[Rutskarn]

As a slavering, soulless fanboy of Shamus Young (DM of the Rings guy), I feel obligated to link to this. (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2048)

That is all.

[Nevrmore]

Ding! Respect lowered for Shamus Young!

[Revlid]

Ding! Respect lowered for Shamus Young!

I'm so glad you know more about the game than people who have actually played it.

The visuals of the game are beautiful. Really very nice, a fairy-tale look that meshes well with some design elements that wouldn't have been too out of place in the last set of games.

The characters are far more bearable than you seem to think - the Prince is a mercenary adventurer straight out of 1001 Nights, and his appearance and dialogue suggest a wealth of adventure behind him that could probably fuel another game all on its lonesome.
Elika... is fine, actually. There is a certain meshing of stereotypes (as Yahtzee claims) but in my experience this serves to make her seem more like an actual person than another cut-out Action Girl.
The Corrupted, the bosses of the game, could have done with some more development. There are hints of what could have been overarching themes in what little dialogue they have (the Alchemist's comments about destiny and knowledge, for example.) but they essentially boil down to generically menacing archetypes, which is a real shame considering what could have been done with them.

The story is actually rather clever. I caught a slight inkling of what was going on maybe two-thirds of the way through, and even after encountering spoilers (damn you internet) I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.

Gameplay - the traditional run-jump-wallcrawl-jump-slide-etc is arguably better than the last time round. Elika's autosave is a great help. It doesn't feel like you're going unpunished (you're going back to when you were last on stable ground, which can be a while back) but it doesn't break the flow of the game or the story, while also attributing to this Prince a somewhat better memory than the last. :smallwink:
The Power Plates are... mostly fine, although the green ones (Breath of Ormazd) are quite annoying if badly placed.

The combat is just as bad as people say. Really, it's the only thing I would seriously consider hacking apart and redoing from scratch. The boss fights aren't nearly as unique as they need to be (with the possible exception of The Warrior, who's just tedious), and I breath a sigh of relief whenever I can stop a 'minion' fight before it starts - repetitive and tedious to the extreme. When a combo can be pulled off, it can look great - unfortunately, the enemy mostly just blocks and then starts whacking you toward the edge and a quicktime event again. Bah.

Overall I'd give it an 8 out of 10. It was definitely worth the money, but it could have been improved in quite obvious ways.

[Mr._Blinky]

Ding! Respect lowered for Shamus Young!

Oh man, someone posted a review that disagrees with my hastily conceived perception of the quality of a game I've never even played! He must be unworthy of my respect!

[Nevrmore]

Oh man, someone posted a review that disagrees with my hastily conceived perception of the quality of a game I've never even played! He must be unworthy of my respect!
It's not about the game, it's about his notion that people don't paly games because "they're too hard" and "they're not good at them," which is both condescending to non-gamers and, I'll bet, completely wrong. If someone doesn't like playing games, they don't offer up thinly-veiled excuses, they say, "I don't like playing games."

[Kane]

It's not about the game, it's about his notion that people don't paly games because "they're too hard" and "they're not good at them," which is both condescending to non-gamers and, I'll bet, completely wrong. If someone doesn't like playing games, they don't offer up thinly-veiled excuses, they say, "I don't like playing games."

Would this not indicate that most people do, in fact, like playing games, but don't like the 'punishment' system he's describing?


Also, is the PC version any good? Do the controls suck for the all-important running/jumping/climbing part?

[Kyeudo]

I've played the game. I almost have it beaten. I think the game is deeply flawed.

I loved Sands of Time. I loved Warrior Within (even the rock music - great for the fight sequences). I loved Two Thrones.

This game seems to betray those games. It masquerades as those games' spiritual successor, but it isn't.

The plot is fragmented by their "free-form" story progression. The cutscenes are crippled in telling a story by the fact that they don't have to fit into any particular place in the plot, so you get a lot of the Prince starting to warm up to Elika over and over and over and over again.

Elika's constant "I can do magic" makes me wonder why the Prince is even needed. You can fly? Why bother with all the platforming? You can blow monsters up with magic? Why do you need me to hack them to chunks with my sword?

Their "no-dying-whatsoever" thing cheapens the fights. When I first played through Sands of Time, I was on the edge of my seat for the last fight of the game, as I had blown my health bar learning his attack sequences and was running on nothing but sand tanks. This game? I can put the controller down in the middle of a fight, leave for three hours, and pick up pretty much where I left off. There is no challenge to the fights against these supposedly strong opponents. The toughest of them all to beat, the Warrior, is only because he's invulnerable.

The fights also lack depth. The Alchemist fought like the Hunter, who fought like the Concubine. They don't have any real variation in move sets beyond when you have to block and what button to push to dodge their cutscene attacks. The same sequence of attacks, the same strategy, works just as well for one as any of them. Of course, that strategy is also simplistic: "Figure out the longest combo chain, then hit the boss with it two or three times."

The "no dying" thing also makes the platforming worse than it should be. In the Sands of Time, if I missed a jump, I could rewind to just before I screwed up and try again instead of needing to repeat a five minute sequence of jumps. This game? One mistake and its back to square one. I spent an hour trying to get the timing right on a section of traps, repeating the same thing over and over because of one small mistake at the end, which in Two Thrones would have just cost me one, maybe two sand tanks tops, since I could rewind and watch where I'd made the mistake as I backed myself up to a safe spot.

Then there's the light seeds. I just did that platforming puzzle to get to the boss and smack him around, now I need to go back and do it again? Why? So I can rack up enough thingamigumies to advance the plot of the game? Shouldn't that just happen automatically?

Now the game does do a few things well. There is a certain leeway in the button presses that means that you don't need split second timing for most tricks, the graphics are quite nice, and the new terrain options (slides, plates, vertical ledges, rings) are great additions for the most part. The Prince gets some lines that are a laugh riot, and the way that combos flow together is beutiful, not something you had to fight like in Warrior Within. But still, this game stabbed everything that made the past titles so much fun.

The epic story is gone, the flow is gone, and, most importantly, the adrenaline rush is gone.

I hope they do better with the next title.

[onasuma]

Would this not indicate that most people do, in fact, like playing games, but don't like the 'punishment' system he's describing?


Also, is the PC version any good? Do the controls suck for the all-important running/jumping/climbing part?

Its fine for me on the pc. I love the game, as I loved all those before it and feel it fits nicely into the PoP universe. The controls are more or less the same as it was back on the SoT, except space is now used for the majority of parkour and right click only for blocking.