Prince of Persia Review (of sorts)

(Note: The following is another long-winded and useless review of game you probably don't care for and don't really want to waste time reading about. There's a few quick and random thoughts at the end though. Just look for the squishy brain. Yeah, you heard me)

Okay, I need a disclaimer before I start this. I have never played another Prince of Persia game all the way through before. I tried Two Thrones, but gave up on it after a few hours, mainly due to similar aspects of Prince of Persia. That being said, it may be a specific type of game/genre for some people more than others.

For some reason, in Canada, the new Prince of Persia on PC sells for $30 at retail. I'm not sure why this is - my best guess is that the studio that produced it (Ubisoft Montreal) is Canadian-based, and therefore... Worked some kinda Canuck magic to get a good price for fellow Canadians. But only the ones who game on the PC.

There is a COMPLETE lack of DRM, which quite frankly is awesome. My brother bought the game shortly after its release on the two above perks (no DRM and good price), and I briefly watched him play it. It looked good. But it wasn't the kind of game I typically spend money on, so I held off. My bro actually lent the game to me (yaaaay no DRM!) so that I could try it. And so I did, playing it from start to finish. I was rather... Underwhelmed.

You see, in essence Prince of Persia is a parkour/free running kind of game. Use all sorts of funky acrobatic moves that look hella cool to get from A to B. Break out a big sword and funky claw gauntlet thing to smack your enemies around with. Lots of "I'm a rogue!" type badassery. This felt very familiar to the experience I've had with Two Thrones.

But the problem lies in the fact that the entire game plays like a giant quick time event. Press x, wait until precise moment to hit y, and follow up quickly with z. Shuffle the formula and repeat ad nauseum. Ok, fine, I get that. With the moves the character is performing, it makes sense that there's a structure to movements used to get from a to b. The problem lies in that getting from a to b involves anything but free running. The entire level (and game, for that matter) is structured as a series of x, y, or z points that must be approached as x, y, z. There is one way to get from this point to the next. There's is nothing inbetween you and the final climax aside from hundreds of segments that can only be passed by exactly what the developer has in mind. There is no experimenting or creative solutions or unique outcomes. You do your determined moves in a specific order at the right time, and that's all there is to it.

And if you try to break the determined order of operations, it just doesn't work. Instead of making the jump from x to y, you want to try x to (slightly out of the way and part of another path) q? Too bad, you die. Yes, even if you obviously would have survived. You magically "fall to your death" five feet from the surface of the platform

Yeah, I suppose this theory could be applied to a lot of other games, but it is so NOT transparent in Prince of Persia. Heck, the game even lines up/orients your jumps towards the next part of the maneuver. Helpful, sure. But the complete lack of choice or control is so painfully obvious.

The combat suffers from a similar problem. As combat should be, yes you need to deploy your maneuvers appropriately and at the right time. The formula should work here like magic. The problem is that in combat you generally have a handful of options to approach a situation. You can take cover or go in with the heavy weapons or stay mobile and make smaller attacks. But likes jumps, whenever you interact with the enemy there's really only one way to proceed. Your attack was blocked, what do you do? Jump back? Try and follow up with a quick strike? No, you block. And only block.

Sounds, reasonable, sure. But in the boss fights this is ten times worse. Because if you block, they'll follow up with a special move that requires a specific action. Grabbed on the neck? Use your hand button. Quick flurry of strikes? Pound your attack button. Is he flying through the air to crush you? Press jump to dodge. Special magical gooey grabby power? Use your companion's page burst. All in a row. That's right - you block and then you'll go through at least three of these right after eachother. In such a bizarre order that it makes no physical sense in regards to the arena. Near the wall? Don't worry, you'll be teleported to the center so you can be jumped on. Okay, you dodged that and are quite a distance from your foe. Don't worry, poof! You're not two feet from him so he can perform his rapid strikes. And considering how many times you need to go through this like clockwork, it's actually quicker to just take the hit first if you want to move on with combat.

But, okay. You want to stick it out and get familiar with the moves so that you can look so awesome as you parry and counter-attack all these rapid moves. But that's it - you look good. One way you break a specific boss attack is to hit the right key that results in you punching the guy in the face three times before throwing him across the stage. But ho ho ho, what fun! It's all for show, good sport, because this maneuver does ZERO DAMAGE. Why the hell even bother?!

The way that death in this game is setup, you always get rescued by your AI partner, and resume where the game left off. If you botched a series of jumps/maneuvers, you start the string again. Not bad actually - I think it's a rather innovative approach. I really dig this out-of-the-box thinking in game design. No constant saving and reloading, no long and tedious cut scenes for your death. Wait five seconds for the quick animation, and try again. Not bad at all.

Except for combat. Because when you die here and get 'revived' or 'saved', the enemy immediately regains half of the health you just dealt him. On paper this sounds pretty good - being an efficient combatant lets you defeat your enemies sooner, and makes you stay on your toes to faithfully complete all those (useless) quick time combo breakers. But in practice, it is the most infuriating thing ever to see your efforts gone to waste because you just got confronted with one of the moves that does not have a constant 'block' action. You can tell by the animation/setting of most other attacks what you'll need to do. These stay the same - get confronted with x, counter with y. But there's a few where you get confronted with x and counter with x, y, or z within two seconds of it showing which one you need.

Argh, it's late and I need to wrap this up. So here's super abbrev. mode. Your companion is an intriguing aspect, carried out rather well by slick animations and good integration to your maneuvers and attacks. Her special 'power plates' are more 'x to y' sequences like any other jump, except with lots of swirly effects.

They essentially revolve around you piggy-backing on her in some manner to get to the next point of interest. This sounds fine, but sometimes she drops you off out of landing distance of the next secure landing spot. As in, you grab on, she flies you around with her special powers, and drops you off to fall to your death. Unless you use her double-jump assist thing to make it the rest of the distance. That's right - she drops you off short, which requires you to use her again to avoid death.

The one plate that causes you to fly and avoid objects is particularly retarded. When you're flying something you usually have the control to get to any given point. But here you're on rails, with the exception of the ability to move ~3m in any direction. You don't know which way you'll end up flying, but somewhere along the lines you need to avoid obstacles. This is really difficult when you don't know or have control over where you're going. It's near impossible to anticipate.

Many times these power plates require you to take a very roundabout route to essentially get across the 6m gap in front of you. No joke, you launch off one power plate and go down, fly between the supports of a bridge, through some windows, and you get dropped off directly across from where you started. Seriously.

Unlocking levels of the map by finding x amount of 'light seeds' was not enjoyable. It felt tacked on, to make you go retread ground you've already covered. I swear, it almost doubled the length of the game and it wasn't enjoyable. Just let me get on with the game already.

Sometimes the AI companion broke, causing you to stand awkwardly at a two-person action switch for a few seconds, until she magically appeared by your side after a few seconds. Also, it was frustrating how you had to carry her across the vines every time. Does she not have working hands?

Adequate story and setting. The characters, voiced in wonderfully stereotypical and mundane styles, seemed like they were reading lines. The writing was rather predictable, I was never really on the edge of my seat or wondering what would happened next. But the cast of villains was unique, and the history of the world was intriguing.

Gravity. Where was it? It only ever made an appearance after you butchered a jump. For a free running game it was surprisingly absent. I get the idea that you need to take liberties to make such an action game look awesome. Big jumps and flips and wall runs. But seriously, crawling along the roof? Can someone please explain that to me? It looked cool the first time, and then was just retarded.

The game's strongest point, by far, was the visuals. WOWZA. It just oozed with style. The semi-cell shading was excellent, and the swirly art direction was fantastic. Yeah, the gameplay drove me nuts, but it was so appealing to watch. It almost looked like a storybook. The dark, slime-like "corruption" was fantastic, and all the evil bosses were visually fantastic. It was the one thing that kept me going on through the game.

The final battle in the POV of the big boss was genius, that was pretty neat. The long walk through the corridor with your dead companion was really heart wrenching, and the only redeeming aspect of the storytelling. I didn't even care for the ending that much.

Annnnd, that pretty much concludes it. It may very well be that I didn't like Prince of Persia not so much because the gameplay was flawed and shallow, but because that's the genre. It'd be like me criticizing a traditional RPG for being slow and not having a first-person view.

Unfortunately, Ubisoft, I don't think I'll buy your game. It just isn't my thing. I really respect you for the unique gameplay mechanics of no-death and not including DRM with your game and the good price. But... I just can't spend money on something I ultimately didn't enjoy. But I guess it's okay, I guess you already said a big "SCREW YOU" to PC gamers by not giving us the downloadable add on, which no doubts ties up ends to the cliffhanger-centric ending.

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A few random thoughts before bed, starting with a puddle o' brain, via Twitter request.

I was $38 over budget last month. Plus $12 for a sibling's birthday gift and I have approximately $0 left for the month of April. Yay. I gotta find a way to cut down my spending - I haven't been within budget since before Christmas. I don't need these things.

I don't like being lied to my face, especially when it's in effort to humour or somehow comfort me. The person obviously meant well, and it's probably something that isn't an issue to a lot of people. But not for me - don't tell me something that is so obviously lacking in truth just so that I can build up a false sense of well-being.

Good Radio Lab this week, it was rather touching. Don't listen to it for the context of the content, but rather for what the message is. The Moth was really solid as well. This American Life wasn't bad either.

Looks like the internet is on the fritz again. It died not five minutes from me finishing this post, and I had to go downstairs and reset the modem. I guess that's the sign that I should be in bed.
-Cril

There's so many people who can talk and talk and talk
And just say nothing or nearly nothing
I have used up all the scale I know and at the end I've come
To nothing or nearly nothing

Bet.E & Stef - One Note Samba