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December 05, 2003
Run. Jump. Rewind.
A few weeks ago, Tycho over at Penny Arcade mentioned the new Prince of Persia game - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - that ubisoft recently released. Now, I'm an old fan of these games - in fact, I was much enamored with Kareteka, which was Jordan Mechner's first effort. I had far too much fun with Tomb Raider (well the first two non-sucking releases), which I described at the time as PoP in 3D, with boobs and guns. (Yes, there was a PoP 3D several years ago. Yes, it sucked. We shall not speak of it.)
Thus, the news of an updated PoP game - with Mechner's involvement, made by ubisoft (makers of Splinter Cell), and praised by Tycho as being "so good it's almost impolite to release it" - embedded itself directly in the "want it" part of my cortex.
I was not Jenni bought the XBox version as my birthday present (the game is on PS2, XBox, Gamecube, and PC), and I started playing last weekend. After I started, the game pretty much consumed what "free" hours I had (meaning a few hours each evening after work, dinner, child-to-sleep, and some household chores). I haven't been able - or had the imperative to do it - since Nathan was an inert sleeping-eating-pooping lump.
Let's just go quickly over what the game does in proper, and in most cases outstanding, fashion:
- Visuals: Outstanding. far above what normally comes in a multi-platform release. Great modeling, great environments with a firm, real feel to them. Characters move well. No clipping problems at all.
- Sound: good solid sounds, arse-kicking music. I want a soundtrack.
- Story: Yes, there's a story. Enough to hold it all together, with a nice twist close to the end, and an ending that feels genuinely satisfactory.
- Gameplay: Woot. Running, jumping, and fighting haven't been this fun and pretty in a long time. A very nice balance between the puzzle-solving and fighting. Both are challenging. The ramp-up of difficulty throughout the game is very well paced.
- Cutscenes: Even these are good, although there are some times when it's very hard to hear the voice of Fara, one of the NPCs. Most are done with the game engine, although the truly important ones are CGI.
- Extras: Very, very cool. Not only can you unlock the original PoP and PoP2 games, but there are also DVD-like "making of" video extras. Considering how cinematic this game is, it only makes sense.
Uhm... so what's not to like? Not much. I only have two beefs:
- There are certain fighting techniques - tricks even - for different bad guys. Once you figure these out, fights get a lot simpler, and a little repetitive. But still - the fight scenes are so fun and pretty to watch, you don't really mind.
- Length. The PA crew finished in about 10 hours of gameplay. I took a little over 12. I want more, dammit! At least a harder difficulty level!
- One last caveat - Jenni, who is prone to "screen sickness" (that nausea some folks get when playing 3D games), was affected very quickly with this game, as there are a lot of big, swooping camera moves. So be warned of that.
Those are small, petty beefs. If you have any interest in the action-adventure game genre, you want to go buy this game. If you have a friend who enjoys such games, this is a great Xmas present - if they don't buy it for themselves first.
Me? I'm gonna play it through again at least once more...
Posted by jim at December 5, 2003 12:29 PM