Prince of Persia is out

[Calax]

If you absolutely must have platforming this christmas then i would recommend Tombraider: Underworld, it does everything ME claimed it would do(but doesnt) but in a fluent and non-crippled way.

MMMM Prince of Persia

 

It's fantastic!

 

And I never noticed that either Will, the only real problem that I noticed was that sometimes I'd go for a jump or wallrun and the opposite would happen because of my facing. I think he just calls it crappy because it's so short.

Edited December 4, 2008 by Calax

[Zoma]

Speaking of Prince of Persia, anyone played the recently released one yet?

 

Heard the game is soooooo easy and its unpossible to game over!

[H]

its unpossible to game over!

Wait, what? That's the most retarded "feature" one can possibly introduce in a platformer. I mean, what's the point of playing if IDDQD is always on? Where's the challenge?

[Kaftan Barlast]

I wouldnt worry, PoP is more than likely to have a hardcore difficulty in order to appeal to gamers who like a challenge

[Rosbjerg]

I wouldnt worry, PoP is more than likely to have a hardcore difficulty in order to appeal to gamers who like a challenge

 

Not as far as I know.. the "princess" will always save you.. kinda like having unlimited rewinds in Sands of Time.

[Zoma]

You can't fall off the ledge and die. You can't get killed by monsters. Because of your walking IDDQD side-kick.

 

They may as well make it into a movie 'stead.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Well, you could always play with the controller upside down? That would make it hard.

[Deraldin]

Quick question for you guys. What's the difference between having the princess save you and loading a checkpoint 30 seconds back?

[Kaftan Barlast]

Quick question for you guys. What's the difference between having the princess save you and loading a checkpoint 30 seconds back?

 

 

I think they feel like it robs them of their much coveted frustration

[H]

Quick question for you guys. What's the difference between having the princess save you and loading a checkpoint 30 seconds back?

The same as between your party members coming back to life by themselves and a proper death system that requires using scrolls/spells to res them.

[Deraldin]

[quote name='H

Edited December 4, 2008 by Deraldin

[Nightshape]

If you absolutely must have platforming this christmas then i would recommend Tombraider: Underworld, it does everything ME claimed it would do(but doesnt) but in a fluent and non-crippled way.

 

 

 

 

...and anyone who racks down on GoW2 must be killed. They just threw in the less-than-awesome bits to make the rest of the game seem even more awesome than it is.

 

Tombraider: Underworld sucks, you shouldn't recommend that to anyone ever... Also shouldn't recommend ME either.

 

GoW2 is so macho it's homo-erotic! It's okay Co-op, but still ghey.

[Hell Kitty]

It's an automatic quicksave and quickload system. Apparently if the princess saves you in a fight the enemies health will be restored. I suppose if you see replaying areas because you haven't saved for a while or the checkpoint was far away as some kind of challenge then this might be a problem, but for normal people it won't be.

Edited December 4, 2008 by Hell Kitty

[H]

It's an automatic quicksave and quickload system. Apparently if the princess saves you in a fight the enemies health will be restored.

Doesn't sound too bad, in this case.

 

EDIT: Wait, it still does. What about longer obstacle courses? Are they gone?

Edited December 4, 2008 by H

[Kaftan Barlast]

GoW2 is so macho it's homo-erotic! It's okay Co-op, but still ghey.

 

It's a mans game.. for men.. who are manly.. and not afraid to take their shirt off if it gets too hot while riding the Brumak,

[deganawida]

Speaking of Prince of Persia, anyone played the recently released one yet?

 

Heard the game is soooooo easy and its unpossible to game over!

 

Got it last night.

 

Yes, you don't die. When you should, Elika picks you up and takes you to the last safe place you were at (read: checkpoint). Mechanically, you do die, but the presentation is of Elika saving you.

 

I believe this was done for two reasons: First, it keeps the action flowing, and Ubisoft has always portrayed the Prince (who, in this case, is not nobility; Prince of Persia is just a nickname for him) as moving effortlessly from one fancy jump to the next. Second, it reinforces Elika's presence, as the player comes to rely upon her more and thus feel some affection for her character.

 

The controls are really tight. I mean, "do not press jump unless you want to jump right now" tight. This has caused me to "die" a lot, as I'm too used to having to mash jump buttons ahead of time and then hold them down forever to get where I'm going. Right now the game is difficult because I'm so used to compensating for crappy controls.

 

To give an example of what I'm talking about, in Little Big Planet there's a level in the Islands where you have to cross various rotating wheels. You have to press R1 to hold on to a wheel, which is instaneous, but when you let go of R1 to get up to jump, it takes you about two seconds for your Sackboy to stand up so that you can jump to the next wheel. PoP is not like that at all. I press X, I jump right then. This is definitely going to take some getting used to.

 

The game is absolutely gorgeous, and I don't know why so many reviewers complained about the Prince's personality. I think he's hilarious, not acerbic or unlikeable. My wife loves the Prince, too.

 

The most important thing to me, though, is whether or not the game is fun. So far, I'm having a blast with it, and definitely see a lot of replay value in it (something that I didn't really find in Sands of Time).

[deganawida]

[quote name='H

[H]

So they simply disguised death with some bells and whistles? Fine by me then. Thanks for clearing this out.

[Llyranor]

The game's still supposedly easy, but the 'no dying' checkpoint shouldn't be the reason behind it. If anything, it saves you 5-10 seconds at the game over screen.

[Morgoth]

The game looks really rad, and I'm thinking of getting it. But the reviews so far turned me off a bit. Especially the part about the low-player input and the fact that it's too easy. Hmm. How's the story btw? And should I grab the PC or PS3 version? Does the PC version has evil DRM?

[Slowtrain]

Death mechanics in games needs a lot of thought.

 

The save anywhere/die/reload/repeat mechanic is pretty tedious and is more an exercise in pushing the save game button than anything else. Using save points only can help by adding a real Ouch factor to actually dying, but if the save points are not well balanced it can lead to incredible frustration.

 

Otoh, simply removing death from a game a la Bioshock or even Planescape really takes a huge chunk out of the urgency to stay alive, which really hurts the intensity of gameplay.

 

Ultimately, I think the key is for a developer to create a situation where death results in a significant in-game penalty, a penalty that is meaningful but does not (neccessarily) require a reload. Exactly how or what that penalty is or should be implemented really depends on the type and nature of the gameplay.

 

This of course only relates to games in which character death is a part of the gameplay.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Otoh, simply removing death from a game a la Bioshock or even Planescape really takes a huge chunk out of the urgency to stay alive, which really hurts the intensity of gameplay.

 

But even with the absence of death - and the inclusion of a chance to retry at almost zero cost, such as the time necessary to jump back into the fray - you're still left with goals to overcome, which may be intensive or not within the framework of the game. If you're close to saving someone from being killed but die yourself in the process, for example, that's still demanding of players.

 

Also, you *can* die in certain areas of Torment. Of course, these are very few and operate more as alternative endings to TNO's path (

like becoming the new Silent King

).

[Slowtrain]

Otoh, simply removing death from a game a la Bioshock or even Planescape really takes a huge chunk out of the urgency to stay alive, which really hurts the intensity of gameplay.

 

But even with the absence of death - and the inclusion of a chance to retry at almost zero cost, such as the time necessary to jump back into the fray - you're still left with goals to overcome, which may be intensive or not within the framework of the game. If you're close to saving someone from being killed but die yourself in the process, for example, that's still demanding of players.

 

Possibly. Its sort of akin to a minor setback in forward progress. a la Bioshock. But, speaking specifically about Bioshock here, for me it was not enough of a penalty to make death something that mattered. AFter the first level or two, I grew tired of maintaining the illusion that the death of my character was significant and spent most of the rest of the remainder of the game running up to Big Daddies, emptying my shotgun at point blank range, getting "killed" then running back to finish the job, repeat ad nauseum. Really, it seemed to me just as tedious and repetitive as endless saving and reloading. Ultimately, there was no reason in Bioshock to avoid dying, say why bother trying to do so.

 

 

Also, you *can* die in certain areas of Torment. Of course, these are very few and operate more as alternative endings to TNO's path (

like becoming the new Silent King

).

 

True. And I am not really knocking Torment per se, since the lack of a standard permanent character death is a big part of the game. But it was a poor design choice to include generic combat gameplay in a game where the main character can't die. A slightly more adventure game approach to TOrment's design would have strengthed the game immeasureably.

[deganawida]

The game looks really rad, and I'm thinking of getting it. But the reviews so far turned me off a bit. Especially the part about the low-player input and the fact that it's too easy. Hmm. How's the story btw? And should I grab the PC or PS3 version? Does the PC version has evil DRM?

 

Well, I should clarify that I wasn't expecting much story. In fact, I bought the game with a huge amount of trepidation, as I feared that the Prince would continue with the unlikeable protagonists and horrible storytelling of Assassin's Creed. I needn't have worried. The Prince is likeable. He isn't the same dashing rogue of Sands of Time. If anything, he reminds me of Sinbad from the old movies, rather than the Aladdin of SoT. He's much less a thiefy time and more an agile swordsman. He has a history that so far has just been hinted at, including adventures on the seas. Elika also is well-developed, though again I don't know everything about her.

 

There is a story to the game, but the details are only available if you talk to Elika. On the PS3, you have to press L2 to talk. There's a ton of information that you can learn from Elika by talking, like some of her past, the details of the various Corrupted, the histories of the areas of the city, etc. What's great about it, though, is that it isn't simple exposition; the writers do a great job of having the personality quirks of the Prince and Elika come through even in short conversations.

 

There's a lot of detail put into the mythology of the game. I was quite surprised by that.

 

That said, I'm not far into the game. I've only beaten the first four areas (which is where you encounter the four bosses for the first time), but I think I've used all the dialog options given to me thus far. I can't keep my finger off of L2, though; I love making the Prince crack wise about something, especially in combat.

[Llyranor]

Waa waa Mirror's Edge is too hard.

 

There's a reason why games have gone the way of Bioshock and Too Human or Fable 2. Why bother playing when you can die in them?

 

Not that I'm faulting Prince of Persia. The Elika saving crap is just a concealed checkpoint system. Though one wonders how easy a game could possibly be when even reviewers - who usually suck as gamers - complain about its ease.