Prince of Persia : Warrior Within -- forum mini-preview

[SiN]

Prince of Persia : Warrior Within

Mini Preview

"Hey Jeff, how's it goin'?"

"Not bad ... been to the SLC today?"

"Nope, haven't had the time really", as I looked at yet another cryptic calculus question.

"You should get there, UbiSoft has some sort of promotion thing, they're showing off all their new games ... Ghost Recon 2, some boxing ga..."

"WHAT ABOUT PRINCE OF PERSIA ?!?!"

"Uhh, yeah, that too"

It was at this point where I had to make a bit of a decision : stay in dull calculus tutorial, or go to the Student Life Center and play Warrior Within. Needless to say, me and Jeff were out of the class in no time.

For the curious, this all took place in the University of Waterloo, Canada. UoW is quite famous for having a prestigious Computer Science program, which is why I assume UbiSoft decided to do some promotion here ... more gaming geeks here than in any other university. I'm taking Computer Science and this is my first year, and seeing as the only pre-released games I've ever seen have only been the ones I've programmed this was very exciting to me.

So anyway, we both storm off to the SLC, and thankfully the Prince of Persia booth was free. Clutching the XBox controller in my hand, I was all ready to play.

After a simple slide down a ladder, I could already see a big difference between Warrior Within and Sands of Time : combat. After landing on the ground the Prince pulled out his sword and the combat began. All the criticism's against SoT have been fixed, the enemies dont teleport from place to place, they don't respawn, and you don't need to "suck" the sand out of them, some sort of magic dust just comes flying towards you. Those three were really my only gripes with SoT, so I'm rather happy they've been fixed.

The combat is simply amazing. Just as SoT revolutionized adventure part of "action/adventure", WW looks to revolutionize the action bit of it. I was able to do all the old SoT moves as well as a couple of new ones, such as jumping off (and kicking) one enemy, in order to dive onto and stab another one. The inclusion of a new "Grab" button was also quite handy. I was able to grab a character, (what looked like) snap his back, and toss him away, only to follow it up with a diving slash. There are also pressure pads which activate a bed of spikes, so another cool move was to grab an enemy, throw him onto a bed of spikes, activate the spikes by standing on the pressure pad and watch him die. Basically, UbiSoft Montreal have done with combat exactly what they did with "adventuring" in SoT ... they've made it fast, fluid and alot of fun.

The graphics were also quite good. I'm a PC gamer, so the graphics looked a bit fuzzy to me, but I assume that was a television issue, not a game issue. Overall, the game has a MUCH darker/moody feel than the original, and it seems to work pretty well. The prince himself looks great, and was a good blend between "dark" and "arab" to me (I'm Middle Eastern, so I know these things). I should note that there is far more blood in this one than SoT, all just emphizizing the dark feeling of the game.

The high point was definitly the boss at the end of the level. He (it?) was a massive monster who stormed in looking angry and all that jazz. He was about three times the size of the prince, intimidating to say the least. I didn't beat him, but I got the basic gist of it : hit him at his weak spot, he'll crouch in pain, hit A to climb onto his back, and repeatly stab X to smack him on the head with your sword. Eventually, he'll get pissed, pick you up, and toss you away, and you do the whole thing all over again.

The game left a very lasting impression with me. Jeff would be able to tell you that my comments were all similar to "WOAH, AWESOME!", "SHIT! Did you see that?!" and (when being slaughtered by the boss) "Shit, shit, FUCK, REWIND the damn game!". The only thing that isn't right is that you might have noticed that I haven't talked about the adventure portion at all. This is mainly because there wasn't much added to the adventure parts of the game, and there arn't that many adventure parts to the level I played. UbiSoft Montreal weren't kidding when they said that the focus on this game would be combat, because if all the levels are similar to the one I played, there wont be much adventuring at all.

But in my opinion, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The combat is solid and alot of fun. The fact that it's so fluid and dynamic makes it seem like action and adventure in one. When I walked away from the XBox I felt more psyched than ever to get this game when it comes out. December can't get here soon enough, although I'm not sure what WW is going to do to my GPA.

SiN

[Bc9b]

They pormised platforming stuff combined with the combat, so that should show up in later levels.

Blood? Isn't this game suposed to be Teen?

Sounds good though!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I haven't even gotten my hands on the full Sands of Time game yet! I've played the demo to death and back. Hmmm, should look for it for cheap online, I saw it at CompUSA for $20 last weekend but didn't have the cash at the time. Dang it.

[Chris]

I'm still saddened by the reduced amount of platformy jumpy acrobatic elements. I know the combat will be loads of fun but there are other games that already have such things, like Ninja Gaiden and so forth. The platform puzzle bits of Sands of Time were sort of its own domain that it did extraordinarily well.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I agree. But then I haven't played the full game yet, and I loved the 'physical agility' puzzles in the demo.

[manny_c44]

I think I'm the only one, but even after trying to like Pop for about 5 hours into the game, I just didn't. The combat was boring and the platforming felt stilted. The production values were good enough, but in that 5 hour span I don't think I actually had any fun. I can't see what the glowing reviews were about.

I think I'm just getting sick of action games.

[SiN]

Blood? Isn't this game suposed to be Teen?

i guess it is, but im positive i saw blood. and Jeff was able to pull of a decapitation. pretty much, the game is either JUST gonna get a T rating, or it may go mature. either way though, the blood doesnt feel like it was added for the hell of it, it fits the rest of the game very well.

I'm still saddened by the reduced amount of platformy jumpy acrobatic elements. I know the combat will be loads of fun but there are other games that already have such things, like Ninja Gaiden and so forth. The platform puzzle bits of Sands of Time were sort of its own domain that it did extraordinarily well.

agreed, and my opinion prolly didnt come thru with that preview. basically, im pretty sad that the platformy bits are gone, but the game isnt gonna suck because of it. although seeing as WW just runs on (what seems like) an upgraded version of the SoT engine, all the platformy code is still in there ... im quite confident that Ubi will put it to use and have a fair bit of adventuring, but its just not gonna be innovative on anything SoT did. IMO, the adventuring will be there, it just wont be the focus of the game like it was in SoT.

SiN

[Moosferatu]

I actually think that they're going for a Mature rating on this one for some reason. I don't really see their logic in following up a Teen game with a Mature sequal, but whatever.

[Moosferatu]

Awesome. I just went to check the PoP site to see if they had posted the official rating yet and I noticed this at the bottom of the screen,

© 2004 Ubisoft Entertainment. Based on Prince of Persia® created by Jordan Mechner. All Rights Reserved. Ubisoft and the Ubisoft logo are trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the U.S. and/or other countries. Prince of Persia, Prince of Persia The Sands of Time and Prince of Persia Warrior Within are trademarks of Jordan Mechner used under license by Ubisoft Entertainment.

(bold mine)

I knew that Mechner made the original PoPs, but I didn't realize that he owned the rights to it. That's really neat. Too bad more developers don't own the rights to their creations. It'd be great if Tim owned Grim Fandango if only so that LucasArts doesn't get any ideas to screw it over.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Too bad more developers don't own the rights to their creations. It'd be great if Tim owned Grim Fandango if only so that LucasArts doesn't get any ideas to screw it over.

I feel the same way about Jane Jensen with Gabriel Knight.

[Lindset]

There's a PoP:Warrior Within demo for PC out now in case some of you didn't know (it was released today). Download links below (blatantly "stolen" from bluesnews)

http://www.wanadoo.fr/bin/frame2.cgi?u=http://jeuxvideo.wanadoo.fr/pop2.jsp

http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1096480070/

http://www.actiontrip.com/files/demos/princeofpersiawarriorwithin.phtml

http://files.filefront.com/3667081;/pub2/Prince%20of%20Persia%202%20Warrior%20Within/Official%20Demos/

http://www.filerush.com/download.php?target=POP2_Demo.zip

http://www.ggmania.com/?smsid=17121

http://www.gamershell.com/news/17934.html

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=20765

Cheers

[Kolzig]

Yeah, I'll give here even shorter thoughts about the game than I did in AG, I'm too lazy to copy/paste etc.

It feels like a great game.

[SiN]

I knew that Mechner made the original PoPs, but I didn't realize that he owned the rights to it. That's really neat. Too bad more developers don't own the rights to their creations. It'd be great if Tim owned Grim Fandango if only so that LucasArts doesn't get any ideas to screw it over.

yep, i realized that one with the SoT splash screen ... thought it was quite awesome! the best part is that when the guys at UbiSoft had created the prototype for SoT, they had to get into contact with JM, show him the demo, ask for his permission, and only then could they proceed! its great when the developer still retains the power.

SiN

[Wormsie]

I downloaded the demo.

Tell me, what is supposed to be so special about it? Maybe I just can't play games like this. I usually press Space-E-leftclick-rightclick or variations of that sequence, and hope that it works somehow. Action games were better when the only action was SHOOT.

And that "Bitch!!" -thing cracked me up.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I got the demo too. WTF happened to the controls? I can't move the camera around with the mouse anymore. SoT was far more intuitive, and it doesn't seem like the the WW scheme is that much more complicated that they should sacrifice the very nice mouse/keyboard scheme of SoT for it. It's retarded.

Oh, and can someone please help me with my gamepad? I have a Thrustmaster Firestorm Dual thingie and for some reason the driver doesn't get recognized, etc., by my system. It tells me there's an 'unrecognized' hardware plugged into USB but it won't hook up with the installed drivers (which I had updated after uninstalling the original drivers the gamepad came with). Thanks!

[ragnar]

As I wrote in AG, I wasn't too impressed by the demo. The new fighting moves leaves me cold. I didn't become more interested in the fights in this than in SoT. I probably won't play this game. I will probably go play PoP 2 instead (PoP: WW is no 5). I have played PoP 1 and 4 and so far the first is the best imho.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I'm not really taken that much with the new combat moves, either. But then the demo seems to pimp just that, the hot arse 'coolness' of it. Who knows? Maybe the full game will reveal a wealth of opportunities for story and exploration? But if the demo were an overarching indication of what the full game will offer then I think it's lame.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

That headbanger garbage that passes for 'music' sucks. It ruined the otherwise otherworldly exoticism of the game's atmosphere.

[Simon]

As I wrote in AG, I wasn't too impressed by the demo. The new fighting moves leaves me cold. I didn't become more interested in the fights in this than in SoT. I probably won't play this game. I will probably go play PoP 2 instead (PoP: WW is no 5). I have played PoP 1 and 4 and so far the first is the best imho.

Yeah, good point. You should like PoP2. It had some pretty cool ideas to build on the original concept, new magical powers the Prince had. Some of the undead enemies later on become annoying but there's some quite clever little puzzles. It's surprising how much they got out of the same basic game just by adding these new magic mechanics. The original PoP will always be the real classic, but people seem to forget PoP2 altogether, and it had its moments. Great first level.

[Erkki]

Downloading the demo now... I'm sorry to hear many of you are disappointed by it. But thinking back I didn't like where they were going from the day they announced it or about so. But meanwhile I got a bit excited by it.

What do you mean about the music, though? The heavy rock music was very fitting in Sands of Time.

[Erkki]

Played it now. Yes, the menu music indeed doesn't sound appropriate somehow. And I'm not too impressed with the game. Awfully silent in the times between combat. The sound&music in Sands of Time was much better.

[Chris]

I knew that Mechner made the original PoPs, but I didn't realize that he owned the rights to it. That's really neat. Too bad more developers don't own the rights to their creations. It'd be great if Tim owned Grim Fandango if only so that LucasArts doesn't get any ideas to screw it over.

You're totally right that more developers should own the rights to their own, IP, but it's trickier now than it was ten years ago. Mechner hand-crafted POP 1 and almost all of 2 basically single-handedly, so there really wouldn't be any reason for anyone else to own the IP. With something like Grim Fandango, clearly Tim is the driving creative force behind the game but he was in the employ of LucasArts and was working on the title with a hojillion other creative people as well. Again, I agree with you, but it is a less feasable thing these days.

[Jake]

Am I mistaken that a different team is making WW than made SoT?

There's always hope for the next POP game, which is surely already in development

(wasn't WW's development started before SoT was complete?)

[Kolzig]

It might be a different internal team at Ubi Montreal?

[manny_c44]

Yeah, this demo is pretty much a steaming loaf. The last thing I want from Prince of Persia is Butt-Rock and derivative action. The prince used to be almost a game about exploration and puzzling, the combat was never really an all consuming focus...in fact probably the worst part of those original Pop games was the combat. All important issues aside (like how boring and oddly silent the game is), the graphics are a nice continuation of the PoP style, that whole boat scene was well done.