The most ridiculous Prince of Persia game yet?

[syntheticgerbil]

I can't climb a wall made of corn flower though, trust me,I've tried.

This sounds like an interesting story. What put you in that situation?

[brkl]

Oh, come on people. It's a video game. If you're prepared to accept the Prince moving around when time has stopped for everything else, you should be able to accept him climbing the now solid water.

[Murdoc]

The basic answer to all these questions is;

A) Because it's a Video game

Not to lynch you, but that is complete f@#$ing bullshit. (or in other terms, I chose to respectfully disagree)

Here's why;

"It just seems inconsistent with the rules of stopping time they have shown me." (corrected my terrible work spelling)

Video game or not, it's still a creative doohicky that is trying to give me rules and relationships to help establish a believable reality. I worded that sentence to mean that according to the subjects own narrative/rules, what it has given me either seems inconsistent with itself and/or contradictory.

I don't care what medium it is at that point or who the intended audience is; it's sloppy and lame.

I also could be completely wrong in what it was telling me though.

[brkl]

I don't get it, how is it inconsistent?

[Murdoc]

With what has already been explained.

Why, according to their rules of stopping time would water go solid yet other objects react accordingly to normal physics?

Yeah, alright,its not that big of a deal. I give crappier things a lot more leeway. I'm probably still burnt from that other garbage and don't want to give this one any slack.

[Garple]

PoP 2008 was my favourite game of that year. Love love loved that game.

Yeah, it's really not a bad game. I understand people's complaints but my first experience with a PoP game was playing The Warrior Within on an XBOX I bought from gamestop for $50 a couple years ago. Buying the XBOX was my attempt to get back into video games after a 4 year hiatus and my main memory of it was doing a tricky platforming sequence, dying over and over again and having to watch an unskippable fucking cutscene about a hundred times. I was like "this is what I've been missing." Indifferent face. My gaming philosophy is different from most in that it allows me to play Mass Effect 2 on Casual difficulty with no qualms because the combat is not super important to me in that game and I tend to just want to blaze through it. Anyway, my point is, since there are no "game overs" or limited continues in most games anymore, I like the concept of having the gap from failure to restart streamlined. I think the "no-fail" concept everybody hated was actually relatively comparable to regenerating health in FPS games. I wasn't a huge fan of PoP 2008, but I really like not having to click through a continue screen everytime I died. I would actually argue that its a better conceit to have the restart-from-failure mechanic incorporated into the game/story logic than to have a screen that says "you are playing an electronic game and you have failed...would you like to continue playing this electronic game on your XBOX 360 console?"

[Garden Ninja]

Yeah, it's really not a bad game. I understand people's complaints but my first experience with a PoP game was playing The Warrior Within on an XBOX I bought from gamestop for $50 a couple years ago. Buying the XBOX was my attempt to get back into video games after a 4 year hiatus and my main memory of it was doing a tricky platforming sequence, dying over and over again and having to watch an unskippable fucking cutscene about a hundred times. I was like "this is what I've been missing." Indifferent face. My gaming philosophy is different from most in that it allows me to play Mass Effect 2 on Casual difficulty with no qualms because the combat is not super important to me in that game and I tend to just want to blaze through it. Anyway, my point is, since there are no "game overs" or limited continues in most games anymore, I like the concept of having the gap from failure to restart streamlined. I think the "no-fail" concept everybody hated was actually relatively comparable to regenerating health in FPS games. I wasn't a huge fan of PoP 2008, but I really like not having to click through a continue screen everytime I died. I would actually argue that its a better conceit to have the restart-from-failure mechanic incorporated into the game/story logic than to have a screen that says "you are playing an electronic game and you have failed...would you like to continue playing this electronic game on your XBOX 360 console?"

The thing is, everyone who complained that the game was easy because you couldn't die wasn't thinking it through at all. If you fall, Elika saves you and puts you back at the last checkpoint. That is really no different than pretty much any game made these days, except that they chose to represent the fail state with a "You've been saved by magic" animation, rather than a death animation, a "You suck. Wanna try again" screen, and a reload. The game isn't easy because you can't die; it's easy because it's easy. (For what it's worth, Penny Arcade said some similar when it came out.) It's a beautiful artistically, but there is very little challenge in the platforming itself.

[James]

Assuming time was completely stopped standard physics laws wouldn't apply. With time being frozen all of the molecules would be still, classing it as technically a solid, which in combination with the stronger inter-molecular forces in water than present in Ice should make it stronger.

You could also liken the properties of water to those of cornflour when time is slowed to a halt.

BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE AIR MOLECULES? Either stuff moves, in which case stuff falls down and the world doesn't make sense to people who weren't in stopped-time, and it would generally be a disaster, or stuff doesn't move, making water seem solid, but also making anything but a vacuum impassable, or everything is solid except stuff the time-freezer makes contact with, in which case the water thing wouldn't work, or stuff only moves when the narrative requires that they do, which isn't consistent or particularly feasible, but which is the only option that makes for a satisfying outcome. Except possibly the first one, but that would be insane, and not especially different than that Flash Forward programme, but possibly actually good.

At the risk of getting out my depth, as I understand it, time does not have independent existence, and is purely an extraction defined by the movement of things (or the progression of any processes, really). "Stopping time" can only mean anything significant if some but not all movement (or processes) are temporarily ceased. The problem is deciding on a delimiting factor that is consistent and makes any kind of internal sense.

THE PRINCE OF PERSIA

Edited May 18, 2010 by JamesM

[Patters]

BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE AIR MOLECULES? Either stuff moves, in which case stuff falls down and the world doesn't make sense to people who weren't in stopped-time, and it would generally be a disaster, or stuff doesn't move, making water seem solid, but also making anything but a vacuum impassable, or everything is solid except stuff the time-freezer makes contact with, in which case the water thing wouldn't work, or stuff only moves when the narrative requires that they do, which isn't consistent or particularly feasible, but which is the only option that makes for a satisfying outcome. Except possibly the first one, but that would be insane, and not especially different than that Flash Forward programme, but possibly actually good.

I thought of that but it would not only make moving theoretically impossible but also breathing. I decided to disregard under the same principle that the Prince's clothes are manipulated so free of effect of time. One could consider that the molecules when coming into contact with the Prince are affected by his perception of time, yet they cannot affect other molecules, thus gasses would not cause a problem. The breathing though would be a problem.

[toblix]

You guys, I think you're on to something... a fundemental flaw in the game's implementation of time travel!

[Garple]

Well it's easily testable. We just have to try and recreate the results with real time travel.

Anyway: I think the "pausing" of moving water is awesome and hilarious.

[Patters]

Also in things where time is slowed to an incredible degree and one were to move the arm of one who is slowed would probably rip their arm off with the apparent force to them.

[Garple]

Whatever, nerd.

[James]

Well the point is that it all depends on how you define the rules, and how you define the rules is pretty much entirely arbitrary, because it's all impossible. Internally consistent rule sets may be more appealing because they're closer to a conceivable reality, but they also might make it all narratively stupid. So in the end if you're going to accept any sort of time manipulation (manipulated through time), you pretty much have to do it on the game's terms. Well you don't have to, but there isn't much of a logical basis for kicking up a big fuss.

[syntheticgerbil]

So can the Prince take a big piss off the edge of a cliff, freeze time, and then use his urine stream to climb down to a lower level? Can pee be warm when time is stopped?

[Murdoc]

So can the Prince take a big piss off the edge of a cliff, freeze time, and then use his urine stream to climb down to a lower level? Can pee be warm when time is stopped?

I'd play that game.

Anyway I watched giant bombs quick look, ok I was wayyy too harsh on it. The water thing isn't time related, so I'm cool with it.

Im also glad they think the prince looks goofy.

[Erkki]

I pretty much agree about the saving feature. I think I initially thought it was somewhat stupid, but when I thought about it more, it seemed not that different and actually good.

[syntheticgerbil]

So looking more into this, there were be essentially 4 separate versions of this game to play.

The 360/PS3/PC version is be one type of game, the Wii version is supposed to be a puzzler platformer closer to Klonoa according to the one review I can find (it also includes the SNES version of the original Prince of Persia, which is top notch stuff!), the PSP version is supposed to be a 2.5D platformer, and the DS game is supposed to be more similar to the cutesy DS version of PoP 2008.

Eventually I will have to play all these versions myself and see the merits and differences, but what the hell Ubisoft? This is nuts. I don't think they've gone all out like this since offering 3 separate versions of Rayman Raving Rabbids.

[HPopper]

The thing is, everyone who complained that the game was easy because you couldn't die wasn't thinking it through at all. If you fall, Elika saves you and puts you back at the last checkpoint. That is really no different than pretty much any game made these days, except that they chose to represent the fail state with a "You've been saved by magic" animation, rather than a death animation, a "You suck. Wanna try again" screen, and a reload. The game isn't easy because you can't die; it's easy because it's easy. (For what it's worth, Penny Arcade said some similar when it came out.) It's a beautiful artistically, but there is very little challenge in the platforming itself.

I loved PoP 2008, but not nearly as much as The Sands of Time. Here's where I think they went wrong: They tried to make an open-world platformer.

Think about it: In platformers, the core gameplay is about coordination and timing. Your job is simply to navigate an obstacle course and reach some sort of destination. Thus, the challenge comes from the obstacle course itself. Depending on how the course is designed, navigating it can range from simple to crazy-hard. Naturally, in order for a player to get more satisfaction out of conquering these challenges as he/she gets better at the game, you'll want to gradually ramp up the difficulty from beginning to end.

In most platformers, this is done simply by presenting a progression of increasingly challenging levels. Even when giving you a choice of levels to proceed to next, your options usually offer approximately the same challenge: Harder than the previous worlds, easier than the coming ones.

Even games like Metroid, which seem to be one seamless world, are still divided into different levels of difficulty. You can't get into the harder areas until you find the right item. By the time you've obtained this item, you have the skills necessary to tackle the challenge using it unlocks. And open-world games often have a mission structure that gets harder as the game goes on.

PoP 2008 does away with all that. It gives you four huge areas to navigate through, each made up of four smaller "levels". You have to complete all of these to finish the game, but they can be tackled in any order. And there's the problem. The first course to play should be one that players who haven't mastered the game's mechanics can navigate without too much trouble, so they don't immediately give up. Which means, since they want to let you play through any of the courses first, they all have to be kind of easy.

The way the four large areas are laid out makes it so that some of the smaller levels in each are not accessible early in the game. Once you play through a couple of levels, you can obtain a magic spell that lets you use a "jump pad" to do more weird platforming stuff. Using the jump pads lets you progress into the previously inaccessible areas, which, to be fair, are more challenging. However, by halfway through the game, you have access to all four of these spells, which means you have access to every level, which means that every level needs to provide the sort of challenge you'd expect when you were only halfway through a game, or less so.

It never really gets harder than that until the final area, which feels almost unfair in its difficulty since chances are the level(s) you completed just prior to it was relatively simple. By trying to make it non-linear, the designers threw the balance all out of whack. Presumably, because they didn't want you to end up arbitrarily choosing a really hard level early in the game, they made everything easier, so you end up with lots of really simple levels late in the game.

Other than that, I thought everything worked. The style, the characters, the platforming. It all felt fluid and polished and I had fun. But I hope, for the sequel, they abandon the non-linear thing and just make it an increasingly difficult linear adventure, like the SoT trilogy.

Also, that PoP: Forgotten Sands footage made me think of

.

[Garple]

I'd play that game.

"For the hamburgers...I play video games for the hamburgers."

-Chris Remo-

[Garden Ninja]

...words...

That's an excellent analysis. I never really thought about exactly what made the game easy, but I think you're right.

I enjoyed PoP 2008 when I played, but I haven't had any inclination to return to it since, largely because of the limited challenge. (Specifically, the timing for your next action was extremely forgiving.) What was left after that, was some puzzles, some not very interesting combat, and a story that was completely nullified by its ending (supposedly, the DLC has the "true ending", but I haven't played it).

I really enjoyed both Assassins' Creed games more that PoP 2008, and the basic mechanics of platforming in those games are even easier. In both games, the platforming was largely the point of the game, so I think it is the level design and setting. For level design, PoP kept reminding you it was a video game. I know they were supposed to be ruins, but all the levels felt like levels in a video game, rather than a place that real people might have lived at some point. In AC, the levels made sense as actual buildings, and all the people wandering around made the world feel alive. But I do recognize that the lack of people in PoP was a design choice, so I guess I just find living worlds more interesting than completely dead ones. (Post Apocalyptic worlds can be interesting, but largely because of the effect on the people. Totally barren worlds, with little contact outside the group, not so much.)

[James]

Elika is basically an extremely aggressive checkpointing system. Checkpointing is fine, but having one at every jump is kind of like quicksaving before taking any meaningful action, which a lot of people see as a lame way to play games. I'm generally quite quicksave-happy, but doing it to that degree did kind of cheapen things for me. But as I said in the big post in the old thread, that wasn't my main problem with the game.

[Murdoc]

Yeha I agree James, I didn't like it but my biggest problem was mostly presentation and art design.

I like the "style" they went for, but I felt the enemy designs looked way too much like something from Todd Mcfarlne or marvel. The presentation was really poor too, the introduction to the characters and story was really sloppy. The characters were f'ing annoying, a lot due to the designs and voice acting.

It just lost the foundation of "persia" authenticity and went to far into the crazy fantasy world. They used cuneiform as an inspiration for the effects and interface(the swirly bits and shit) but the execution just ended up being that generic vector graphic design wall art look thats been kicking around for the last few years(Maybe because they were influenced by the same source?)

The character proportions were really annoying too; it might work really awesome for Peter Chung cartoons, but didn't look good in 3d, nor did it with the very anglo-saxon looking persians. The girl was literally concept of an actress(I think Portman, I can't remember, but the making of video showed the concept artist painting over someones face to get a cartoon version and thats what they ended up with)

And as much as everyone said the movement and such was the same as Sands of Time(maybe it was) I remember it feeling off, where as Sands felt really nice.

Anyway thats mostly my issues with it.

That aside, while I was at Ubisoft I saw the pitch video for what it was going to be. While the "style" wasn't as refined, the concept of the game was pretty killer. They wanted to make Prince of Persia into Shadow of the Collussus and really tap into the 1001 nights. The prince looked normal and the girl was more of a white haired ghost. The french hire ups felt she didn't feel human enough and it was weird(I thought it was awesome)

You also rode around a tiger or some mythical beast from location to location and did jumping puzzels(Look up Amano's HERO to get the kind of vibe I'm talking about)

Anyway, it was a mystical kind of thing that was a departure from Sands but looked really cool and something I would be more inclinded to enjoy then Pop2008.

[syntheticgerbil]

The girl was literally concept of an actress(I think Portman, I can't remember, but the making of video showed the concept artist painting over someones face to get a cartoon version and thats what they ended up with)

Definitely just copied her likeness from Portman, I remember that.

I also agree with all of your complaints about the art style, especially the weird proportions and the constant problem of white people being Persian that has almost plagued the whole series.

I guess now that you mention it, I do remember the early video with the white haired Elika. Do you have a source that it was an Ubisoft higher-up decision, Murdoc, to change her to someone more "likable" or is it more of a hunch you had? I mean, it wouldn't be the first time I've heard of executives wanting different things than the designers at Ubisoft.

[elmuerte]

A college simply walking into the store during lunch and picked up the game for XBox360.

What an idiot.