syntheticgerbil

Prince of Persia 3: The Clunky Ass

Recommended Posts

So after months of struggling through Prince of Persia 3D in my quest to play all Prince of Persias finally in order, I have finally finished it. I can't believe this game once received good to lukewarm reviews. I can't believe it seems to have some kind of cult following around internet forums. I'm guessing it's all people still running Pentium 2s, but still... Has else anyone here forced themselves to finish Prince of Persia 3D?

I'm not fully sure but I'm guessing this game had a long development time judging by the atrocious graphics. In 1999 a game like this shouldn't have looked so bad. What's hilarious is that the intro is passable but awkward 3D which seems to have been farmed out to a different company. Suddenly after the intro, all cutscenes use in game models with blurry and smudgy textures and chunky 3D that moves all stilted and has the worst lip synching ever where the 3D mouths just kind of open up into a diamond shape and go back again. This is continued throughout the game up until the ending movie where the scene abruptly changes back to the company that did the intro, almost like a bad glitch in the movie file.

I suppose this stuff wouldn't be so horrible in game if it were mixed with backgrounds that showed someone was actually trying, but almost everything is a square room or jagged blurry and stretched organic surface that makes no sense on how to traverse it. There is hardly any architecture which to speak of. Everything is gaudy or unidentifiable.

I started playing this game with the Dreamcast version first, because I heard it fixed the game's notorious bugs, and while it did, they also apparently just chopped off a third of the game because levels were broken or uneven. I don't blame them, there was one level which consisted of me going up a bunch of cliff face platforms one by one, fighting a guy, going back down new platforms one by one, only to go back up again and repeat the same thing about three times over. There was no slick jumping or really any thinking involved. Most of the thinking in this game is just trying to distinguish what jagged polygon is scalable and which isn't.

So I just went ahead and played the PC version, bugs and all, because even if I'm playing a bad game, I'd like it complete. There was a lot of idiotic platforming sins like me having to walk with moving platforms I'm standing on because the game's collision detection or something is screwed up and making me slide off to my death if I dare stand still. Overall there wasn't really any notable bugs, although I did install the patch first.

But the major bug that does exist is that all enemies are kind of screwed up. This isn't really a bad thing since the combat is complete ass. It comes off as a bunch of sword dorks who were really excited about their "realistic" fighting animations and not actually making a good game. If I did have to do a battle legitmately, it just involved a lot of reloading (luckily the PC version has instant reload and save, an awesome feature preventing madness) until I was not significantly hurt upon finishing the battle. Instead of doing this, I could get enemies stuck and immovable about 80% of the time by either dancing by pressing sword moves over and over from a distance (kind of looks like a gay disco since the game is so gaudy and the enemies sometimes dance too while bad techno music plays) or I could just coax an enemies outside of their boundaries in which they'd just freeze.

There was one guy who was stuck inside a floor and a major boss fight where the boss was just running into a wall. Great hilarity and even though it shows poorly on the game, I don't miss the fighting at all, the clunkiness of everything else that is supposed to make Prince of Persia classic is bad enough.

This game controls so bad. Everything is slow. The Prince climbs and jumps so mindnumbingly slow. When you run, apparently it's impossible for humans to turn without going in some kind of half assed loops, so I frequently would just hit walls over and over, coming to a complete stop. The way you climb and get off ropes is one of the most idiotic platform mechanics I've ever encountered. I can't believe anyone thought that would be cool to put in the game. He even dies slow. It's sort of fitting this prince is so chunky even though he's supposed to be the same guy from 1 and 2.

I would love a detailed account of how involved Jordan Mechner was in this or what he contributed as design consultant, because it almost seems like he's disappointed in that making of video. Has he ever said anything publicly about what garbage Prince of Persia 3D is? It seems very obvious that he didn't have much input in the story, which involves a man who has a buff tiger as a son who is interested in having sex with the prince's wife.

Anyway, I already went on to Sands of Time after this crap to cleanse myself and beat it within two days. It is so incredibly different and good that I think it nearly erased Prince of Persia 3D from history. Too bad Warrior Within is next up for me and I'm going to feel this pain all over again.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
So after months of struggling through Prince of Persia 3D in my quest to play all Prince of Persias finally in order, I have finally finished it.

Oh man, really? You're playing all of them? In order? That's some pretty staggering highs and lows, heh.

I'm not fully sure but I'm guessing this game had a long development time judging by the atrocious graphics. In 1999 a game like this shouldn't have looked so bad.

I seem to remember that game having had a number of fairly notorious delays, yeah.

Anyway, I already went on to Sands of Time after this crap to cleanse myself and beat it within two days. It is so incredibly different and good that I think it nearly erased Prince of Persia 3D from history. Too bad Warrior Within is next up for me and I'm going to feel this pain all over again.

Warrior Within was such a soul crushing experience for me, i was so incredibly excited about it after being one of the people extolling the virtues of Sands of Time.

First time i played Warrior Within, i managed to wedge myself into an endless loop in the game's marginally open-ended environment. Created a situation in which some scripting evidently broke, and a series of puzzles across several rooms fed into eachother with no escape.

Then there was the disastrous characterization of the Prince, the cataclysmically awful supporting characters, and fucking GodSmack on the fucking soundtrack.

Egh...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Because I love taking every chance I can to bitch about the trash that is Warrior Within:

First time i played Warrior Within, i managed to wedge myself into an endless loop in the game's marginally open-ended environment. Created a situation in which some scripting evidently broke, and a series of puzzles across several rooms fed into eachother with no escape.

Oh man I wish that had happened to me. It would have improved my experience so much, if only because it is hilarious.

I am utterly convinced that Warrior Within was crafted to make the player as angry as possible. Everything from the angsty fucking Prince to the shitty fucking music to the eye-bleeding fucking colors. I want to stab every individual who had a part in that game.

I may have been able to tolerate it more if it weren't so combat heavy. The combat in Sands of Time was boring, but at least it was easy. In WW, I made it to the final boss and fucking gave up. I honestly wish I had given up earlier. It was not worth it. UGH.

Two Thrones was marginally better, but nowhere near as good as Sands of Time.

(Also, I loved PoP2008. Don't give a shit that it was "too easy".)

As for Prince of Persia 3D? I've never heard anything but bad things. Glad you were able to reconfirm its awfulness for me so I don't have to play it!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Oh man, really? You're playing all of them? In order? That's some pretty staggering highs and lows, heh.

Hah yeah, it's been a long time coming for me to get to them. I decided about 5 years back to try them all based on Sands of Time, having only experienced and finished Prince of Persia 1 in my childhood and also having failed miserably on getting past the third level of Prince of Persia 2.

I spent a good year just going through different ports of the first game though before I moved on just to see all of the differences.

I guess going from the experience you guys had, I'll be back in a month or so posting about how garbage Warrior Within was (Although from the search function it appears there's already been like 10 threads on Warrior Within over the years). I'm expecting to have some fun with Two Thrones and definitely the next gen ones, but I can't say for sure.

Oh yeah, since I'm playing them all, here's a mini-review of Prince of Persia: Harem Adventures for cell-phones:

Harem Adventures is okay for an old cell phone, but I have no idea why this thing was made. It appears Ubisoft put it out before Sands of Time and after scooping up the Prince of Persia rights from Broderbund/Mechner. It's just an extremely simplified version of the mechanics from the first game with about 7 levels.

prince4.gif

What is hilarious about this game is that the storyline is about rescuing the Sultan's harem, which was all kidnapped, but as you save all of the women, they all offer you half assed innuendo of sexual favors. Some don't even hide it and straight up tell you they are going to have sex with you. There's a fat harem woman who says the Sultan only uses her once a week and she is saving you, the prince, for the rest of the days.

I don't know what the hell, it seems like this game was made to be a wrapper for 204x176 pictures of sexy women. I've never understood the older cell phone gaming culture and it's needs to have blatant cheesecake stuff in almost every game. Did people originally buy cell phone games so they could masturbate away from home? Are these games for poor countries who don't have internet access but have a cell phone?

Prince of Persia: Harem Adventures, 7/5 stars, highly recommended.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I must be the only one that liked the art direction of what I remember seeing from Warrior Within.

I'll start out by saying I never played the game because everything else made me sad. But I applaud Ubisoft for taking such a huge direction change in the art from Sands of Time, I thought it looked good and was really neat on how they were trying to change things from up from the mystical fairy tale into a dark consequence of the first game... remember this was before every game was dark and fucking brown. But yeah, from the sounds of it they took it too far, made a shit character and story with gameplay nothing like the first.

I just liked the idea of making a sequel with a completely different tone and palette.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Two Thrones is tolerable, and PoP '08 is actually really quite good aside from ending on a frustrating cliff-hanger with no follow-up in sight. The next main game after that had jumped back to the Sands of Time continuity, serving as a midquel somewhere in amongst those earlier three games. I'm not sure about that one, i didn't play it, but i heard it was ok.

Also, if you want to talk weird PoP spin-offs, there was a turn-based strategy game on the DS that incorporated elements of collectible card games. I've even played it, i remember it being actually not that bad, just really terribly ugly.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I must be the only one that liked the art direction of what I remember seeing from Warrior Within.

I'll start out by saying I never played the game because everything else made me sad. But I applaud Ubisoft for taking such a huge direction change in the art from Sands of Time, I thought it looked good and was really neat on how they were trying to change things from up from the mystical fairy tale into a dark consequence of the first game... remember this was before every game was dark and fucking brown. But yeah, from the sounds of it they took it too far, made a shit character and story with gameplay nothing like the first.

I just liked the idea of making a sequel with a completely different tone and palette.

Making something darker and edgier isn't exactly a risky business proposition, it's a depressingly common tool for attempting to reinvigorate interest in a property that is perceived as failing. It's painfully obvious that the direction Ubisoft took that game in was not motivated by creative drive. (Nor have "dark and brown" games only been around since the mid oughts, Quake says hi.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I just liked the idea of making a sequel with a completely different tone and palette.

So do I, but when it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And Warrior Within goes above and beyond "not working".

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
...PoP '08 is actually really quite good aside from ending on a frustrating cliff-hanger with no follow-up in sight.

Is this even after purchasing that Epilogue DLC? If so, that's some BS.

Also, if you want to talk weird PoP spin-offs, there was a turn-based strategy game on the DS that incorporated elements of collectible card games. I've even played it, i remember it being actually not that bad, just really terribly ugly.

Haha, yep, that's to be played after Two Thrones. I didn't realize it was a collectible card game. For some reason I was under the impression that it was an RTS. So I guess it's going to be more like Metal Gear Acid then?

remember this was before every game was dark and fucking brown. But yeah, from the sounds of it they took it too far, made a shit character and story with gameplay nothing like the first.

Really? I don't fully remember now, but I seem to have the impression that it was riding the coattails of when that dark/violent thing was big in games. It's appropriate for Legacy of Kain and all, but I recall that sort of thing being injected into many things in the mid 2000s. I blame American McGee's Alice for spawning it all.

Also I should say I think I'm really going to hate Warrior Within above all else for having Godsmack as part of the soundtrack. What the hell? The audience for that band can't really intersect with the types who would play Prince of Persia let alone platformer games, can it?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Is this even after purchasing that Epilogue DLC? If so, that's some BS.

The epilogue DLC sort of back pedals on some of the more interesting and radical elements of the cliff-hanger, but generally still leaves the game without a conclusion, so it's kind of a double bummer.

Haha, yep, that's to be played after Two Thrones. I didn't realize it was a collectible card game. For some reason I was under the impression that it was an RTS. So I guess it's going to be more like Metal Gear Acid then?

It's been a long time since i played that thing, i honestly don't really remember much about the game mechanics. I remember enjoying it, at the very least, heh.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I actually liked the ending to PoP2008. It doesn't really... bother me when a story ends on a cliffhanger, as long as it works. I don't remember the details, but I know I didn't walk away frustrated.

I did watch the DLC cutscenes on YouTube, since the PC never got it (I would've bought it, too), and I was disappointed. Wish I hadn't watched 'em. Kind of ruined the "actual" ending.

Still, I wish they would release a sequel to THAT game, instead of fucking Forgotten Sands (which by all reports is a good game, but it's not 2008-2). If there's one thing Ubisoft tends to be good at, it's sequels. They know how to improve on their flaws. See: Assassin's Creed 2!

But here we are, no sequel in sight. Oh well.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Really? I don't fully remember now, but I seem to have the impression that it was riding the coattails of when that dark/violent thing was big in games. It's appropriate for Legacy of Kain and all, but I recall that sort of thing being injected into many things in the mid 2000s. I blame American McGee's Alice for spawning it all.

Also I should say I think I'm really going to hate Warrior Within above all else for having Godsmack as part of the soundtrack. What the hell? The audience for that band can't really intersect with the types who would play Prince of Persia let alone platformer games, can it?

Okay, I should have said wasn't done to death like it is none, it still happened. And yes, with everything else attached to the direction they were just doing something ridiculous with the franchise, but art direction alone I think could have worked if they treated everything else with a little tact.

And yes, looking at the 2004 releases, dark seemed to be the in thing, I guess it was to combat the happy time that was 2003.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Did you write already a review about Prince of Persia: The Shadow and the Flame, aka PoP2?

I'd really like to hear your take on that.

I believe that PoP3D was really bad, I remember playing it or a demo of it once a really long time ago and it was so horrible.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is actually set in between the Sands of Time and Warrior Within, so you could always play that next instead of WW. You will have to play it eventually, though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Did you write already a review about Prince of Persia: The Shadow and the Flame, aka PoP2?

I'd really like to hear your take on that.

I believe that PoP3D was really bad, I remember playing it or a demo of it once a really long time ago and it was so horrible.

I thought I had posted somewhere on the forums about PoP2, but I don't even see it in the recently completed list anywhere. I found it extremely tough, but somewhat fair. The biggest problem was just long stretches in between my next checkpoint, so making sure I did everything right and master the combat in between was difficult. I do like how improved the swordfighting was over the first Prince of Persia, which you can just sort of keep pressing the hit button over and over to win, but the correct timing on things like those flying heads, fighting three in a row, then doing the exact jumps, and fighting one more was just tough.

I also played it on an old mac I tracked down so I could get the higher resolution graphics. Very smooth looking.

I think Prince of Persia 2 took a few months to get through too, but it wasn't unenjoyable like 3D, just too intense to keep playing all at once. If I recall, as the game got near the end, the levels became more story based, clever (like little tricks and less large sprawling levels of platforms), and easier to get through.

It also had a few of those old game world peculiarities where you have to do some things out of no where without precedence:

riding the pegasus by jumping on it from a ledge, making the bridge with the skeleton collapse just right so you can fall in the right area, dying so that you can complete a level (I kept reloading a game there), and all of stuff in the end game with the optical illusion runs.

I can't really fault the game for that because it was a game from a time where you'd spend a year or more chipping away at the game and finding the correct thing to do to get on to the next level. I don't think anything was like that in the first game though.

Also that weird shadow trick is never really explained in the game nor does the game let you know when you can do it. It's all in the manual only. Very strange.

Still super enjoyable and lots of platforming fun, just made me sweat bullets.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Are you also going to play the

?

This one was different enough from the original that it could probably be considered a new game, if you intend on doing a complete run through the series, you should check out the trial at least.

In fact, given that the original game was ported and remade so many times, have you looked into any of the alternate versions?

I actually liked the ending to PoP2008. It doesn't really... bother me when a story ends on a cliffhanger, as long as it works. I don't remember the details, but I know I didn't walk away frustrated.

Oh, i didn't hate it, i thought that game ended on a pretty interesting note. I just would really like to see that paid off, eventually. The fact that they jumped back to the Sands of Time continuity for the next game doesn't give me hope.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah I finished PoP Classic already. I think in another thread around here I was speaking about how random and broken the combat was, making that one achievement of beating the game without dying impossible. They also made the last boss incredibly cheap. The cutscenes are also horrendous. The actual game though, the core part, works nicely though, with the added acrobatic stuff very welcome to the game. I think they also nicely updated it so the game is not so masochistic and newer players can enjoy it.

I've played Prince of Persia DOS, Megadrive, SNES, Game Gear, Sega CD, Game Boy Color, Cell Phone version of Classic (Where time goes double speed for some inexplicable reason!!!), Turbografx 16, and will play the hi-res Mac version at some point.

The Megadrive version (but not the Genesis one) and the SNES version both have extra levels but different ones. The SNES one is so jam packed it's almost a different game.

Edited by syntheticgerbil

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hah, you are being quite thorough then.

I agree about PoP Classic, the combat kind of wrecks what would otherwise be a very nice version of the game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

With PoP 1&2, how well did you do with the time limits? I haven't played #1 since I was a kid (or #2 at all), but I remember that I never finished it because I could never do it fast enough.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think my record on the original is around 32 minutes in one go, maybe even less.

I have no idea anymore with Prince of Persia 2 because there was so much saving and loading going on that time was the most irrelevant part. Maybe I finished with 30 minutes left I want to say? That game also had a larger level in the beginning that didn't start the clock unless you died, so I kept reloading on it and letting the clock start naturally the next level over. I also haven't done a straight run on either, it's just a matter or reloading the level every time I die.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So I figured I'd do my Warrior Within update here since the 20+ Idlethumbs threads going over the game are all locked now and this thread is already about bad Prince of Persia games.

The major thing that sucks about this game is that it's actually quite good. A lot of the gameplay is solid here aside from the combat system. There's more platforming than Sands of Time, trickier traps, harder and more elaborate world puzzles, and neat acrobatic stuff. I'm very happy to keep playing that type of game, because I was very afraid that I'd mostly spend my time on the ground fighting bad guys.

The only major thing marring the platforming and trekking is the amount of idiotic backtracking. I'd read complaints before about backtracking in this game and I assumed it was similar to the complaints I hear about practically any game that requires you to go back for something, namely there's usually one trip back. In this game, I think I did many paths three full times for the actual base game while if you're collecting all the crap like I'm obligated to do, some will have you going up to five times through the same place. I'm not even counting stuff where you do the same area in the past or present except with a change landscape and different platforms, that's fine to me. This game ended up pretty exhausting near the end while I much more enjoyed Sands of Time's completely linear path.

The combat was really nothing special to me but not a burden like I was thinking it would be. At a few points it could be fun. I had a hard time at first until I really started getting used to the revised sand powers in this game, which I in fact find better than Sands of Time. The second weapon ordeal where it gives you a major edge in combat and you're almost fucked if you don't have one seems broken to me. Eventually I just learned to always keep a second weapon. There were a bunch of combos you could do in some ridiculously long ass menu but they had little impact on the game and really you just needed to memorize two or three button presses. I had no idea what combos you could do with what sword and what kind of timing was required to pull them off (Pressing the combination of buttons ahead of time seemed to work better for me than spacing them out). There was also a bunch of useless stuff where the secondary weapons had stats that seemed to make no impact on the game whatsoever.

I guess I am glad the combat was the way it was because I thought the combat sequences would be as long as they were in Sands of Time but double that. Sands of Time's fighting was very slow and methodic, requiring you to remember what to do with each type of enemy. You didn't get the power to rush through the enemies until much later in the game. In Warrior Within, fights happened quick, enemies died much faster, and just didn't really pose any major threat as obstacles 80% of the time. I'm curious to see how Two Thrones balances this stuff out now.

So I'm actually surprised I really liked playing this game for the most part. What makes it a bad game is just all of the cosmetic stuff in it's entirety. If there's anyone that says story, art direction, music, or any of the "fluff" does not make a game, Warrior Within is a prime example. All of that stuff just dragged it down to the depths. I don't know what else I can say that hasn't been already said a thousand fold on the internet. I guess I'll quickly break down my thoughts:

Music was horrible obnoxious trash that I wished would turn off, story either made no sense or was just a load of deus ex machinas, dialogue was laughable throughout, the women were straight out of a porno (big boobs do not float up in the air perky like that), 80% of the environments were absolutely drab and uninteresting, and the prince was just an appalling unlikeable character who had very little motivation to be that way, especially coming off who he was in Sands of Time.

But I guess Warrior Within did pretty well financially with the bro gamers. Here are parts from a choice review I found:

You might remember what I said about Sands of Time saying it was quite frankly gay. Well, Warrior Within is the opposite of that; totally bad ass and cool... I guess the designers of the Prince of Persia series realized that Sands of Time was quite gay, so they released a new POP; Warrior Within. Warrior Within is aimed at a much more mature audience. In other words, theres gore; allot of gore, and some sexual scenes. The combat system is much more evolved, you can perform really bad ass combos, throw weapons, decapitate enemies, etc.
Edited by syntheticgerbil

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Never did play Warrior Within, but interested in finding out the gameplay was actually good and the platforming stuff sounds like something I'd want to play... just cant get over everything else to do it.

Also, I'm not 100% sure, but the link from that review going to the writers sit, it might be an ironic blog to poke fun of the bro... at least that's my hope.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Also, I'm not 100% sure, but the link from that review going to the writers sit, it might be an ironic blog to poke fun of the bro... at least that's my hope.

I dunno, after looking at his Facebook page and stuff, he does just seem like a hateful prick.

Anyway, synth, the most important thing is that after playing all the games you watch the film!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Actually the film isn't too bad for what it is. It's a fairly average slice of dumb Summer blockbuster. Mostly :tmeh: with a sprinkling of :tup:

(The :tup: basically being whenever Alfred Molina is onscreen)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now