Enslaved

Well, it’s been a really long time since I last posted. Sorry about that. But, in good news, I actually have comments on a game and I’m not too late to actually chime in on it. Well, except that I beat it over a week ago, so I could have been right on the bleeding edge, but, no, I had to put off writing about it. So, now, there’s already a bunch of stuff written about it and I won’t actually be adding anything new. Darn.

Moving on, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.

When I first heard that title during one of the “Here’s some random stuff we saw at E3” posts, I pretty much dismissed it. That name downright sucks. I mean, even when we shorten it down to just Enslaved, it’s still not very good. It evokes all the wrong images (very MMO feeling). If you even dare try to say Odyssey to the West, you’ll just start feeling foolish. So, yeah, they really should have gone back to the drawing board on that one.

Admittedly, I don’t know what they should have done instead. The main character’s name is Monkey. So, that won’t work. The other main character’s name is Trip. Which is even worse. Trying to use those names in a pun would just be stupid. So, yeah, I give up, let’s stick with Enslaved.

So, let’s start with my reaction to the demo (which, oddly enough, convinced me to go out and buy the game). I didn’t like it. I thought the controls were too loose and the platforming was just weak and the gameplay overall felt incredibly last-gen. Or even older. I mean, even in Super Mario 64, you could fall to your death. But, no, not in this game. Here, you can only go where they want you to go, no matter how hard you try.

Then there was the combat. It skipped locking the camera to hide the fact that it was super simplistic (it feels like you’re doing a lot more when you’re having to always concentrate on where the camera is/should be). But, that was when I saw the first thing I kind of liked (aside from the fact that I rather like simplistic combat since I’m usually pretty bad otherwise).

During one of the fights, I activated one of the slow motion kills that these types of games often have these days. But this one was different. In, let’s say, Batman: Arkham Asylum, the slow-mo effect is used to worship the overwhelming power of the Batman. You can see his grim visage and bulging muscles while the minion is flying backwards, mouth wide open in a silent scream of pain as he is, most likely, not going to be using that limb for a long time. In Enslaved, the focus is on Monkey. And he doesn’t look grim or professional or even all that powerful, really. He looks scared. Desperate. Tired. Probably in a little pain. This wasn’t a celebration of the player character’s power fantasy. This was the look of someone fighting for his life. Again and again and again.

“That was really cool”, I thought to myself. Games don’t normally show me something like that. Later in the demo, the game established that Monkey gets enslaved by Trip and is recruited to help her get back home. His reaction was perfect. Resigned agreement. This character was truly from the world of this game. All he knew was struggle and so it never even occurred to him to question his fate. In this world, everyone deserves whatever they get. It was kind of sad.

And so, I decided that I’d wait and see how the first couple reviews would come out. They all pretty much said the same thing: gameplay sucks but the story is both well-told and worth telling. So, I bought it.

And played through it.

Now, given more time with it, I realized something. Mainly, that the voice of Trip is Lindsey Shaw. Also known as Moze from the Nickelodeon show Ned’s Declassified School Survivor Guide. Which was pretty good. In case you’re curious, she doesn’t really look like Trip. But when I hear her voice, I think of a 14-year old version of her (Lindsey Shaw, not Trip). She’s in her 20s now, though, so...yeah. This isn’t the first time this has happened with a Ninja Theory game, though. Their last game, Heavenly Sword, featured the voice talent of one, Anna Torv, who has now become at least a moderate star since being the lead in Fringe. Interestingly, she didn’t look like her character in that game either. And both characters were both red-heads, oddly enough (although neither of them actually are). I will say that I think Trip is slightly cuter than Nariko, although I don’t think either of their character designs were exactly focused on providing male players with eye candy to convince them to play the respective games. Aside from the exposed mid-riffs.

Gameplay-wise, I actually rather enjoyed the combat as the game continued. Overall, I really liked the pacing of the game, period. I thought that they did a good job of upping the stakes and challenging the player (with the simplistic combat). Early on, the idea of trying to fight more than three of the mechs at the same time was pretty scary, but by the end, you were regularly taking on 5-8 at a time. And you were often in a hurry to get through them, so you were fighting sloppily and Monkey’s post fighting, post damage tired walk felt pretty well earned. The controls stopped feeling loose and started feeling, well, accurate. This was a big guy with a lot of mass and he gets rather beat up. It’s not his fault he can’t stop on a dime (unless there’s an invisible wall, of course).

I thought the big action set piece managed to get a nice variety as well. Also, I liked that we saw bosses in multiple contexts. Most bosses first appeared as, essentially, environmental puzzles that would later on become a true “fight”. The game spent a lot of time building up the “Dog” boss as we kept having to run away from it. Finally getting to face up against it, and eventually have it running away from you, was surprisingly satisfying. That was a well told, well executed boss.

Plus, the environments were, quite often, something special. There’s one point, where you’ve lost Trip and you’re trying to find her in this village. Not long ago, it was a peaceful village and you can see how the buildings are made from century-year-old trash. But, in my hurry to find her, I almost missed the playground made of trash. Or the formerly discarded couch that’s now being used for sitting back and enjoying the view from this mountain village. I had to remember that this game is different from a lot of other games. It’s full of imagination and beauty, and destruction and poverty. It’s worth stopping to take a look around.

Like when you realize the mountain you’ve been climbing for the past level is the back of a giant, long-destroyed mech and now you’re walking on its arm, towards the palm of its ancient hands. There’s a history to this world. A bloody and sad one, but we never really get to know it. It’s not clear that anyone knows it anymore. There’s simply legends and remnants of the world that was and the facts of the world as it is now.

So, yeah, is it a bad game? Well, it’s a godawful platformer, no matter how generous you want to be. But, it’s certainly not a bad game. And you have to give Ninja Theory credit for making a beautiful game with the Unreal 3 Engine. The Batman team couldn’t do it and I’m not sure if Epic themselves has ever really tried. While some people liked the ending, I thought it was a pretty typical Alex Garland ending. He seems to really struggle with endings that actually fit within the world he’s been building. At least when he’s working with Danny Boyle, he gets reigned in a little bit. But, no, this one downright disagrees with the world as it’s been established since the first level.

Also, I was never entirely clear who it was that we were stealing the giant mech from, anyways. And what were they going to do with it, for that matter? But, well, that’s Alex Garland for ya.

I will say that if there’s any opportunity to play with these characters more, either in DLC or sequels, I’ll be ready with my wallet out. So, you know what, I’m just going to go ahead and say it. It was a good game. Maybe not a great game, but closer than most games get to being great. It managed to succeed at almost everything that other games struggle with. The character and voice work is flawless. The story is both epic in scale and carefully focused on a small, well-developed cast. Have I mentioned how good the character and facial animations are? Oh, I did? Well, they’re all really good. They tell the story and develop the characters better than all the dialogue in the world.

I just wished they had checked out some of the other platformers that have been made in the last 5 years to see what people have been doing. Because, well, that part feels rather dated. But then again, I think this whole reaction is fairly similar to the way people thought about the original Uncharted (Drake’s Fortune, hey another weak name for a game). So, who knows, that game significantly improved the gameplay in the second one without sacrificing the story telling skills and voice work and animation that they’d pulled off in the first one.

Man, now I really want there to be a sequel...

That is all.

Francis

High School of the Dead

Okay, let’s make a couple things clear before I get too deep into this one. For one, I have no idea what the creators of this ridiculous anime were thinking when they decided that the appropriate acronym would be HOTD. Everyone knows that stands for House of the Dead. I mean, c’mon, it was made by Sega for crying out loud. That’s a Japanese company. They should seriously do a better job of protecting their acronyms from their fellow countrymen who can apparently barely speak Engrish.

Anyways, I’m going to be referring to it as HSOTD, to avoid confusion with Sega’s little zombie arcade/Wii/et al games.

Next, I want to make it clear that at no point have I ever thought to myself, anything like: “Man, zombies are cool but there’s a serious lack of animated panty shots of Japanese schoolgirls in the vast majority of the currently existing zombie records.” But, somebody else did, and I couldn’t help but find out what the results of this odd experiment would be.

It is a little uncomfortable that they occasionally try to censor the gore or whatever by cutting to a shot looking up the skirt of the victim...typically with blood flying onto what you can see of the victim’s skirt. I mean, I’m hardly a fan of gratuitous shots of Japanese schoolgirl panties when they aren’t currently being consumed by the living dead and adding that in hardly changes my mind.

But, again, that’s what they’re doing and I’m watching it, so kudos to them for making the call.

Okay, on to the show. So far, I’ve only seen the first two episodes. I do rather like that it starts off fast. There is no transition period from normal to apocalypse. Once the first zombie appears, there’s three more before we’ve established anything beyond what three of the main characters look like. I kind of like the idea that anime is sufficiently cliched that they barely have to show us more than a single flashback and a brief conversation establishing a former love lost to tell us everything we need to know about the characters. That no other facet of their lives is even remotely unique (not that this detail is) and so we already know our characters and their lives and we haven’t even met them yet.

In any case, it means that we are only going to know these characters in the context of the destruction of their world. I also rather like the main character’s reaction to seeing the first zombie attack and victim. He doesn’t question it; he doesn’t doubt it. He simply reacts. He gets his two friends and says we need to get out of here. He moves as fast as he possibly can, resorting to hitting his crush to make his point.

And he still wasn’t fast enough. They still couldn’t escape even the madness in the school, let alone the outside city. Although, I did like a lot of the imagery of the riot within the school as the kids try to get out. As they kill each other, trying to get out. Reaching and grabbing and tackling, with mouths open in wild constant wild screams, they were already zombies and they didn’t even know it.

What can I say? This is a surprisingly angry and subversive little show. They aren’t wasting their zombies or their violence. They might be wasting their panty shots. And the random giant breasts shots, but we won’t hold those against them.

As for the zombies, I rather like them. They are a little cooler than your classic slow Romero zombies. They’re strong. Before the girl learns how to deal with them, she sticks one with her pole. It grabs the pole, still impaled, and slams her against the wall. That’s a pretty kick ass zombie response.

Even better, though, was when one of the characters puts the zombie in a hold that it can’t escape from or bite him. It responds by twisting its head an inhuman 120 degrees or so and bites him in the shoulder. It was brilliant. Admittedly, that means that neck injuries probably shouldn’t kill them for continuity’s sake, but well, we’ll worry about that when we get there.

Later, they had some slightly more obvious instances of the humans responding poorly to the zombies, like these two girls who promise to stay together and protect each other, until moments later one of them gets grabbed and the other girl has to beat her to let go of her hand so that she can escape without her. Neither survives of course.

Anyways, after the first episode I was impressed enough to definitely want to watch more, and the second episode had something the first never even hinted at: a character arc. I’m serious. I admit I certainly wasn’t expecting one of those anywhere in the show.

And, more importantly, it was a really cool character arc. In the first episode, one of the survivor types is this rather obnoxious “genius” girl with pink hair. For awhile, she’s confident and self-assured and learning about the zombies and keeping her fellow survivor in line. But she’s slowly becoming more hysterical, more in need of people’s respect and less deserving of it. Until she finally cracks and nearly sabotages herself and her partner’s escape with her pride and theatrics.

It was really well done. The breakdown was very slow, over the course of the two episodes. And I liked that the episode ended with her taking out her contacts out and switching to glasses. A visual reminder that she’s been humbled, humiliated even, and that her self image is no longer something she can, or should protect. She has to give it up to survive.

So, yeah, I’m thoroughly impressed. This is way more intelligent than the incorrect acronym or the random panty shots would possibly suggest. Or, maybe, I’m just giving them way too much credit. There are already hints that we’re going to see some sort of stupid love triangle... But, it’s not there yet and so I still have faith.

That is all.

Francis

Clash of the Titans

Well, I’ve come to the official conclusion that I need to stop doing long summary posts where I talk about a lot of things in very little detail. That’s, like, the exact opposite of what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to be talking way too much about a single topic that I’ve been obsessing over. And, I have not been obsessing over Chuck. Or House. Or V. Or Stargate Universe. I have been obsessing over Human Target a little bit, but it’s hard not to when you have back to back guest stars in Grace Park and Moon Bloodgood.

In any case, I have been obsessing over Justified.

But, because I spent all that time writing about those shows I didn’t even care about, I didn’t write about nearly enough of the random things I wanted to write about Justified.

Like how the opening theme is extremely reminiscent of True Blood. I don’t know why that should be the case, but it is. I guess they both are set in the South, so there is that. Also, True Blood’s imagery during the theme is meant to be at least a little disturbing while Justified’s just wants something running while the credits roll. I’m not sure if it has a goal at all, in fact. On a related note the country song playing for True Blood is downright awesome while Justified’s song is totally forgettable. And more rap influenced, I think.

Also, I didn’t get to talk about how one of the fellow US Marshals is played by a young women who was in an episode of Firefly. I’m glad that she’s gotten another role. I think it’s funny that she speaks exactly the same way and it fits just as well here. Also, she looked pretty good in his hat. Clearly, the whole team should wear cowboy hats. That would be awesome.

Okay, I think I’m done obsessing over Justified for at least a little while and I’m ready to talk about Clash of the Titans (the topic of this post, in case you forgot; it’s okay, clearly I did). Of course, to be honest, I don’t really have that much to say about it. I just wanted an excuse to put up another post and keep talking about Justified. But, whatever. I saw it. So, I’ll write about it. Probably too much. So, it’ll all work out.

Interestingly, I did not see the original movie. Apparently, I’m a failure and was unable to find it playing on TV and record it, otherwise I would totally have watched it. I wonder why they weren’t playing it all the time during the preceding weeks. I have’t seen that version, so all I can do is guess, but I’m thinking that it’s because the original hasn’t aged very well.

I mean, a lot of those 80s fantasy-esque journey movies haven’t aged very well. I submit Krull as an example. Also Labrynth. Not The Dark Crystal, though, if only because I actually saw it when I was young and therefore the nostalgia helps it out. I think Conan the Barbarian fits as well. I’m thinking Willow was sufficiently tongue-in-cheek so it’s probably aged alright. But, that’s not relevant.

So, yeah, I can’t compare it to its past filmed rendition, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it compared somewhat favorably (how’s that for insulting a movie I haven’t even seen but was sufficiently popular that the studios decided to remake?). For that matter, I never really read any of the Greek mythology stuff, so I can’t even compare it to the past rendition as recorded by somebody whose name I should know from the oral tradition.

As such, I can only judge it by the standards of the action adventure movies of this day and age. Oh, also, I didn’t see it in 3D. So, I won’t be comparing it to the excellence of How to Train Your Dragon either. And it should be thankful for that, because How to Train Your Dragon wins hands down. I mean, even the love interest is cuter and she’s not even real (but she’s wearing a skirt covered in actual skulls, which beats boring old Greek attire every day of the week).

So, did I like it? Eh. It was okay. It was better than the first 5-10 minutes suggested it was going to be, that’s for sure. Once the journey actually started, I think it found its feet pretty well and there was certainly fun to be had by all.

Liam Neeson was pretty cool as Zeus but Hades never really did it for me. I liked that he was pale, but it wasn’t really working with the long hair and beard as well. It just made him look Norse rather than Greek (I swear, I’m not trying to bring How to Train Your Dragon into this review, it just happens all on its own). To be clear, I’m not saying that Hades has to have hair made of blue fire and be voiced by James Woods, but well, I guess, I, um, yeah. I liked Disney’s version of Hades better, okay.

Even worse than a Norse Hades was the most boring Underworld ever imagined. I’m sorry, but I’ve been playing Dante’s Inferno (but was eventually distracted by other games, primarily FFXIII, which is a topic for some other post), and so my standards for visualizations of Hell are kind of high. I know, it’s not Hell, but come on, there should at least be souls somewhere in the Underworld, shouldn’t there? I mean, Hades enters some former king’s private chamber in the Underworld at one point, which is primarily decorated with dead trees, fog and candles. Private chamber! Seriously, that’s what you’re going with? There’s nobody constantly drowning in the River Styx? There’s nobody else around at all, anywhere? It was just a really boring Underworld. I can see why nobody wants to go there, but, it’s hardly menacing.

Also, I don’t know if it’s just me but I wasn’t really into the girls either. Apparently Gemma Arterton (fun fact: I’ve been thinking her name was Gemma Atherton for pretty much forever and I recently realized it’s because there’s a random douche in one episode of Firefly named Atherton) is going to be super popular for being incredibly hot after Prince of Persia comes out (have you seen her in the trailers for that?) but somehow she is not really hot in this. I don’t know why. On the other hand, Alexa Davalos as Io is rather pretty. I don’t have any complaints about her.

Let’s see, then there’s the ragtag team of surviving legion dudes to help Perseus out. Nobody really memorable besides the two hunters who join in out of the goodness of their hearts. They were pretty cool. And I was glad when they recognized that going into the Underworld would be hazardous to their health, except I was sad because they were actually kind of cool and then they weren’t around anymore. Everybody else is pretty cookie-cutter as far as I’m concerned. I guess I was happy to see the battle hardened old dude final die, although I’m not entirely sure exactly which God’s eyes he believed he was spitting in.

On the topic of the cool hunters, I enjoyed watching them confidently kill their scorpion like professionals while Perseus was struggling with his. From a choreography perspective, though, it was a terrible idea. You’ve got two separate groups fighting identical monsters. Who comes up with that? It makes it really hard to follow the action because you’re never sure which scorpion you’re looking at because they look the same. Why not just let the two scorpions be different colors or something? It would have made that extended fight scene much easier to follow.

Man, now that I’m writing about it, I’m realizing that all I have are complaints. I think it gets a fair number of passes on most of those things, though, because the fights were actually pretty well shot and the action was well done. And that’s what I had actually come to see (okay, I had also come to get a preview of the hotness of Gemma Arterton and so was sent home disappointed on that count).

Actually, one more complaint. What is Perseus’s problem with being part God? What’s so terrible about that and, possibly more importantly, how does he think he’s thrown it away? I mean, one of our ending scenes is him bragging about how he’ll continue his (immortal) life living as a man and then we see him riding on the beach on his HORSE WITH WINGS! I feel like someone needs to take him aside and let him know that mortals don’t get to ride those things. Also, they don’t end up with the girl who never ages. Even if she’s not as hot as she will be in her next movie.

But seriously, how can he not take a perspective more along the lines of how he can be better than a God because he’s part human? That would be way better. If he were proving the superiority of demigods rather than trying to prove the superiority of mortals all while not actually being mortal. It’s like he believes there something inherently wrong with the Gods, his creators, just because they’re not very good at looking out for their creations. As if that type of irresponsibility is solely in the realm of the Gods.

Yeah, I don’t know but every time he talked about not wanting to use his immortal side annoyed me. Particularly when it was clear that he was pulling from it all the time without even knowing it.

But, well, I’m moving on. It was fun. The whole “Release the Kraken” line was not as cool as I had been lead to believe it would be. Mt. Olympus was rather cool though. I liked that the floor was a scale model of the land. And that there were clouds at their feet. I liked how it created this sense that the Gods simply believed they were better than the mortals and that was that. Also, the glass tower thing that housed little statues of people was cool too. Particularly when it broke.

And that is all.

Francis

E3 Impressions

Well, it’s that time of year again.  That special time of year when I am completely incapable of doing anything remotely like work and simply spend all my time refreshing gaming web sites pages to see if they’ve updated with any content that I care about (the answer: no).  

And, I guess it’s cool that E3 is back to being “kind of a big deal”.  Yeah, since I can’t go I don’t really care either.  But I did check out the live blogs of the various big 3 keynotes.  It’s kind of surreal watching those, though.  I mean, I don’t know who they think they’re talking to, but it certainly isn’t me.  It’s kind of depressing.  It’s extra-depressing since that was my reaction last year as well.

To be honest, I’m only ever going to care about a very small percentage of the gaming news from any E3.  For one, I’m not picking up an Xbox 360 and I’m probably not going to pick up a Wii.  Why? You ask.  The answer is simple.  I honestly don’t have time.  I can’t keep up with all the games that I buy and play for my PS3, what’s the point in buying more consoles?  That’s what it really came down to.  

And, within the PS3 game list, I’m only really interested in playing single player PS3 games, particularly in the platformer, survival-horror, and RPG genre.  So, when Microsoft tells me that they’re working on this camera peripheral that can recognize my face and track my movements, I don’t really care.  I’m not going to be moving around when I’m playing games.  I don’t even want to be (let alone buying a 360 for that).  Same with Sony’s little contraption thing.  I just don’t care.  

But, there are some things I do care about.  Like that footage of The Last Guardian.  It’s hard to explain how good that video makes me feel, but it makes me feel good.  All warm and fuzzy inside, and maybe a little choked up.  That’s what Team Ico specializes.  Magic.  Similarly, but on a totally different note, Heavy Rain is coming along.  The ridiculously terrible camera controls in Indigo Prophecy tore me away from that game, but it doesn’t stop me from being very excited for their next game.  

Of course, it’s also good to see that I can keep looking forward to White Knight Chronicles.  And I was happy to hear that the main character in Assassin’s Creed can swim (I don’t know if it’s good a thing for a sequel that its most exciting piece of news is that the developers got rid of a stupidly annoying aspect of the original).  

On the flip side, each time I see something for Dante’s Inferno, it makes me less excited for that game.  I really, really hope that the game has long load times where it forces you to read the poem.  That would be awesome.  Or maybe a journal where he’s slowly recording the poem.  Except, the game doesn’t seem to feature Virgil.  Unless, the player is Virgil, guiding Dante through Hell.  That could work.  Okay, I admit it, less excited for this game is still rather excited.  

And I want to know why I didn’t get to read all sorts of stuff about Beyond Good and Evil 2.  

And, on an unrelated note, I have a question.  What can Square-Enix possibly show us from Final Fantasy XIII that would actually matter?  I mean, a couple years ago they showed me the title graphic.  At that point, I was pretty much sold.  They can show me all the confusing pieces of the CG movies they want, I mean, it doesn’t mean anything to me.  I’m already buying it the moment it comes out.  

Let’s see, other reactions... I guess I don’t really have very strong feelings about God of War III.  It’s a little depressing that the typical comments are something along the lines of:  it’s crazy gory, like you won’t even believe.  I mean, how is that a recommendation?  I wasn’t playing God of War for the gore.  But maybe all the cool kids were.  

And then there’s The Beatles: Rock Band.  Obviously, I’m excited.  Vocal harmonies will be tough.  Really tough.  But obviously worth every second.  And the idea of full album downloads makes me giddy.  I can keep on dreaming of that special day when I can play through the entirety of Sergeant Pepper’s.  That will be a good day.  

Sigh...

But, yeah, I guess that’s the stuff I care about.  I’m looking forward to hearing how that Metroid game comes out, of course (and for that matter, I might even consider checking out Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, even though the first was already stupidly ridiculously hard).

So, yeah, that’s E3 for you.  Overall, I think it went alright.  All things considered.  And, well, maybe I’ll even consider playing an MMO when FF XIV comes you.  Stranger things have happened.

Castle

Nathan Fillion has a new gig on ABC. It's called Castle. You're probably not watching it because you have standards. But, if you were like me and didn't have standards, then you'd be watching Castle and laughing your ass off. But, you do, so it's your loss. I'm moving on.

Here's a quick summary to catch everybody up. It's starring Nathan Fillion. Um, what else do you need to know? Okay, fine. He's a big shot, best-selling mystery novelist suffering from writer's block (he just killed off his cash cow main character). He's being played by Nathan Fillion, by the way. He has a stereotypical sassy daughter. And his publisher is his ex-wife. And his mom is living with him and is really horny (that one's a little awkward).

Anyways, the conceit of the show is that the police call him in because there's a serial killer copy-catting kills from his books. The detective on the case is a fan of his, and cute. So, he helps out (under a loose definition of helping out that consists entirely of clowning around and hitting on her). Of course, together (sort of) they solve the crime and he decides that was fun. So, he pulls some strings and convinces the police to let him to follow her around on cases, because she's going to be the inspiration for his next main character (and so he can keep trying to get in her pants).

So, yeah, that's the story. There's really only one relevant piece of information, though. And I've said it a couple times. It's starring Nathan Fillion. And, best of all, it's Nathan Fillion doing a variation on Captain Reynolds. This version of Captain Reynolds is a little bit more of an ass, but just as funny. And trust me, he's funny.

I mean the show isn't very good, but at the same time, it is totally amazing. Getting to watch Nathan Fillion just be hilarious and awesome again is so nice. Wonderful, really. Let's see, the other things I've seen him in since Firefly have been, um, Slither, White Noise 2, Waitress, Jade Empire (video game), Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and PG Porn. I only played Jade Empire for an hour or so, and I'm about 80% certain that his character is supposed to be a bad guy, but I pretty much spent that whole time just talking to/annoying his character, because I could. It was awesome, but not in a Captain Mal sort of way. In White Noise 2 and Waitress, he's playing more normal guys. He's funny and charming, just by the nature of his Nathan Fillion-ness, but not really as awesome as he is in Firefly (meaning, he's still completely awesome, just to be clear). In Dr. Horrible, his character is supposed to be rather stupid and annoying, so, while he is hilarious, it's not quite the right kind of hilarious (no funny snide remarks). PG Porn is less than 5 minutes long, so I'm not sure if that counts as a character.

In summary, the only other thing he's done since Firefly, in which he was as awesome as he was in Firefly, was Slither (and, if you haven't seen it, I strongly recommend it). So, yeah, I've been feeling a little left out. I mean, when I heard he was in Desperate Housewives, I seriously considered watching it just for him. But, I didn't.

So for me, just getting to watch Nathan Fillion deliver silly lines, perfectly, is just a joy.

Oh, only vaguely related, but in the most recent episode of Dollhouse, Tim Minear totally gave Helo (from BSG) a classic Malcolm Reynolds line. I was almost shocked. The best part was, it was clear that the direction he was given was: channel your inner Nathan Fillion. And, I have to admit, Tahmoh Penikett (I'm probably screwing that spelling up) channelled a pretty good Nathan Fillion. I was impressed. So, yes, consider that my glowing recommendation to keep/start watching Dollhouse.

But, as for Castle, I really like it. I get the feeling that the mysteries aren't going to be especially tough (but, I like Psych, so clearly I don't care about the mystery part all that much). The leading lady is decently hot and, more importantly, she's a fun sounding board for Nathan Fillion's character's antics. Her reactions to his ridiculousness are a key part of the show, and she certainly fulfills that purpose. So, yeah, I give her a thumbs up as well.

Also, it was kind of cool to see what James Patterson actually looks like. Anyways, I guess I pretty much expect this show to follow the same path as that show I was somewhat into around this time last year, called New Amsterdam.

Well, that's all I got. It's really funny and I still think Nathan Fillion is amazing. So, yeah, my Mondays are pretty good what with Chuck and now Castle, too. It's hard to complain about that (although Chuck is kind of stuck in a rut where it's awesome, but nothing is really being done or happening, which is too bad).

That is all.

Francis

Prince of Persia Epilogue

So, this last Thursday, Ubisoft released a 10 dollar add-on to Prince of Persia called Prince of Persia Epilogue. Now, a reasonable response to this action on their part would be to question why this wasn't part of the original game. I mean, it seems as though they effectively decided to charge 70 bucks for the game instead of the originally agreed upon 60. But, well, I take a decidedly different view on this type of thing.

I'm the type of person who has bought well over a hundred songs for Rock Band. I'm quite willing and, possibly more importantly, able to buy these types of downloadable extras for games. Costumes and non-functional items are a little harder to justify, but content, yeah, I'll buy content. If I really liked a game, I kind of appreciate the opportunity to spend more money on it and get to play it even more. And there's no better way to tell developers that you liked their game than to spend money on it, right? Right, except maybe e-mailing them or something, I guess that might work too. I've never tried it.

So, long story short (ha, short, that's funny), I bought and downloaded this little extra as soon as I was able. I then played through it the next morning and I thought I'd put my thoughts on it down. This is only based off a single, admittedly pretty long, level, so my review can't be too long (oh, I'm sure it can), but this was definitely an interesting buy and experience.

So, if you recall, everyone's big complaint about Prince of Persia was that it was easy. We've already gone over the fact that most people's intuitive reason for it being easy (the fact that you can't die) is wrong. In my original review, I explained that it thought it was too easy because the Prince would automatically make the right directional choice as you were running along the walls or avoiding traps or whatnot.

Well, I can go on record as saying that Prince of Persia Epilogue is not too easy. I would put its exploration challenge level as right up there with the series from the last generation. This game is hard.

In the original game, there would be long sections between check points when you would need to avoid the traps as you'd run along the walls, but it was easy. I don't think I had fully understood why it was easy, though (or, rather, I struggled to articulate why it was easy). In practice, I could say it was easy because I never failed. I could also say it was easy because I was never even worried that I might fail. The reason I couldn't fail was because the game couldn't let me. Let me explain.

In the previous series, there were sections that required extremely tough timing to get through but you had two advantages. The first advantage was that you could slow down time. It gets a lot easier to get the timing right when things are moving slowly. The second advantage was that the hardest sections wouldn't usually involve the risk of falling to your death. This meant that if you screwed up, you would have to eat some damage (Oh no! I have to go drink some water now). It felt really hard, because you didn't want to eat the damage because that's lame, but if you needed to, you could get past it (and, let's be honest, you needed to, I mean, we all did).

In this generation, both those advantages are gone. You can't slow down time and you can't eat damage. Any interaction with any trap is immediately fatal (okay, fatal is a little strong since you can't die, but the moral equivalent occurs). On paper that sounds like it should make things harder, since they are taking away advantages that you previously had. In practice, though, the opposite occurred. It got easier because they couldn't design traps that were as hard as the previous games' traps. If they did, it would be too hard. The result were these extended sections that looked like they should be really hard, but in practice were really easy because the designers had allowed a very large amount of time for the correct initiation of the sequence (to put it in perspective, in previous games you would often have to slow down time before starting a section and wait for just the right moment to start navigating because if you left a moment too soon or late, you would get hit by one of the traps, typically near the end).

So, people complained that the challenge was gone, without fully understanding just why it might need to be gone. Hopefully, this little bit of content will educate them. For those who just want to beat it without finding any secrets, it's easily the hardest dungeon in the game. If you want the secrets (I found all of them, yay me!), then it's very comparable to the hardest challenges in the previous generation and they even sometimes made it hard just to figure out where the secrets were hidden (crazy talk!).

Some of the dungeon challenges they made include: cranks to change the architecture of whole dungeons, allowing multiple switches to be reached under different conditions, but requiring real planning and understanding. Yeah, you can move walls and buildings and different combinations of the movements can get you to different areas. Understanding how you want things set up to get where you want to go requires a huge amount more insight than just following the only available path (which is the typical strategy in all the Prince of Persia games). They also changed the traps (I don't really know what to call them, but they're equivalent to the moving chainsaws and shooting darts from yore) so that they can move at different speeds. This makes navigating them much harder than when they all moved at the same speed. Oh, and they got some set up so that the timing requirements were much tighter than anything you encountered in the main game.

And, just to add icing on the cake, they'd often made the hardest timing challenges occur in areas where there were either evil bugs flying around that would attack you if you stayed in one place for too long or damaging stuff in the air that would kill you if you stayed in the general area too long. Or both, that was the case pretty often too. And, lastly, they made sections where the next place to go wasn't actually visible (ie- no visible hints of where to go) and so you had to figure out where you should go almost blindly (as in, you had to eliminate all the places you could see that you clearly couldn't go and then go in the only remaining direction...in the time it takes to run along the wall, because at the end of that time it's too late...yeah, those situations typically took multiple tries).

In effect, this was their opportunity to show us fans that they hadn't gone soft. They still knew how to create sweet dungeon challenges and hide goodies in there too. Oh, and the architecture was pretty cool too.

So, yeah, I was really impressed. It was hard. And I liked it. Oh and the awesome dialogue was totally back. And I liked that it picked up right where the main game had left off and that it provided us with an idea of what the sequel is going to look like. I hope they make stuff in that game as hard as this. But, to be honest, I also liked that this wasn't part of the main game. That this was something optional and separate to the game. The end of that game was note perfect. It was emotional and the story had really built up to it. I wouldn't have wanted them to add this section just by default. Or, if they did, I would want them to still roll the credits when they do in the game, because that's just perfect.

In fact, on the topic of story and awesome dialogue, one of the best things about this Epilogue is that it gives the Prince a chance to really explain himself and his decision. We know why the Princess made her decision, but it was really cool to hear his side of things. He didn't just bring her back because he was in love with her and couldn't bear to let her die (I admit, that's how I interpreted it). He brought her back because he couldn't believe that her sacrifice was either the only solution, or even a valid solution at all. And I appreciated his arguments for it. That's cool.

So, my one complaint: there's still fighting. Yep, they kept that in. In fact, they added a new combat move. At any time, you can initiate a little quick-time button press event-thingie, if you so desire. Personally, that's kind of like being told I've got a needle that I can stick in my eye, if I so desire, but that's just my opinion. Yeah, I still didn't like the fighting. And, of course, there was a fair amount of it. Yargh.

But, ignoring that, it was awesome. I was really impressed and it was a huge amount of fun to get to play it a little more. So, yeah, good job Ubisoft Montreal. You guys rock. I was glad to spend my 10 dollars on your hard work of the last couple months.

That is all.

Francis

Mirror's Edge and Valkyria Chronicles

Okay, so a couple months ago I reviewed the demo for these games and pretty much said that they were amazing and that I was totally excited to play them when they came out. Well, at this point, I have now played through both of them and I thought I'd put my thoughts on them down now. Yes, I'm kinda sorta reviewing these games, okay?

So, let's start with Mirror's Edge. Now, a lot of reviews/people said that while the game demoes really well, the finished product leaves something to be desired. Typically, they then compare it to Portal and then dismiss it. Usually they complain that it's hard somewhere in there too. Well, I did not have that experience at all.

What I loved about the demo was just the way the game makes you feel when you're moving forward. I don't think I've ever played a game where the biggest reward comes just for continuously moving forward. It's kind of funny, but the only reward for moving forward is that you get to keep moving forward, only faster. But that's reward enough, because moving forward feels like freedom in this game. So does flying through the air with your hands waving. Also sliding down a rail or underneath a platform. Or running along a wall. And, admittedly, you could do all those things in the demo, so maybe the fact that there were no new rewards made people sad. But it didn't bother me, because the feeling of doing any or all of those things was good enough. I just wanted to keep doing them.

And so that was my experience with the game. I don't care that the scenery doesn't change overly much (but it does change a lot more than people give it credit for, keeping in mind that the setting is a city so we've got: rooftops, buildings, ground floor, below ground, boats, and trains). I just want to keep running.

One thing that surprised me in the game is that you spend most of the game getting chased. You're not just getting from place to place as fast as you can because it feels good. You're doing it because there's a bunch of police officers following you who kind of want to shoot you. I don't mind that, but it definitely added a level of pressure that I hadn't fully expected. I liked it.

Also, the Flash animation cut scenes were stupid. No argument there. I would definitely have preferred if they just did everything with the game engine. Totally unrelated, but the concept art that you unlock as you play through the game is actually kind of interesting.

Oh, and one last thing. The game is not hard you pussy reviewers everywhere. I mean, seriously, what's wrong with you guys? I'm really not all that good at video games, and this game is not that hard. I'm sorry that it sometimes takes more than one try to do a section. This is a platformer and someone decided to make it require very precise timing: which is absolutely their perogative. It's not the end of the world. Also, considering the liberal use of check points, you're really not going to be losing all that much when you fall 10 stories and listen to your bones crunch when you hit the ground. Just try again and don't screw up and don't blame the game when you do. The controls are tight so every time you screw up, it's because you screwed up. Get better.

Alright, onto Valkyria Chronicles. Now, when I played the demo I said that it was one of the most beautiful games I had ever played and it managed to follow the graphics up with one of the deepest and most interesting turn-based strategy RPG systems ever devised. So, now I've played the full game. Have my thoughts changed? No, but maybe a little yes too.

It's still an incredibly beautiful game. No one can take that away. But, after over 40 hours, I'm a little desensitized to it. I almost wish I wasn't, but I am. Of course, the only real end result of that is that all other games just won't look as good because I've spent too much time looking at this game. Still, I can't enjoy the graphics like I once did.

The story was nice. Serviceable, I guess. I think I prefer the Fire Emblem story and world, though. I will say that I liked that the main bad guy had some interesting good qualities about him. In a world full of racism and bigotry, he ruled his troops as a meritocracy. The good guys couldn't say that. Their army promoted people for their bloodlines rather than their performance in battle and that's one of the main reasons why the good guys almost lose. So, I thought that was cool. Of course, he was cruel and evil and as soon as someone disappointed him he cast them aside, but still, anyone could ascend his ranks and take command (and if people made poor strategic decisions in the name of bigotry, he punished them for that too).

So, let's talk about the strategy. It's very hard to balance this type of game and playing through it, I found out that it could have been done better. At the start of the game, the balance is really very close to right. Scouts have a huge amount of movement and vision, but they're not very accurate and they don't have much life. You can make good use of them by exploring and finding ambushes, as well as using their grenades to knock enemies away from cover, but if they run into a group of enemies, they'll get torn apart really fast.

Machine gunners are a little over-powered at the start, but their low movement stops you from utilizing them as much as you'd like. They're great for defending because they can destroy anything that gets in their range, but they're also great for attacking because they can withstand some serious damage and then deal it right back.

A typical attack on a fortified position at the start of the game involves getting a scout to scope it out and lob a grenade to get everyone exposed. The scout then runs a safe distance away and gets behind cover. This allows the scout to shoot any targets that move on the enemy's turn while hopefully keeping her safe (all my units are girls). After the scout's done her work, I send a shock trooper (machine gunner) in to mow down all these people who no longer have cover protecting them. Without the cover, the attack is almost certainly overwhelming and most of the targets die (this might take a couple movement turns).

For heavily fortified positions, or those that have tanks guarding them, you need tanks and lancers as well. At the start of the game, both these units are not very accurate so you can't use their most powerful weapons against ground units. Tanks still have mortars and machine guns, but the lancers have no way of fighting against ground units. Early in the game, they're so wildly inaccurate that you can't even use them to try to take out any cover that the enemy units are hiding behind (same with the tank's main gun).

So, if there's a heavily fortifed position, you need to have your tank come in and literally run over the cover the bad guys are hiding behind and then attack the opposing tank. With your tank in the middle of the action, you can send your ground troops in and let them hide behind the tank when they're not in use (it works quite well). But, for taking out the enemy tank, you just have to grin and bear it as you send your explosive weapons into it until it gets taken down.

You can also bring engineers along to keep your tanks safe and to rebuild cover after you have won a fortified position. Occasionally, you also want to bring in snipers, but early in the game they're not quite accurate enough to get the head shots required to make them effective.

In short, the early game strategy is all about slow, patient advances on an enemy position. Going in without proper support will result in untimely death. You have to command and control your units as a team and when you use them properly, you will kick a lot of ass. But, if you don't, you'll get in trouble very quickly.

But, late in the game, things change. Scouts get strong enough to do decent damage. Even worse, they get accurate enough to be able to land consist head shots out of the range of the machine gun units. So, suddenly, scouts aren't afraid of shock troopers anymore. Even more amazingly, they get grenage launchers so that they don't even have to get close to dangerous fortified positions to destroy all the cover.

The machine gunners become ridiculously strong and can pretty much just walk into the middle of a firefight without too much fear. Plus they get flamethrowers that can essentially one shot anyone who isn't behind cover. And they sweep with it, so they can often get multiple guys with a single movement point (crazy!).

The lancers end up getting so much defense that tanks can't defend themselves from them. Tanks end up needing shock trooper escorts to protect the tank's rear vulnerable spot, otherwise a lancer can literally walk around a tank (while taking machine gun fire the whole time), ready her lance and drop the tank in one shot.

Snipers end up getting so much range and accuracy that, on wide open levels, you can actually just have a sniper near the middle take down any unit, anywhere on the map, with a guaranteed head shot. A sniper plus an engineer to renew her supply of rounds can de-fang even the worst attack/group of reinforcements (but guys behind cover remain relatively safe).

In short, the strategy slowly evolves and becomes very different. A single scout can often stage a decent attack on a fortified area, where before you needed at least a scout and shock trooper. Tanks go from being the key unit to breaking through the enemy defenses to a liability that you have to expend effort to protect (on the other hand, they get really accurate as well and you can use them for some pretty cool stuff as well, but you still have to protect them). Shock troopers, while still very powerful, soon find that they don't have as much of a role as they once had. Lancers either eat damage and take down tanks in the way or they remove the enemy's cover or, in a pinch, they become accurate enough to fight against ground troops.

And, well, the early strategy is really cool and fun, but that later stuff is a little bit less balanced. I know it's hard, but it did lose a little bit there at the end and it probably could have been avoided. Essentially, the problem was that I realized that if I could be accurate enough to get head shots whenever I wanted, then I could rule the world (so I focused all my research on accuracy). So, maybe I should have been purposely stupid and not done that so that the game would stay more balanced. But that kind of defeats the purpose.

But aside from the strategy breaking down at the end, it really was a very, very good game. I'm still totally impressed and I have to say that I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the genre reacts to this game. Because, in all honesty, they have to. I really believe that this gameplay is so much better than the typical grid set up that some of the other strategy RPG game makers have to at least consider stealing some of these ideas for their own games. They have to.

Oh, lastly, in case you're curious, Persona 4 came out at the end of last year and I am still trying to reclaim my life. It's hard on all of us.

Well, that is all.

Francis

Prince of Persia

Well, I'd just like everyone to know that I've totally already beaten the new Prince of Persia. Yeah, it came out on Wednesday. And I beat it late last night (okay, early this morning, but it's the principle that counts). Admittedly, after I picked it up, my whole life consisted of work, Prince of Persia and sleep. Just to be clear, that means I didn't eat. Okay fine, I did bathe. You caught me.

So, yeah, I can now have an intelligent conversation about a recent game. It feels kind of cool. Like, I can spoil the ending sequence (and I totally will, by the way, but not right now, it has to be in the context of the discussion of the game, not just part of being an ass).

The last Prince of Persia trilogy was built upon three game play elements: exploration, puzzles, and fighting. The best was, and always has been, exploration. Starting at the bottom and slowly working your way up to the top by moving from one interactable piece of the environment to the next. This was always the best because they built incredible environments and had incredibly cool animations, so moving from place to place was exciting in and of itself and it was exciting to see the next place. Fighting was always the worst. At best it was a distraction and at worst it was a pain. They tried new systems with each game and none of them were particularly fun (for me, I knew other people who loved the fighting in Prince of Persia, though). Puzzles were somewhere in between. Personally, I've never been a fan of progress stopping puzzles. I prefer puzzles where the reward isn't that you get to continue playing the game, but rather a slightly more optional reward, like extra life or powers.

Game designers typically seem to prefer rewarding exploration with those things, instead of puzzles. I'm not sure why that is. I guess hiding something in the environment is easier than creating a whole optional puzzle and playtesting it. Although, the best exploration rewards are more like mini puzzles in that the reward is apparent, but the puzzle is how to get there. While I count that as an exploration reward, it often requres more logical thinking and planning skills than the official puzzles.

It's interesting to look back at that trilogy because you can almost make up a story behind the development of those games. In the first game, fighting was primarily done against mid size groups and it was hard because the Prince didn't have a lot of fighting options, especially against groups. He also had a princess with him who was sometimes helpful, but typically had to be kept safe, which was kind of a pain. Long environmental exploration sections weren't especially common yet, especially in this style, so sections would provide lots of hints to make sure you made it through okay. Puzzles were simplistic at best, I think (I only vaguely remember them, but I think most of them really just involved finding the switch). Story and character-wise, though, it was a blast. The interactions of the two characters were incredibly fun and made progressing through the game really cool. We got to know the characters primarily through their conversations, which occurred during exploration periods. That was so cool and definitely a story-telling innovation at the time. At heart, though, that game was just fun and carefree. It was, and still is, the best in the series.

The second game is almost certainly the worst, but it's hard to really justify that. Now that the exploration concepts the original created were common, the second one had much more complex environments. And some really cool ones, at that. The fighting system was overhauled and the Prince was turned into a complete bad-ass who could really fight. The puzzles became much more complex too. With all those improvements, though, something was lost in the translation. For one, the story which had been both cute and unobtrusive in the first one, became inane and downright annoying. The art design, which had been bright and dynamic due to its focus on exploration and discovery, became dark and brooding with environments that were rather Gothic in appearance (epic, but Gothic). The game did managed to take those three key game play elements and improve on them, but completely wrecked the rest of the package. The result very sub-optimal. Also, the main character became an ass, that sucked too.

Oh, it also had a game breaking bug that hit me right before fighting the last boss. That was kind of annoying.

And then the third one was more of an apology to fans than a game in its own right. It had to deal with the stupid story decisions from the last one, which means that it still had a stupid story. Completely unrelated, but I think Kingdom Hearts II is one of the only games that actually managed to even remotely deal with the stupid story decisions made in a previous game in the series, which isn't to say that its story isn't stupid, but it did an amazing job cleaning up after the mess the original made. The third game's best decision was to make create these sections that were a hybrid of fighting, puzzles, and exploration. Basically, they made stealth sections where you could take out all the bad guys without having to deal with the fighting if you could figure out how to sneak up on all the bad guys. In most cases, you had to do this by never touching the floor. Disappointingly, this was not carried into the next generation. More sadly, the only real misstep of the game, on-rails vehicle sections were kept (sort of). It's hard to summarize my feelings on the third game, but it was good. It fixed the rest of the packaging and kept the improvements that the sequel made, but it somehow still lacked the magic of the first one.

So, it's a new generation, and the franchise is being rebooted again. The result is probably the second best, but in a lot of ways, this is a different game than the previous trilogy, with different goals. It has its own magic, which was a lot of fun, but it doesn't compare that well to the old games. A lot of reviewers look back on the previous trilogy and talk about sections that are just frustratingly hard and talk about how this game doesn't have stuff like that. I agree that this game doesn't have stuff like that, but I can't recall very many sections that were really frustratingly hard in the past games, either. Actually, let me rephrase that. I can't recall very many sections that didn't involve the fighting system that were frustratingly hard. And, I don't exactly miss those sections anyway.

This game has changed the focus of the gameplay. They weighted exploration and discovery even higher than it was before and reduced the number of puzzles down to 4 (actually 3, since I can't in good conscience call one of the puzzle sections a puzzle...even though it took me a little while to figure it out). Fighting was reduced pretty drastically and could often be ended with a single well timed attack . Surprisingly, something else they increased their focus on was story. This game easily has the most fun dialogue since the first game and it has a lot of it. But, they also made some other cool story decisions (ending spoilers will be part of that section).

Now, the primary mistake they made in this game, was that with this increased focus on exploration, discovery and story, they wanted all the players to experience all of that. So, they made exploration really easy. They took away the need to have skill to explore the environment. Now, the truth is that this is something of a carry over from Assassin's Creed. They decided that interacting with, and moving through, the environment should be as simple as possible in that game (because that's almost the whole game, and often times you're doing that with the entire town guard on your tail). But, it shouldn't be as simple as possible in Prince of Persia. My problem was that the Prince shouldn't automatically start wall running in the correct direction just because I jumped at the wall. I didn't prove that I knew where I wanted to go next, and the Prince shouldn't pick the right answer for me. I could be swinging from bar to bar and not know where I was going to go next, because the Prince would get there anyway.

Almost every reviewer articulated that the game felt really easy compared to the other games, but everyone seemed to struggle with what exactly was so easy about it. Tycho at Penny Arcade gave a decent explanation for why Elika (your cute heroine) automatically saving you and dropping you back at the ledge is not what makes the game easy (because, in truth, the Sands of Time in the last series were even easier than that in a lot of ways). Chris Kohler at Wired talked about how you couldn't interrupt animations, which made him feel like he didn't really have the control of the Prince that he expected (which is true). But, I think it comes down to the fact that you don't have the control of the Prince that you expect because he's too busy doing your work for you. You don't get punished for this lack of control, because it is pretty much guaranteed to make the right decision for you.

Another poor decision was this extreme focus on finding and defeating the game's bosses. Whenever you get to a new area, your whole goal is to get to the boss and beat him. After doing that, then you need to go explore and find the little collectable McGuffins (light seeds, in this case) for continuing the story. This is backwards. You should find the light seeds and then fight the boss. I know that's how every other game does it and they wanted to be different, but every other game does it that way because it makes sense. Once you beat the boss in an area, then all the evil obstacles in that area go away, which makes exploration really easy. But, we, the players, want there to be evil obstacles present to make exploration challenging. That's part of the fun. It's like if, in the last series, the big environments always had a boss in the middle and once you beat the boss, then all the traps and moving saws and everything else that was dangerous went away, even though you didn't have to get past most of them to even get to the boss, because he's in the middle (and you didn't have to walk all the way around the edge or anything to get to him). As a result, probably half or more of the traps never even had to be navigated. Doesn't that feel like a poor design decision? It certainly does to me.

Let's see, other mistakes included the tutorial being incredibly obtrusive and it often felt like it wanted to play the game for me (that's kind of a theme, it's like they thought the game was so cool and fun, that they wanted it to just play itself for our enjoyment). I'm not going to call Elika a mistake, but she could have been utilized better. People have compared her to Yorda from Ico, but for me, I think of her more like Navi from Ocarina of Time (only she doesn't drive you insane). She's certainly not a liability like Yorda, but she isn't used for puzzle solving or anything like the female companions in past versions of the game (i.e.- Farah). When playing the game, you pretty much ignore her except to use her for double jumps and for slowing you down when you're climbing on vines (why does she only slow you down then? I can't even fathom). Her only real purpose during gameplay is to make conversation, really.

So, what did they do right? They rediscovered the magic. The Assassin's Creed engine allowed them to create unbelievable environments. While Assassin's Creed was an interesting experiment, this is what it was meant to be for. It's clear the game makers dreamed of making a Prince of Persia game set more in reality, and that's what Assassin's Creed is. They built whole cities and populated them with a people and a history and it was totally cool. But also kind of boring. I mean it's cool to be running from rooftop to rooftop hunting people down, but compare that to slowly progressing along the top of a cave looking down upon glorious glowing stalagmites and a little cave lake. Or climbing up the spires of a palace and then sliding down them as they're collapsing. Or jumping across air balloons. I mean, you can't do that in reality. But that's just part of the regular environment in Prince of Persia.

As I mentioned above, the other thing they did right was the story. It's not inane or obtrusive and there's a reasonable number of cliches. Quick sidetrack, but in a pretty large number of the Final Fantasy games, the real main character is not the character that the player is meant to identify with. I especially noticed this the recent ones, numbers X and XII. In both of those, the girl is the real main character, but the story is told from the young male lead's perspective (although in XII, I'm not even sure you can call him the lead, he's really just a bystander). Prince of Persia makes that same decision. The one with the power to stop the bad guys is not the Prince (who's not even a prince in this one). Elika is.

And, over the course of the game, we learn both why the world needs saving and why she has the power to save it. Their conversations are the player's only insight into what is going on, just as it is the Prince's only insight as well. And each time she saves another area, she gets weaker. It reminds me of how Shadow of the Colossus informed the player that the hero's actions were having a negative effect by slowly turning his appearance into that of a monster. So, when she dies at the end, it's not that much of a surprise (oops, that might have been the ending spoiler I mentioned). I loved the execution though.

The credits roll as the Prince carries her out of the temple. With the player in control. Each step is very slow as you progress towards the altar to lay her upon it. To lay her in front of the place of her God. The God that the Prince had been claiming had abandoned her for the entire game. I thought it was a powerful sequence (for the record, more stuff happens, but I'm not going to spoil that, go play it yourself).

It was a really great way to end and was easily the greatest advance this series had yet. I only very vaguely remember the ending of the first game, but I think it's the only one that might compare.

Oh, lastly, everyone's been talking about the art style, but to be perfectly honest, it really shouldn't be as divisive as it's been. It feels like the art style of the first game, only gorgeous and detailed. I know that it's cel-shaded, but it's done very discreetly. And, really, any and all separation from the art style of the second game is to be appreciated (that was the only one that really went for realistic and it was ugly). So, yeah, this one looks really nice, but since I've been playing Valkyria Chronicles, which easily has the most beautiful cel-shaded graphics ever, it's hard to really rave about them.

But, in the end, this is a Prince of Persia game. And it feels like a Prince of Persia game. And that is a very good thing.

That is all.

Francis