Next Prince of Persia Game Promises Fresh Start 140
Next Gen recently had a chance to sit down with Ubisoft and discuss the next addition to the Prince of Persia franchise. The team is excited that this isn't just another tired rehash of the same characters and setting, however, promising a new prince and open world adventuring on top of the already rich world of the previous games. "'We had a whole story with the previous trilogy, and Prince of Persia is a general universe where several different stories can unfold,' [creative director Jean-Christophe] explains. 'We're starting afresh, in the same universe, and we wanted to bring something new while keeping what worked before. We introduce a new Prince, who won't start as a prince, more a drifter and adventurer, lost in the desert. He'll be confronted by a lot of fantasy settings, as opposed to Assassin's Creed, which was more realistic. Here he will come to a land and be engulfed in the conflict between two ancient gods, in this very specific region of Persia. It's based on an old Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, and the battle between light and darkness.'"
prince megahit (Score:1, Informative)
!rpg (Score:5, Informative)
That said, an actual Prince of Persia CRPG might pique my interest. This 19th billion incarnation of the same thing does not.
Re:prince megahit (Score:5, Informative)
This didn't work with the Amiga version which I played as a kid, plus there was this weird potion room that wasn't on the PC version.
The game was rock hard without the cheats (or possibly bad skills), mostly because there was a tight time limit of 1 hour in which to beat the game.
Re:Why Not a New One? (Score:5, Informative)
Sands of Time was a next generation title based on the original game.
either the game or this story got it wrong: (Score:4, Informative)
the battle between light and darkness IS an old persian religion, but zoroastrianism (another old persian religion) is not the religion in question. they mean manichaeism [wikipedia.org]
the monotheistic religions hold that there is one dominant good power. the manichaeans meanwhile were dualists: they believed the forces of good and evil are evenly matched
Re:Best Prince of Persia games? (Score:3, Informative)
For classic PoP, I'd recommend Prince of Persia Classic on Xbox Live Arcade. It's an excellent port of the original, with a much more modern look. If you are more of a modern 3D gamer, try Sands of Time or The Two Thrones. You can pick up either for a last-gen system at a very reasonable price.
Re:Just what we need (Score:3, Informative)
Re:either the game or this story got it wrong: (Score:3, Informative)
Zoroastrianism is quite dualistic (though, as I understand it, ultimately the good, uncreated God will win). It also predates Manichaeism by about a millennium.
Zoroastrian [wikipedia.org]
Zoroastrianism (Score:4, Informative)
Timely Announcement (Or: What's With Ubisoft?) (Score:4, Informative)
However, while I don't consider them bad, both games seem "almost great". You may think it's the same thing as "good", but I view it in a different light-- Ubisoft had something wonderful going, but eventually decided that release dates were more important than polish.
In SoT, the camera would move about on its own disjointly, the controls moving with it, so you'd often turn yourself around in battle. Fixed cameras were far too distant to be of much help, though they gave you a nice view of the area. The camera would also change to be "dramatic", but more often would change so that you were now pointing the stick in the wrong direction and you die. Each "epic fight" concluded with an annoying "put away the swords" flash, and the forced visions at save points pretty much held your hand the entire game.
So far, in Warrior Within, they've fixed the fixed-camera problem as well as removing the "put away swords" sequence. Instead, they introduced a rather unintuitive combo sequence, where actions take a bit to carry out but your successive button sequences are still counted, making it hard to control the Prince if you decide to change what you're doing mid-fight. A problem that SoT had but is worse in WW is button mapping- buttons tend to be context sensitive (do you have your weapons out? Are you against a wall?) and when you press a button to zag you might zig instead. Furthermore, because it's so GRIMDARK, it's hard to spot any visual cues (where available) to time jumps and other actions. And lip-syncing+voice placement is just horrible.
I've not played Two Thrones yet, but I hear good things, so hopefully that removes some of these problems.
I make note of these things because they aren't just about the PoP series-- Ubisoft, in general, seems to be a company that's "almost great". I've played many of their games, such as XIII, Red Steel, and Farcry. Each of these games are fun (well, once you get over the aggravation of Red Steel's controls), but every game feels as if it could have been great. None of them have "polish", which keeps them at a B (or C+) grade instead of an A grade.
The only Ubisoft game I've played that seemed to have a hefty amount of polish was Rayman Raving Rabbids. Very fun, and I plan to get the sequels, but that's just one great of many sorta-good. If Ubisoft put the same amount of QA and polish into games that Valve seems to do (seriously, if you haven't played their games with commentary on, you're missing a lot of interesting information), they could have games I would call exceptional. Instead, they have the "good enough" mentality and boot it out the door for some extra cash.
This is why I don't have big aspirations for these new PoP games. Will they be good? Probably. Will they be great? Not unless Ubisoft has made great strides recently.