crouton days

Overall this is the worst PoP game I’ve ever played. Yet, it’s so pretty I don’t want to stop playing it. 

Playing PoP, your inputs never feel connected to what’s happening on the screen. Even jumping on a goomba requires some precision and timing, but in Prince of Persia, any smash on the gamepad produces a dance of insane acrobatics. From an onlooker’s point of view you’re captain awesome, but in reality you know you didn’t earn it. Plus, the controls have a terrible feel and lack a good sense of weight. This combination gives us a game that could just as easily be controlled with an Atari 2600 joystick. PoP: Sands of Time had great feel and required lots of precision (sometimes frustrating amounts) but it made every single jump that much more rewarding. There is no sense of accomplishment to be found in this latest Prince of Persia, in fact, it should probably be reclassified as ‘interactive art’.

It’s so sad since I’m really liking the music, the characters and collecting the light seeds (aka: replay what you just did mode). I guess If the Sands of Time hadn’t set a high bar for 3rd person plaforming, this game wouldn’t feel like inept crap. But it did and it does, and even though It’s not a terrible game, it is a disappointing one. Congrats Ubisoft, Prince of Persia follows in the footsteps of so many recent games that choose to breastfeed the player. Plus, I love having my balls coddled, and the fact that you can do that while treating me like a baby is just grand.

Love,
d+pad

PS: I miss the days of games that presumed you were clever or at least made you think you were.
PPS: WTFmate? New letter writing style?
PPPS: No
PPPS: Someone wrote this post about Mirors Edge, PoP, falling, difficulty and all that jazz. But the writer forgets a few things. 

1) PoP’s mechanics and controls are not nearly as tight or demanding as Mirror’s Edge, there is arguably an order of magnitude of difference between the two. This is the real reason behind the complaints about PoP being “too easy” or giving the player very little sense of reward. But most players don’t know why they feel the way they do and instinctively blame the checkpoint mechanic. PoP would be nicely balanced if it had the mechanics and controls of Sands of Time and the Elika checkpoints.

2) It’s a video game. Both of these games involve doing things that are unrealistic for 99.9999999999% of the population. Games are such a amazing medium because they allow you to do things that you otherwise couldn’t do. Dying 50 times isn’t very realistic but if the player buys into the experience of the world they will also buy into the consequences of the world.