A Piece of Art

I finally got around to playing Prince of Persia, which was actually released last December. All I can say is, wow, what a game. I loved it. The controls are tight, gameplay is fun and fluid, graphics are top, great art design... what more can you ask for in a game?

There has been a lot of discussion on the internet, especially from the so-called (and self-proclaimed) hardcore gamers, about how easy this game is, and how Ubisoft dumbed it down compared to previous entries in the series just to appeal to a casual audience. Well, I am what you could call hardcore gamer, but I prefer Krpata's taxonomy, under which I am a Skill Player (rather than a Tourist Player), with more Completist than Perfectionist tendencies, but fall into the Premium Player category when it comes to the time I can spend on video games, due to my lifestyle (you know, I have this thing called a job, and a family). With this I am trying to say, I play video games, and I play them a lot, to the extent I can. I know about video games. And in the case of Prince of Persia, I think all those gamers out there, complaining about the game, don't have a strong case.

If you ask me, the issue with Prince of Persia is more psychological than it is factual. The whole thing comes from, I think, the idea that you don't die in this game. Like somehow there's no consequence to playing, and that makes the whole experience worthless. Most gamers were flaming the game on these grounds even before it was out. Well, after playing and finishing the game, in my opinion, this game is as easy or as tough as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. And to even make my point, I played both, side by side, and I can tell you, at points, the new PoP felt more challenging. The only thing that could be said against the new PoP is that it is way shorter than PoP:TSoT, which might give the illusion that the old game is tougher because you spent more time on it.

Somehow, if you're not faced with a Continue or a Load Last Save screen, then there's no consequence to failure. In PoP, instead of this annoyance you're just returned to the last checkpoint, which is the last platform you were standing on. Between this, and having to look at a screen, select Yes and have to wait for the game to load the same area I was in just 30 seconds ago, I'd rather have what they implemented in PoP, and I applaud Ubisfot for that, and I hope this becomes a trend in the video game industry. If when I'm fighting an enemy, failure means I have to reload the last checkpoint, and wait for the area to load, which places in the same spot I was at the beginning of the fight, with the enemie's health replenished... or just have me stand up and continue, but simply replenish the enemie's health... I choose the latter. Does that make it easier? I don't think so.

The psychological bias and predisposition goes so far, that I even read comments from people saying how easy the platforming was now, that you just had to "sit back and press buttons... no skill required". Comments like these is what made me play the two games side by side. I had play PoP:TSoT before, but it had been a while, and I wanted to make a fresh comparison. And my discovery was that the platforming gameplay is the same. Yeah, when a stunt sequence starts, it usually becomes a task of timing button presses, pretty much not using the directional stick, on both games. The skill set required to play PoP is the same one required to play PoP:TSoT.

In my book, Prince of Persia is a 9/10. A jewel of gaming. And I hope Ubisoft keeps it up with games like this.