After so many years and games, we have the right to expect much more from Prince of Persia
I haven't played Prince of Persia series since the first one, about 10 years ago, maybe a little bit more -not sure anyway-, recently I saw a cheap game call "Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time" (SOT) for the XBox and I thought, well, this has to be a classic, lets play it at my Xbox 360.
Since the beginning I found controls and fighting system - movements and so on - amazing, they game made REALLY me MAD (I confess) a couple of times while I was learning how to fight the harder monsters and bosses, and there was a few camera annoyances, but at the end the style and the story, even the ending were great. When I finished the game, despite the old graphics, all I had to say was... Wow, where the hell all these good games had gone!!!! And I meant for these console generation games. Lower graphics maybe, but lets put this very simple, the industry as a general thing were producing much better games a few years ago than now.
Well, but you didn't come here to know about SOT... Very excited by this great game I went running to the store and I bought the last "Prince of Persia" at a discount, and even then I feel like a waste of money. Oh my god!!! After what the did at SOT, how is it possible things went so wrong. One simple button to do almost everything simplifies your game play - walk-run, jump, etc. - but also makes it more stupid, even worse because from time to time the Prince do what you don't want him to do, lets say, you are trying run through a wall and he jumps as far as he can to the abyss... and the character in game voice even says "Oh, Please"... (LOLLLL) that's exactly what I say "OH F... PLEASE!!!!"
Even though, with the new controls configuration things had become so easy that game seems designed for far less skilled players. This game is easier even than Prince of Persia I, and I don't think we players are becoming more silly, are we?
The timing became also very easy, at the point is kind unpleasant, because the game has a total lack of challenge, most of my fails have to be with the button "A" doing something I don't want it to do.
The worst and most disappointing part is the fighting, all I do almost (and I already killed 2 bosses and fought 4 and won) is pressing RT and X, and I don't even have the option to be creative at the fights because you have to do things exactly as the way the game tells you... a couple of fighting cut scenes with specific buttons are fine - personally I don't like them and I think they are overused by almost every fighting game in this days, but can be tolerated - but almost the 60% or 80% of every fight is about tapping "X" -which I seriously think sucks- and just pressing the button they show you. Well, they made a lot work for these cut scenes just to make the game worse. Where are those days when part of the fun was to figure out how to beat a boss... and I ask again, Are we becoming morons?
All in all the game is playable, the art is good, I didn't like the Toon-looking of the characters but I had to say, it has a concept and I bet there are people who liked it... I guess. The world graphics are decent, and I like the fact that is not that linear. The navigation system is good and I don't have a problem with Farah saving you in order to improve the game dynamics.
It's not that the game sucks, it's that it sucks in relationship with the former games. Not everything new is bad, but at the end of the day, we are playing less game in these days than we use to do a few years ago. And this is kind of epidemic, just about a year ago, I made a review where I was comparing "Force Unleashed" with "Jedi Outcast" and "Jedi Academy", what was surprising is that everybody seems to like "Force Unleashed" so much that even a premium edition just came out recently.
We have seen better things, probably not in graphics, but in game playing, story, camera handling, and so on... computers game industry - or console if you wish to be more specific - are giving us less quality Corn Flakes these days, probably because they don't have to, most of the players are a new generation who never meet those games, but in the name of the guys of the old school all I dare to day: We are not morons, don't try to cheat us please!