Prince of Persia Comments by Ellie Gibson

Yeah.

So.

The black outline on everything?

Are we cell-shaded now or something?

I certainly find the style (and by that I'm talking more about the character and enemy design; not the shading) interesting. Consider my curiosity piqued, especially if the bit about acrobatics and exploration is true.

@MBar: Yes. It's cel shaded. Get over it, please.

E3 eh.....

referring to a Y button eh....

hmmmmm eh....

I don't understand the decision to promote the idea of avoiding combat in favour of acrobatics and exploration, only to slap you with a boss fight which (I assume) you have to complete before proceeding.

That's great that the focus is pulling more towards exploring, and puzzles. I imagine they intend to make most fights more in the vein of Prince's initial tussle with Shahdee, in Warrior Within - and in that way, expanding on the action, bringing stronger value to each encounter; than the one-two-tap, rinse/repeat often forgettable affairs of the last series. I think their stated approach should work really well, so that when you do encounter enemies, it really is a fight; but at other times, your enemy is more the world around the Prince. :)

This game is going back to the roots of the original classic prince of persias more than sands of time ever did and this can only be a good thing. SCREW combat, I can play ninja gaiden if i wanted combat, Prince of persia HAS NEVER been about combat.

There are some bold statements in that interview; I sure hope the final game will back them up. An acrobatics/puzzle PoP is far more interesting than a combat one.

"What made the previous Prince of Persia trilogy special? Was it the fact there were Sands of Time powers? I don't think so."

I do. On the other hand, that's one of the gameplay elements that made the previous trilogy special, so I don't blame them for moving on.

The fighting was always the weakest part of the series; nice to see they're moving more away from it.

As far as I'm concerned, if you can't have fighting as good as Severance, don't bother. ;)

Shame it's not as linear as Sands of Time. I liked being told exactly where to go - the fun was in working out how to do it and pulling it off, not trying to work out where to go next.

Interesting.

I could certainly go for a more focussed acrobatics-fest (minus boring rooms of baddies).

Dont mind bosses though, as long as they feel in place. Baddies should be a challenge, like bosses. Not a horde to mow down :/

Interesting.

I could certainly go for a more focussed acrobatics-fest (minus boring rooms of baddies).

Dont mind bosses though, as long as they feel in place. Baddies should be a challenge, like bosses. Not a horde to mow down :/

The game looks gorgeous but if Ben Mattes is responsible for Two Thrones then I don't trust him. They promised to go back to the roots with that game as well and what we got was a Dark Prince with even more brutal kills, a normal Prince that is still a drug addict asshole, lame dialogues and things like the big statue where you ultra-slowly trial and errored your way through a puzzle where the biggest challange was trying to figure out what is going on and not throwing the joypad away out of frustration.

The QTE-like thingies were an OK addition though. They didn't break the game, were not especially intrusive, didn't kill you if you got them wrong and they were nice too look at

Sorry to be a big hype-face, but this game sounds amazing. A great hub which turn into linear levels (Zelda), A partner to share the adventure (ICO), and less annoying combat - mainly bosses (Shadow of the Collosuss). Big games to be trying to add yourself to.

@ Laur. Your totally right. I reckon this sounds linear enough to be challenging though. Dont you hate when you spend a lot of time in games just faffing about trying to start levels and stuff. Burnout Paradise and Assassins Creed fail for this reason.

I'm glad he still believes in creating single player games, still.

I'm liking that weird cel shading effect they're going for. Stylization > photorealism in my opinion: We're nowhere near photorealism yet, so if you can't actually manage your goal, you may as well fail in style.

Also... Has anyone else noticed that the prince of persia now appears to be a white guy? He looked sorta... well, persian in the last games. Like you'd expect.

I love the style of this, its prince of persia too so I'll be buying it.

I'm liking that weird cel shading effect they're going for. Stylization > photorealism in my opinion: We're nowhere near photorealism yet, so if you can't actually manage your goal, you may as well fail in style.

If noone even tries, we'll never get there. Whether it's desirable is another topic, but your argument is flawed.

Looks good so far. I bet only ten copies sell no matter what its quality is.

@UncleLou

You have a point. But at the moment, when we can't actually reach photorealism, i prefer the way games look when they take a stylized approach. As you say, though, we need people working on it to make sure we have the techniques necessary to actually get there.

Which particular graphics style you prefer is a personal thing, anyway

sounds like assassin's creed with less-repetitive missions. i'm interested, at least, although i didn't bother with two thrones.

Re. the comments attributed to Phil Harrison, I would be very sorry to see the bulk of the games industry turning out MMO-type games. I'm probably in a minority but on-line play, esp. first-person shooters, still leaves me cold. I'd take an immersive single-player experience every time.

Sounds like it could be fun!

Truly a wonderful, delightful game indeed.

JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

It sounds like one of those "lets make it feel like it had multi player elements" games. Sad indeed. There needs to ba a correction here, this may be the last big budget ATARI singleplayer games, Ben Mattes. Unless you work for every company, plus the companies that are going to pick up the slack if there is ever a dry point, you cannot verify a sweeping statement like that. Furthermore, your statement is not echoing the wishes of gamers, but rather the intent of greedy game companies who are more interesting in making cheap games (which online multiplayer games are, btw) and soaking people for as much as they can get out of them.

Ben Mattes also makes this all encompassing statement about people who come online, as if they all are one breed with one purpose. The person who comes online to download mods for Oblivion, for example, or updates to the scads of PC games out there aren't all there to play - they are there to download content for their game. Is there data that separates the casual online player from the serious ones? How about the people who come on just to get mods and updates, but aren't interested in the online game? Ben Mattes mixes all of these people up in his "conclusion" of the facts, and tries to make it look like there is some kind of mass movement towards online play, when in reality it simply isn't true. All you have to do is count the total numbers of games sold vs. the number of CONSISTENT online players to see the invalidity of Ben Mattes' flawed assertion.

I take Phil Harrison's statement one step further, and bear it out on many, many forums that I visit. The majority of gamers don't want one or the other - they want both, and they want both to be independent and fully flushed out. Even a multiplaying fanatic has to admit that if his / her internet access is interrupted, or if the server goes down, or if the game just loses popularity that it would be good to at least have the singleplayer mode of their favorite game to fall back on. Singleplayer mode should be included as the staple, as a given, for every game that it can possibly be made for. Sure there are some games that are totally not a good fit for Singleplayer - but those are far and few between. It's simply inane to create a game that everyone knows and expects to be single player - and change it up just because you want to get tyour hands in the pockets (hello Age of Conan).

I could go on, but suffice it to sy that this isn't over. Singleplayers are like the sleeping giant, we aren't saying much right now - because we don't feel we have to. But keep on poking at us...