Excessive

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

This will be the first game I'll talk about that I most recently acquired, as it's the game that I was just playing, so it's fresh in my mind and ready to be talked about. Of course, I've only played the very beginning and first few save points, but it's already made an impact, so I think I can safely talk about it.

The basic idea behind the game is that Ubisoft saw that while Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was critically acclaimed, and fans loved it, it didn't sell very well (mostly due to them releasing it at Christmas time at the same time as other huge titles) and so they wanted the next title to sell more copies. Now I'm not sure who was doing their research, or who thought it was an awesome idea, but they thought if they revamped the battle system, made you fight a bunch more, made the prince a rock and roll badass, and then had heavy rock playing in the background it would sell double the copies.

As you can see from the cover art there, the prince looks mighty different (and yes, it's the same prince) and basically they explain it by saying that since the prince was messing around with time (and released the sands of time) the demon of time has marked him for death, and has been chasing him and trying to kill him 24/7 for the last year or so, so the prince is rugged, unshaven, long-haired, and tired of running (he's now a rock star). They got a new voice actor (someone who is all grizzly and angry) and although the change is a questionable one, I wouldn't have mind it so much if a) they dedicated a bit more time to showing how tortured the prince was by the constant running, because a 30 second video at the beginning just didn't get across why he'd be so different. and b) if it wasn't such a transparent attempt to appeal to a different audience without appealing to it's established fan base. Even the persian/middle-eastern music that played through the battles in Sands of Time is replaced by hard rockin' music (by none other than Godsmack, king of the shitty). So as you can see, on one hand it's kind of explained, and understandable and interesting, and on the other hand it's a cheap marketing ploy, and too transparent.

Alright, so the gameplay has been shifted from a "puzzle/platforming game with fights in between to keep the player from getting too bored" to "puzzle/platforming game with fights during the platforming and fights between the platforming because fighting is more fun". So, does the wreck the game? No! The fighting in the first game was pretty much just there as filler.. to make the game longer, there wasn't much substance to it, not much strategy, I basically got through the game just doing wall attacks over and over again. The developers decided to make the fighting a bit more deep, more combos, more weapons, and more enemy variations, which is good, but I dunno, I still can't help but feel that it's still just filler. I'm playing the game for the awesometastic platforming and puzzle solving, not to kill enemies with my rocker hair, if I wanted to kill shit I'd play God of War. So yeah, they did make the fighting more deep, and to go with that, they made fighting a large part of the game, but to me, to the player, the fights are still just there to make the game longer, and not really a part of the game (or the reason why we play the game).

One problem I've noticed though, is that with the new fighting system, I've had a hard time getting used to not fighting like it's Sands of Time, and I tend to get hit a lot, tend to vault over enemies involuntarily and fly off a cliff, and in many other ways just have a difficult time getting the prince to fight the way I want him too. I assume with time I'll get better at it, but as someone who had just beaten sands, picking it up and playing, it feels loose and unintuitive, almost overcomplicated... but I'm betting my opinion will change once I get more into the fighting.

One good thing I've noticed... it's fuckin Prince of Persia! There are millions of new puzzles/rooms to figure out, trap paths to get through, and walls to jump off! It's why I play the game, and if I have to fight a few enemies to enjoy the awesome rooms, then so be it.

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