Prince of persia

Ok this entire post is going to be my thoughts on prince of persia, game, movie and whatever. Those not interested, just stop reading at the post above, since the post below is rard's post on POP too.

firstly, the game. to be exact, the original trilogy of sands of time, warrior within and two thrones(i'll deal with forgotten sands later). Well, prince of persia is essentially an action-cum-puzzle game. action from the fighting, puzzle from thinking of weird ways from getting from point A to point B. Weird because normal people would never be able to achieve those feats. for example, running horizontally on a wall for a distance, then jumping off before you fall off onto another wall, jump back and forth between the 2 walls to get up. impossible, it may look, but it is precisely these acrobatics that make prince of persia unique. Prince of persia would not be prince of persia if the acrobatics were removed(remember this point).

However, i would not qualify a game as action just because of some fighting time you get. What an action game should do is get your heart pumping like crazy and your adrenaline flowing. Which prince of persia: warrior within does to perfection. It introduces this unstoppable(for most of the game anyway) beast called the dahaka who relentlessly chases the prince to infinity and beyond. ok no, it can't get past water, but water isn't something that is everywhere, so what results is a crazy heart-pounding, adrenaline-rushing chase whereby everything has to be done to near perfection without the luxury of time. This is what i call action(frustration as well, but that's another point), and warrior within would therefore qualify as a really good action game.

However, i doubt the same can be said for the other 2. In sands of time, the dahaka isn't after the prince yet, and in the 2 thrones, the dahaka is gone(and would have no reason to be around either). That said, i've never played those 2 before and cannot comment further(in case there's some dahaka-like thingy).

And speaking of dahaka chases, some of them can get ridiculously long. gerard you know there's some special weapon, which i accidentally found but couldn't spare the time to pick up, in the middle of the longest dahaka chase i've come across so far? the ones when you first defeat kaileena and then u have to escape the dahaka 4 times. 4 f***ing times with no sand replenishment. and the 3rd/4th one, after you've pulled out the 1st stone tablet, is ridiculously long. and there's this white colour weapon that looks like a glove in the middle of it. Crazy. Are there any longer chases than that? I don't think my heart or mind can take a longer chase.

On to the movie. 'Prince of Persia: the sand of time' will be released on the 27th of may, starring jake gyllenhaal and the pretty gemma arterton =). I'm looking forward to it, despite the storyline having nothing to do with the game at all. There are, however, a few potential pitfalls which i hope the movie will avoid.

1. The acrobatics must be there(refer to above mentioned point), else this movie should just be called sands of time. More specifically, the WALL RUN must be there. It's so unique and cool.
2. The ability to control time(if it is featured) must not be messed up. Time travel and control is a very intricate and delicate issue that is very hard to pull off well. (eg if in the future, you're gonna go back into the past to do something, then the something should be happening now)

Let's hope the movie does well.

And lastly, the game. 'Prince of persia: the forgotten sands' need no further intro(if you've watched the trailer rard posted). I have only 3 comments on it.

1. the prince looks very different from all the 3 versions in the sands of time trilogy. In fact, it looks like jake gyllenhaal. It makes me suspect that they're gonna use the movie to drive up publicity for the game, having similar release dates and all, hence the lookalike. Casual players like me wouldn't mind it, but i can hear the murmurs and criticism from the hardcore fans already, that their beloved prince is being changed. If the hardcore fans refuse to support this, this game could fare badly.

2. the game says it's going back to the time between sands off time and warrior within. meaning the prince has released the sands already, but hasn't been punished yet. so will the dahaka make a comeback? I hope so! What a great game it would be!(but no crazy chase sequences please)

3. the trailer shows the prince freezing water to do more imba acrobatics. like wow! now he can freeze water? Is that a stop time skill or a new skill entirely? I sense puzzles getting so much tougher, like when you think there's no way across then u realise u can freeze the water and run along it. crazy.

Ok so i've come to the end of a really long post. feel free to add further comments on this really wonderful game(and hopefully, movie).