John Mora, we need an intervention (PRINCE OF PERSIA RELATED)

[Toaster]

He thinks the new Prince of Persia is a good game.

He refuses to play Sands of Time, despite it being better than the new Prince in every possible way.


"John Mora" (10:36:45 PM): it's like ico if yorda wasn't a useless *****

I turn to you, my fellow Pavilionites--help me show this poor lost lamb the light.

http://z.about.com/d/movies/1/0/h/Z/Q/therewillbebloodpubd.jpg

[gray]

yeah john. stop having opinions


geez

[Goufunaki]

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[Vanilla Iced Tea]

I thought the new Prince was fun.

And Sands of Time was a great game, but I don't feel like playing it right now either!

[Chuck]

I liked the new PoP too. But I agree the Sands trilogy is much better with SoT being the best.

[Jamos]

I found Sands of Time to be underwhelming.

[Toaster]

I find you to be underwhelming!

[Jamos]

Can't please everyone.

[Zeroth]

Yeah, Jamos. All you want to do is the same three things over and over. You never want try anything new, and it gets kinda boring.

[Red Dragon]

I disliked Sands of Time. Ya, I said it.

Why the heck in both the new one and in Sands of Time do they end with "Y'know everything you did in the game, well who cares because none of it matters".

[John Mora]

Thanks for the spoiler? {:c

[Red Dragon]

I assumed you played it from the first post in the topic!

[Biggie]

I don't even care to measure how great The Sands of Time was, since it was a game you had to experience at that time to appreciate it. Really, Warrior Within was garbage, and the sequel to that was only comparable. The new installment was only good. Aside from combat, the platforming seemed very lazily made, like they comprised it as timed button presses than polished platforming.

[John Mora]

Actually I like it the other way around, since they find ways to artificially lengthen the battles. "We're gonna give you all these attacks but you can never use them because the enemy has like a 6ft invisible barrier around them that they can just knock you away with. And if you try to use Elika the enemy will just knock her away, too."

AND JUST BECAUSE I PLAYED IT DOESN'T MEAN I BEAT IT, RED DRAGON. OR SHOULD I SAY... STUPID DRAGON.

[Caciss]

John Mora has never been able to overcome even the simplest of challenges in video games, so you should always assume he's never beaten any video game.

Ever.

[Tintenfisch]

John Mora has never been able to overcome even the simplest of challenges in video games, so you should always assume he's never beaten any video game.

Ever.

Hey that's not true! He's great at Super puzzle dooter turbo remix HD 2.

[marcus]

it's interesting to note how prince of persia went from a difficult game requiring perfect timing and reflexes to overcome a myriad of well placed traps and combat to JUMP OVER PIT WHAT YOU DIED WARP JUST BEFORE YOU JUMPED OVER PIT.

[Jeroak Nelave]

Honestly, i found Sands of Time to be frustratingly difficult, and it started feeling like a chore, instead of a fun game.

I have heard that the combat and stuff was easier and the game just a bit more forgiving in the 2nd and 3rd games, along with the new Prince of Persia game.

[marcus]

Sands of Time? Difficult? lol

Warrior Within was pretty tough because you'd have to go through a long sequence of puzzles + combat without any healing and enemies dropped sand orbs maybe 50% of the time. Sands of Time was more platforming than combat but Warrior Within ramped up both yet didn't contain the same quality of level design. Running from the Dahaka was a lesson in futility because the levels were so drab and gray that you never knew where to jump or grab onto a platform.

Two Thrones was a nice balance. The new game is just **** easy. There's absolutely no penalty to failing you just keep on jumping.

[Duel]

She saves you so you can keep playing! JUST LET GO Elika!!!!!!

[Tintenfisch]

My problem with Warrior within was that it had more bugs than several bee hives.

[Biggie]

My problem with Warrior Within was that it was trying to be The Scorpion King.

Thank god they got the original voice actor back for the third one. Second one was a turd.

[Red Dragon]

Honestly, i found Sands of Time to be frustratingly difficult, and it started feeling like a chore, instead of a fun game.

I partly agree with this. It wasn't difficult, but it was a throughly annoying game. I just wanted it to end.

I liked the new one for what it was. It could have been better and I could do crazy stuff and think "will this work?" and then just have Elika pop me back onto the ridge if it was stupid. I love experimenting around with the landscape to see if I could pull off some crazy. However because of the "choose where you want to" made the difficulty curve the same everywhere and made it easy to get to places.

[John Mora]

I think the presentation of the new Prince of Persia and the art direction is impeccable, and nothing is more thrilling than the music cuing up while you pull off an insanely well-animated series of stunts without screwing up.

And then you fight the same bosses over and over again that cheat!

[Toaster]

Aside from combat, the platforming seemed very lazily made, like they comprised it as timed button presses [as opposed to] polished platforming.

Let's look at Mirror's Edge (without dragging it's trial and error process and the ****ty combat into the picture) and the previous Prince of Persia games (with Sands of Time being the highlight). These games required actual timing, and the positioning of your character during these parkour platforming segments actually mattered. You felt as though you were actually in control over your character and not simply pushing buttons (yes, there is a difference between the two).

As opposed to the new Prince of Persia, I couldn't help but feel like I was running a string of timed button presses where the timing windows were very forgiving and your positioning didn't even matter. In the new Prince of Persia, player control lacks the amount of precision and finesse that, say, a Mario game has. You're also running along a very linear path throughout the course of your adventure. Why the **** does the game give Elika these abilities that allow her to jump great distances, and literally fly when you do so you're stuck on invisible rails. That's just a lot of show without substance, and what it boils down to is that the game isn't even bothering to present the player with new, unique, or challenging set pieces. The plates are merely lock and key-mechanics, with the abilities serving as a complete detachment from game and player as ridiculous cinematics where the Prince and Elika fly throughout the air whilst making snarky remarks to each other like a couple of smug new yorkers. That isn't platforming, it's shameless.

But, you know, different strokes for different folks. I loved the Sands of Time but it seems as though everyone here thought it was far too difficult and frustrating.

[John Mora]

I think Prince of Persia's platforming is good to unwind to.

[Chuck]

The first time I rented Sands of Time I kept dying at like the earliest possible point. Just minutes into the game I kept screwing up and I just said "screw this." Some time later I ended up borrowing Two Thrones from my cousin and beat it in a week or so. I liked it so much I had to go back and give SoT another shot and was able to beat it. And overall it was a much better game. Lastly, I played Warrior Within which I didn't mind it's poor attempt at being edgy and "mature" because the gameplay was still fun. I never beat the final boss battle though.

The new Prince of Persia was good but I agree with Toaster the platforming was over simplified and much of the time felt automatic. And the progression was too linear. The only time you were exploring the environment was when you're scrounging for light seeds. My favorite thing about the Sands trilogy was that each platforming segment was like a puzzle and once you learned the Prince's moves you could always figure out how to get through it. And the rewind ability made trial and error completely non-punishing.

[Biggie]

Prince of Persia.

FINALLY. A game so easy Mora can enjoy it.

[Toaster]

I think Prince of Persia's platforming is good to unwind to.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/riotsword/Reactions/tardlink.jpg

[Tintenfisch]

nothing is more thrilling than the music cuing up while you pull off an insanely well-animated series of stunts without screwing up.


Which most people probably don't ruining the moment.

[SirTMagus]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/12/3/

Tycho:
“People play games (videogames included) for a number of reasons, and those motivations make different types of games more appealing than others. We're not measuring laser-cut slabs of aluminum here, with precise angles and volumes. We're talking about a context in which the weight of each element depends on the person viewing it. I will often read a review of a game I have played and cry aloud at its content, as though they were making false claims about demonstrable, physical phenomena. It's like I am gesturing with my whole body at what is obviously a pumpkin, and being told that the object on the table is, in fact, an opossum. They aren't liars, or villains. They are gamers. They simply have a different sort of metabolism, one that craves peculiar, to my mind heretical fare.

A good example of this playing out is in the guitars for Guitar Hero and Rock Band. When the Rock Band guitar is working, I vastly prefer it: its size and shape are much closer to electric guitars I have played, and the strum bar is thick at the outer edge to be gripped like a pick. Its operation is largely silent, without the characteristic click of a microswitch, designed (I am sure) explicitly to be quiet. Some people love that click, though - it means precision - and for the player who craves that fifth star, there is no higher virtue. Stars in single player are, for me, irrelevant. I'm sure this makes me a scoundrel. I only care about stars in co-operative multiplayer, where I see them as an index of our indomitable band spirit. I want a measurement of our unity. I'm playing the same game for an entirely different purpose. I wouldn't notice if it did click. When the song begins, I enter a trance.
That's a pretty serious distinction - people who play games in order to excel at them, and those who play games as a conduit to fantasy - and its only one axis of the diagram.”

Gabe:
“Tycho talked about the different reasons people play games in his post and I thought it was pretty interesting. It's a conversation we've had before and I think it's something a lot of gamers probably don't think about. I remember it came up while we were both playing Metroid Prime: Corruption. I was talking to him about how I was getting frustrated because some of the boss battles were really giving me a hard time. I realised I don't play games for the challenge. I don't need or want to be punished by a game for making mistakes. I play games for what Ron Gilbert calls "new art". I play to see the next level or cool animation. I don't play games to beat them I play games to see them. Coming to that realisation was actually sort of important for me."

maybe this is relevant?

[John Mora]

Indeed, this is why I like Prince of Persia. :3

Although, seriously, I want to have a word with the battle AI director.

[enemies perfectly parry every attack]

[Jamos]

To be honest, I didn't get very far in Sands of Time, but nothing seemed all that gripping. I was rather frustrated because I didn't see the big deal. Warrior Within actually was pretty fun... the combat that is. I hate the puzzles, platforming, and all the backtracking. Usually backtracking doesn't bother me, but geez. Then with The Two Thrones they got things right. That was one hell of a ride. Seemed to have the perfect balance of combat and platforming. My one issue was that the whole health constantly decreasing when you are Dark Prince. It is generally okay, but later in the game there is a part where there aren't any enemies for you to replenish health.

Yeah, Jamos. All you want to do is the same three things over and over. You never want try anything new, and it gets kinda boring.
Pardon?

[Toaster]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/12/3/


maybe this is relevant?

I wasn't really trying to debate on the two game's difficulty differences. I was trying to create a distinction between the two very different design paradigms.

I don't play games to be challenged necessarily, either. But with difficulty comes the reward of accomplishment. I am able to enjoy a game that isn't difficult if it is sufficiently designed, which I felt the new Prince wasn't (with The Sands of Time being what I beleive to be a more complete, and fully-realized experience).

[Caciss]

Let John Mora fight his own battles Magus!

[Tintenfisch]

Let John Mora fight his own battles Magus!

Friends stick up for one another. you don't have friends Caciss so I understand where you're coming from.

>:3

[Caciss]

Cool kids don't need friends, we got cigarettes and leather jackets.