Review: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (GC)

Since no local rental place carries POP: WW (strangely) I decided to go ahead and invest the "expensive rental price"...aka, I bought it. I picked up the GameCube version on the recommendation of the GameSpot.com review.

I was mildly impressed with Sands of Time, WW's predecessor, but never finished the game (as if to confirm just how "mildly impressed"), but after playing a bit of the PC demo for WW, I thought I might find something more to my taste, i.e. less cartoony.

Well, while WW is definitely that, it's possible that I'm even less impressed with WW than SOT. I'm finding it a chore to finish the game and may very well not. The reason I've even gotten as far as I have is testament to the few things about the title that definitely do engage. Since I didn't finish SOT all those months ago, I can't make a very good comparison, so this review will lack that perspective, unfortunately. There's enough to observe about this as a stand-alone, though, to render justice, I think.

GRAPHICS
The graphics are subpar. They aren't atrocious, but fail to reflect the progress made on all three consoles at this point. They are disappointing, in turns acceptable, regressive, and immersive. On the whole, fair but we should expect better not only from games in general on these consoles at this stage, but from such a prominent developer. About a C minus.

The Prince, himself, is more than a bit blockier than he should be, and the female characters in the cutscenes are just ludicrously outdated. That in itself detracts from a lot of very nice textures and typical diffused lighting that the series has used to nice effect.

I may as well also mention here the ubiquitous irritation of the camera control. The angles are often unhelpful and camera movement frustratingly limited, often unable to make little more than an acute angle of rotation. It's absolutely eye-rolling, and incomprehensible in a title of this stature from one of the world's foremost developers.

COMBAT
One commendable point is the fighting mechanics. Combos are deep, animations are fun. The ability to pick up dropped weapons, while hardly revolutionary, isn't quite standard yet, and adds even more interest to combat. Unfortunately, the variety of weapons leaves much to be desired and could conceivably have been improved sufficiently.

They permit the Prince to interact with his environment and his enemies in engaging ways, hopping from column to column, wall to column, wall to enemy, etc. He has some particularly interesting wall combos in combat.

LEVEL DESIGN
This is really where things start to fall apart for me, despite some very nice ideas.

The conceit of taking the same levels and playing them in two different epochs will, no doubt, meet with mixed reactions: clever or lazy. My own opinion is a mix of both, but in the end I have to say that I thought it worked well enough, even though theoretically it seems to some degree rather uncreative. It harkens to the emotions most of us get standing amongst some ruins or other trying to envision what it must have been like to be alive at the time when all of it was new. It captures some of that feeling, though really only a shade of it.

The really irritating and tired aspect of the levels are the traps. If I never see another rotating column of spikes and matching retracting floor spikes it will be too soon. Holy mind-numbing and just plain irritating. To navigate these, though, does require you to use the fun wall running ability of the Prince, but what promises fun quickly turns to "just let me past this stupid spike hall".

Those trap devices are done, fellas. As in, pull it out now, I really think it might be burnt. The next person who tries these babies on for size better have some kind of George Lucas/Stanley Kubrick like revolutionary new way of using them. Seriously. Enough is enough.

Also, objectives could be a bit more clear cut. The design already isn't incredibly open-ended, so there's not much harm in providing a bit of direction without making us run down more corridors of those really stupid, not fun spike traps.

Of course, the bane of most console games is the ridiculous inability to save at any point you like. Whatever the reason, it's a serious point of contention and detracts from much of the enjoyment. This seems a rather petty complaint, but other games can find a way around it; it's really difficult to forgive at this point, particularly considering some of the stretch of traps the Prince has to navigate between save points. I completely understand and sympathize with the desire to be creative about such a mundane task (and they do a good job on that count), but it shouldn't be so intrusive as to be an irritant as it is here.

MUSIC
Oh, my sweet Savior, don't let me get started. What is going on here. Really. Tell me. Tell me now. Are you going tonal or contrasting. Oh, both.... Okay...well-l-l-l, it doesn't work. My advice? Stay tonal. The rock music. Not so much. For Gauntlet Dark Legacy, yeah, it's camp enough to work. Not here. You've got some nice Middle Eastern sounding stuff there; stay with it. Don't jerk us out of the atmosphere with this not-terribly-good 90's rock music.

Other than the music, the sound design is just fine without being exceptional.

"That's all I have to say about that."
- Forrest Gump

Overall, it's a forgettable game due mostly to puzzle and level design and its fair but regressive graphics. It's worth a rental to tool around with some of the Prince's fun physical abilities, but you can pick up other action/adventure games that are years older that are much funner (Drakan: The Ancients' Gates leaps to mind).

I haven't been a huge fan of the POP series, and WW, though I thought it could convert, left me still mildly pleased, but ultimately uninterested. From the sounds of it, Two Thrones only promises much of the same, but I'll be happy to be proved wrong.

Console Wars: Reset Game

We are on the cusp of a new stage in the console wars. I don't think we've quite yet entered it, as Microsoft is working out its issues of getting units to gather at least a day or two's worth of dust in stores, and you can't really have a war until a second party joins in anyway.

Microsoft is certainly getting some kind of advantage by getting to the theater of battle first to position its troops and get a foothold, but it's unclear just how much that advantage will be worth, because Sony has been the Napoleon in all previous wars, building an empire that Gates & Co. have their hands full trying to overthrow. Sony's got a lot of leader tape on this one, but it's also looking like they are eating through quite a bit of it getting soldiers equipped, much less out of the tent. They aren't doing themselves any favors.

I happen to be a Sony fan. Some people will prefer to employ the derogatory term "fan-boy", but I refuse to accept that label because it intentionally implies a blindness and irrationality of loyalty, and I make my stand only after looking at a lot of evidence. I decide to be a Playstation fan.

And because my decision is based on earnestly considered evidence, every new generation of console is a new game, so to speak. I may be pulling for Sony, but like any self-respecting capitalist consumer, I'll change allegiance if the 360 can pull a 180 and perform a feat similar to that of WETA to ILM.

Before "Fellowship of the Ring" came out, ILM was really the biggest dog in town. There were other good effects houses, to be sure, but no one had really made a good challenge to claim ILM's crown. Then WETA came along. "Fellowship" was evidence that there were some five-star cooks Down Under.

Xbox hasn't done that yet. On the surface, it looked like they had with the first console, and far too many thought they did, but they didn't. It's impossible to deny that the hardware was there. The PS2 wasn't even really in the same league as far as what was under the hood. But it's just like putting me in an F1 McLaren and Rusty Wallace in a Ford Mustang. I've got the car, Rusty's got the drive. Guess who's gonna be bakin' smoky black donuts across the finish line.

The PS2 was the better system of the two (and the best console, period) for some key reasons which I'll get into later. But the reset button has been pressed, and so far, Sony's still hunting down a controller while Microsoft is tooling through the Options settings.

"To be continued." - John Travolta, Pulp Fiction.

Keep it real: bad advice for game designers

Okay, here's another thing that elicits the wrath of Pong: the philosophy of the supremacy of realism as a guiding tenet of great game design.

Gran Turismo. One of my favorite games of all time. Possibly top three.

Why? Oh, no reason, really ... except that I get to drive on the mother-loving Nürburgring Nordschleife in my choice of a Lotus Elise, BMW M5, Aston Martin Vanquish, Nissan Skyline GT-R, or any other of dozens and dozens of kick-tail choices. Or how about on the Circuit de la Sarthe or Laguna Seca or Infineon? All presented in more realistic beauty and detail than anyone else has done. Yes please.

Okay, so I slipped in the word I promised to malign: realistic. I have nothing against it; am, in fact, all for it ... to a point.

THIS is what Star Trek fans would call the Prime Directive. It is the heart of all intelligent and great game design. It is this: in the realm of games, because of the nature of a game (as I touched on in my previous post), realism -- as every other aspect of game design -- is subservient to fun. All must bow to fun. Fun, in games, is not like any earthly king, but like the Lord God Himself. He will always be king, for eternity. It is impossible in the fullest sense of the word to dethrone Him. So it is with fun.

Games will never not be primarily, fundamentally about fun. They are not about achievements in graphics or sound or music or design or technology. We have the amazing Xbox 360, now, and there are still people who pull out their Pac-Mans and enjoy every minute (that turns into hours) of it.

Pac-Man (and the Ms.) are phenomenal games. I try not to use such words lightly, because I think we all too often do. It was, first of all, verifiably a phenomenon of culture. But I believe it was also a legitimate phenomenon of design. Pac-Man is a fantastic example of a game that could piss you off, but do it fairly. If the game beat you, you were beat, you could get better. There was none of this, "Yeah, but what we're trying to do here is make it drive like a real rally car."

I see, so you don't care whether I can play the game or not; you're more concerned about your personal achievement. Gotchya. And, by the way, don't kid yourself. You're never going to be able to achieve true realism, so accept it and find out where realism can meet design and produce something more than a relatively few people can enjoy and be willing to (I know you'll like this one) buy.

Wow, the cars in Gran Turismo react so realisitically! Yeah, you mean like when they bounce off the railings like a wet Nerf football? I know what ya mean. It's like I'm there!

Seriously, I understand your desire for realism, but it inherently cannot happen. And even if it were possible, realistically, it takes gargantuan talent, dedication, and financing to race a cars on the world's finest raceways. That's why I want a game; so I can do something easily, have fun at it, that I just don't have enough of the other stuff to do in real life.

That said, I bought Gran Turismo 4 the week it came out. I love the game. I've played it more than just about every other game in my collection -- just like GT3. And am reasonably certain I'm at least in the top 50th percentile in skill of the people who play the game. I do all right. But I really don't feel like I'm so out of line to ask for a great game that doesn't absolutely require me to do something which clearly happens to be just a bit beyond my scope to unlock any portion of the the goodies in the game, and takes its turns in pissing me off more than just about every other thing in my life! That's ludicrous.

To be fair, that probably says as much about my life as video games.

The Wrath of Pong

Great title for a blog, innit? I can safely lead off with such an apparently egotistical question because I didn't come up with the title, and I doubt it will survive, because it just, frankly, isn't me. A very smart and close friend of mine suggested it, and while it isn't me, I have to admit that it is catchy and I haven't been able to think of a great title (yet) that is me, hence: TWOP.

So I headline my first post with the title since I'm assuming it will vanish as a title, so this is my little nod to it.

The Wrath of Pong. It quickly hints at a movie (King Kong) for which I have no affinity, in any of the incarnations I've seen. I know I'm bruising quite a few noses with that confession. It also, however, echoes the title of one of my favorite movies -- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Might be my favorite ST installment. My justifications for both opinions will likely grace another blog very soon.

At any rate, enough with addressing the obvious and relatively irrelevant. Let me relevant it up a little, here. The wrath of Pong. Video games are, for me, very much like some of my most memorable girlfriends: I didn't want to be with anyone else, and they could really, really, yes really piss me off -- pardon my English.

This is the wrath of Pong.

Video games are some of the best sources on the planet to find one of the things that really chaps my hide: needless stupidity.

This is the wrath of Pong.

Yes, there is such a thing as needless stupidity as opposed to necessary, or acceptable stupidity. There is.

Necessary or expected stupidity is meeting a gorgeous woman and suddenly forgetting every word in the English language. All of them. Or going too far with a joke. Lines are there, we're human, we cross them. If we're decent people, we regret it and do it fewer and fewer times the older we get.

Needless stupidity is making the best version of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 be the PS2 version ... and not only the best version, but the best without any question or debate. There is no contest. It looks and plays better than the Xbox version, the PC version, and the GameCube version (probably combined). And, despite the fact that I believe, with many justifiable observations (which I will put forth here in the days to come), that the PS2 system is undeniably the best gaming system of its generation (which it shouldn't be), that fact is quite simply asinine, aka needlessly stupid.

Or publishing just about any game with no selectable difficulty levels or some other means to get through a section that is proving too difficult for anyone in particular, * especially * when you're going to tie "unlockables" into game progress. You are being asinine! Stop it instantly!

"Gee, I wonder how we can possibly give our games wider appeal?" You are NOT that stupid. You can't be. The word "impossible" gets thrown around far too much, but it is impossible for you to be that stupid. How can you ask that question and then go design as if you're asking the exact opposite question. Quit designing only for people who play games 20+ hours a week. Quit focusing on making games as "challenges". They are games, for the luva Mike! Do you know the word? It's the whole point of your flipping industry? Life is enough of an frazzlin' challenge! It * is * impossible for you to be that stupid!

This may come as an even bigger surprise, but another term for "needlessly stupid" is "mean". Yes. You're mean. And I don't mean "mean" in that hanky-slapping, tear-dabbing, you're-not-my-friend-anymore sense. I mean "mean" as in the Devil. You know. Lucifer? Ever hear of 'im?

"Mean" as in the bamboo-shoots-under-the-fingernails, Will Tippin's season 2 dental operation, "We're only going to ask you this one time" mean. I know, you're mommy and daddy and all your friends tell you what a great guy you are, and you think you're not such a bad bloke. But, you are. You're a bad man. A very bad man.

A game is an activity providing pleasure or amusement, not frustration and expletive-encouragement. What IS the matter with you? You are (drum roll, please (as in, the one that preps the firing squad) needlessly stupid!!

You want ME to pay for something where I only get all of what I pay for if I'm effing "good enough" to unlock it?!? It's people like you that make me really really wonder if profanity really is a sin, because surely you are proof that God created it and intended it to be used against particular evils, among which you are chief.

When are you going to start making GAMES! It's not fun for me to have to spend an hour fighting a boss OVER and OVER again. And it's REALLY not fun for me to see something so freaking awesome and what looks like so much fun only to be jerked around and shut out because I'm not "good enough" to play your game. You're like the worst imaginable human being possible. Like a mix of the grade school bully and a hooker who treats you like she's a girlfriend: give me your money -- we can hold hands, but don't get any ideas.

It's NOT fun!!! That ISN'T fun!!! It's needless stupidity, you *&#@ing morons!!

"Oh, I don't get the really nice Ferrari unless I can beat this stupidly difficult race? I'm getting tingly all over just thinkin about it! That sounds better than sex! What fun!"

Me. This rant. Is necessarily, expectedly stupid. Will it do any good? I probably have a better chance at proving the existence of God. No way. Forget it. I might as well hatch my plan to get engaged to Morgan Webb. It's not going to happen!! It's stupid of me to waste my time with this stupid rant. And some people rag on masturbation? This is worse -- I get myself worked up with NO hope of satisfaction. Stupid. But expected and understandable.

You video game developers. You are brilliant, magnificent, creative people who have produced some of the most amazing and compelling moments in entertainment history, and you continue to prove the point that nature always evens things out. The average intellect will probably get through life without making too many stupid, and certainly not any glaring mistakes. While you insanely gifted pull some of the biggest boneheaded moves that even the stupidest people stare at incredulously, feeling so much better about themselves.

Please. Please! I beg of you. Start. Thinking. Now. Today. Before you finish reading this blog. Be stupid. Revel in it. But quit being needlessly stupid.

... I need a cigarette.