Comments on: E3: The Trailers – Prince Of Persia Next-Gen

By: Longley Brandoncroft

Longley Brandoncroft — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:02:38 +0000

Looks a bit more like Edmund Dulac than final fantasy from this angle. I hope that’s what they’re going for. Citing a French artist famous for his Arabian Nights illustrations couldn’t be more appropriate.

Specifically; the surfaces are detailed in these delicate, incised lines and big, separated areas of colour…outlined with thick contours. Definitely has that art nouveau vibe, anyway.

It’s too bad the character design isn’t more along those lines.

By: Alec Meer

Alec Meer — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:14:33 +0000

A good rule of thumb re: posting potentially offensive stuff here is not whether you’d be comfortable saying it to, f’rinstance, a friend, but rather whether you’d be comfortable saying it to a friend’s mother.

(Note that “my friend’s mother is a crack-addled, Neo-Nazi hooker” doth not a carte blanche make.)

By: Mattress

Mattress — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:58:44 +0000

Apologies for my colloquialisms. No homophobia was intended and I didn’t mean to equate being gay with being lame. I was writing as I speak, and living in a relatively liberal society where most people of an age don’t take deep personal offence at any minor (and generalised) tresspasses. Basically what I mean to say is, that certain words work their way into one’s vernacular since you’re a kid (think South Park’s 8 year-old cast who often call things “gay”) and you use them instinctively, not thinking that they’d cause harm to those more sensitive of words because discrimination was never one’s intent.
Still though, I think those who found offence at what I said need to lighten up a bit, I wasn’t making a personal attack at anyone and would’ve thought my words were obviously not intended to inflame… I didn’t think there was any “nastiness” to what I said, RPS overlords, though this is your site, it’s a privilige to comment here and the team have full right to moderate these comments as they see fit.

To talk about the game again, whilst from the trailer and that Edge preview last month, the game art looks technically impressive. I find it a shame that the Ubisoft team has decided to pilfer it’s art style from oriental games. Whilst all art steals and it’s important to steal from the best (Ico, Final Fantasy and Zelda are definitely the best), I think it’s disappointing the Prince of Persia brand continues to betray it’s roots as it has done since the sequel to Sands of Time. There’s nothing Arabic about the art style (except some vague collection of buildings that look like some bastardized cyberpunk/Middle-Earth/Middle-Eastern contraptions (sorry to all bastards, I didn’t mean to offend you in any way). Even if Sands of Time took most if it’s art direction from Disneys Aladdin and not the history books, I found it admirable that a successful and innovative game was released by an American (Canadian-French) company only several months after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

By: Stick

Stick — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:57:42 +0000

Throwing girls at your problems: the new – yes – gravity gun. :)
Have to say I heartily agree with the “don’t interrupt the flow” design ideas. When the entire game is jumping puzzles, you need some kind of instant rewind mechanic. Or you – well, certainly I – would be spending half the time looking at save menus. Which would be unfun.

This looks very nifty – and boy am I glad the Wolverine Within is gone.

By: RPS

RPS — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:34:34 +0000

Sorry, we didn’t spot Mattress’ nastiness. Do drop us a mail if you see this kind of thing and we don’t appear to have caught it.

By: Dorian Cornelius Jasper

Dorian Cornelius Jasper — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:20:12 +0000

Still waiting to see Mattress’ comment get edited to something more ironically deadpan, if only for the RPS-was-here bracketing.

I honestly don’t quite see the “Japanime” influence here. The environments are gorgeous in the sense that Lineage’s concept art is, just properly put in motion. And the guy looks more rugged than anything you’ll find gracing the cover of a Final Fantasy game, this including his artsy color design.

I just suspect some people still have a knee-jerk reaction to graphics that aren’t grey-or-brown, which is why they’re still so prevalent even in the day and age when gamers are expected enjoy such “art direction” ironically.

The game looks gorgeous, and I trust the gameplay will be equally enticing–this is Prince of Persia, after all.

It’s just rare finding a big-budget western-made game trying to invoke a sense of awe and wonder in its art, design, and graphics. Usually, people chuck out any notion of this and go for “realism,” which tends to age more poorly to the eye than graphics with a striking, or even soothing, art direction.

That aside…

Is it just me, or did I see the guy swing the girl around like a weapon? She’s possibly the most lethal, most glowy dance partner in videogame history.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:44:13 +0000

The save thing looks like it’s just an instant “return to checkpoint” model: pretty much like the “oh no no no, that’s not what happened” in SoT. I don’t see that there’s much to worry about there.

“The combat could work out really well as long the enemies are varied enough that each does seem like a separate boss fight.”

Kinda – I’d also say as long as there are few enough of them that the entire game doesn’t become a string of boss fights interspersed by short runny-jumpy bits. If there are the same amount of baddies as in the previous series, but each of them feels like a boss fight, I’m going to stop playing pretty damned quick…

Play (ignoring cutscenes etc) should be about 90% or more runny-jumpy-puzzly, 10% or less fighty for my money.

By: Mman

Mman — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:44:49 +0000

Just realised there’s a second half, which wasn’t linked: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36543.html

By: Mman

Mman — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:55:42 +0000

Sold. The combat could work out really well as long the enemies are varied enough that each does seem like a separate boss fight.

The one thing I’m worried about is, now its apparently been confirmed it applies to ALL death, as opposed to just falling, the Elica (sic?) save thing looks like it could remove the feeling of danger for me like the revive chambers in Bioshock did (before the patch), with the added issue that I can’t just load a save and pretend it doesn’t exist.

By: Janto

Janto — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:27:08 +0000

It does indeed. A lot of people will be filled with hate at the combat, but so long as they can actually pull off the changes in angles I think it’s going to be a nice step forward.

By: Man Raised By Puffins

Man Raised By Puffins — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:59:28 +0000

A developer walkthrough is up now. Looking very nice.

By: Mr. President

Mr. President — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:42:01 +0000

The graphics look really weird to me, I’m generally not opposed to cel shading/black outline, but here it looks rather out-of-place and unpleasant. Hope it’ll be possible to adjust visual settings in the PC version.

I generally dislike Sigur Ros, but this track worked surprisingly well with this trailer. I’m sure they won’t be featured in the actual soundtrack for the game, though.