By John Walker on October 27th, 2008 at 11:55 pm.
How to while away the last few minutes of my birthday, before the Phillies begin game 5, and their inevitable triumphant victory in the World Series? Why, with Prince of Persia videos, of course.
The first (below) features a really rather pleasant arty story-piece, discussing the battle between light and dark, all esoteric and confusing. The second has three members of the development team discussing the artistic direction of the game. But not just saying, “A bit like concept art, only 3D”, but rather something more intelligent and thoughtful. It suggests that real passion has gone into creating such a vividly unique design. (Go Phillies!)
28/10/2008 at 00:01 L.B. Jeffries says:
Is it just me or is “Light world v. Dark world” the WW2 of Fantasy Games? I feel like I’ve been fighting the forces of darkness longer than the actual fictional battle took to win.
28/10/2008 at 00:02 Brann says:
Phillies? World Series! Damn amerikaners!
At least they seem to have taken two steps back from the “i’m-bnasty-and-I’m-part-of-of-a-Godsmack-videoclip” style of the character which is nice.
28/10/2008 at 00:05 DazzeL says:
Looks like a very standard storyline, though I do appreciated the LOTRness of the speech, but an unusual graphical style.
Looks kinda cool to me.
28/10/2008 at 00:08 gulag says:
Happy Birthday
28/10/2008 at 00:23 asdf says:
s/wile/while/g
28/10/2008 at 00:37 Pace says:
Happy birthday! and,
Go Phillies!
(as a Mets fan I’m contractually bound to hate the Phillies, except in the World Series where I’m free to root for the NL team.)
28/10/2008 at 00:45 CajoleJuice says:
No Mets fan should be rooting for the Phillies. No. God. Damn. Way.
28/10/2008 at 00:55 Pace says:
Well, we don’t want to see Kazmir winning a world series now do we? That would be bitter. (and I’m getting a bit tired of the Rays being compared to the ’69 Mets.)
28/10/2008 at 00:55 Quirk says:
asdf: Why the g? Seems like too much typing.
28/10/2008 at 00:59 John Walker says:
We want to see Hamels winning a World Series, obviously. In about two and a half hours from now, ideally.
2-0, go go go!
28/10/2008 at 01:12 Pags says:
Go Rays!
[Some sort of terrible typo has led Pags to accidentally spell "Phillies" incorrectly - Ed]
28/10/2008 at 01:27 Pags says:
Oh God, I feel so violated.
28/10/2008 at 01:49 Dracko says:
I may have very little love for this game, but it has to be said that the story is at least rooted into Persian mythology.
My point being that the Light vs. Dark story is as old as humanity. There’s not much of a biggie seeing it here. In fact, it seems appropriate for a franchise that kicked off following simple Arabian Nights tales.
28/10/2008 at 02:05 CrashT says:
It’s a pity the same attention wasn’t lavished on the script or selection of voice actors… :(
28/10/2008 at 02:08 Johnny Law says:
Yargh, CrashT slipping in with the exact comment I was going to make. Their choices for the voicework slay me.
The game may very well still be awesome, just the whole Missed Opportunities thing makes me sad.
28/10/2008 at 02:16 Whiskey Jack says:
I really dig the art direction, particularly when the world is in the “healed state” but I’m still wondering how will the gameplay actually feels like.
It doesn’t seem like the acrobatics are extremely elaborate (except for the jump from the round thing, but it seems automated somehow), and that’s what POP is to me: More and more elaborate and dare I say complicated acrobatics that you have to link one to the other to get to the next “safe spot” and complete that level design based puzzle.
So yeah, I’m sold on the look of it, now I need to know the feel of it.
28/10/2008 at 02:18 The_B says:
Also: happy birthday for yesterday John.
28/10/2008 at 03:07 Ben Abraham says:
Happy Bothday!
28/10/2008 at 03:18 rez says:
I do hope the gameplay lives up to the art style. The stages remind me a lot of the pre-rendered Squaresoft RPG environments. This isn’t eye candy, this is a visual feast.
Please don’t let me down, Ubi.
28/10/2008 at 04:27 nabeel says:
Happy Birthday! Looking forward to the game.
nabeel
28/10/2008 at 07:28 Tomzor! says:
Reminds me of Ico.
28/10/2008 at 08:38 MonkeyMonster says:
I like it, its a very nice [/borat] Having been a fan since the first of these new style POP’s this is a definite leap, twist, grab, scurry (whoops, rewind) and then slide down in the right direction. Only problem being I’ve played all of them on ps2 and now will have to try it on the pc (not having gone for a ps3 hog)
28/10/2008 at 14:05 jph wacheski says:
L.B. Jeffries – regarding “the actual fictional battle”,. the reason this theme is a constant in the histroy of human story telling is that this is no fictional battle, look around the world today and this battle rages in all corners of it,. and of course in the souls of each individual,. its the basic theme of all struggle.
The game looks very painterly indeed,. with the huge areas and endless details,. of course the gameplay will need to be enjoyable and that is hard to see from a video. arn’t we done with the ‘illustrative’ tag yet?
28/10/2008 at 17:00 L.B. Jeffries says:
jph wacheski – Fair enough, but they don’t really seem to be exploring the personal or moral implications of combating the “other” beyond these shadowy things are bad, lets kill them.
And as far as metaphors for the timeless struggle goes, light v. dark has been overdone a wee bit. Twilight Princess, countless RPGs…it just seems like rather than do a proper job and make a good enemy people just say “They’re all shadowy, lets kill them”.
28/10/2008 at 22:56 Andrew F says:
I would have respected the art video a bit more if, while describing the new style, they could actually have brought themselves to let the word “cel shaded” past their lips.
29/10/2008 at 07:05 Cian says:
I agree with Whiskey Jack. I’m excited for this game and I love the look of it, but from what I’ve seen it hasn’t shown off the flow and acrobatic flair that made Sands of Time so very joyous.
29/10/2008 at 18:33 Mollusk says:
Light and darkness? Out of balance you say? Unprecedented.
30/10/2008 at 21:07 HotSake says:
Does anyone else smell that? Smells like Okami. Painterly style? Light battling darkness? Healing the corrupted environment and changing it? Nah, must be the stench of originality.