Review - Prince of Persia 3D
Feb. 15th, 2006 09:54 pmI remember Prince of Persia being a wonderful and exactly as frustrating as it can be to be completely addictive whilst not quite maddening. Still not up to date with computer games; I've just finished Prince of Persia 3D, which I thought was a very worthy successor.
It does a good if not perfect job of combining the scenery making it obvious what you can walk/climb and looking natural. The controls took some getting used to[1], but were well chosen.
The abilities to rewind, slow, and locally freeze time are a really great interface. If there's a tricky jump down, you can't just save there and repeat indefinitely or sacrifice a life to pass it, you have to do it right, but you get about six goes if you rewind when you fall.
In battle killing an enemy can refill them, so you can use the abilities fairly freely. And freezing everyone and moving at the speed of light is really cool.
Some people were dismissive of the puzzles. There was never anything very puzzly, but it worked well as an evening's entertainment: often enough not completely obvious that you have to experiment and work it out, but never frustrating for long.
The story is great; painted expressively with completely minimalist detail. The game being the prince telling a story is a good idea. The prince muses and editorialises in the distant way I love from old books; the whole aura reminds me of the pit and the pendulum. The love story is incredably archetypical ("cliched") and incredably sweet.
( Spoilers for the end of the story )
As the game progresses the prince's costume become increasingly wripped and torn away for bandages. Very Bruce Willis: it gives it a slightly earthy air. A lot of the other effects are beautiful, such as when he drinks. The running-on-wall type things are very satisfying, and give you just slightly more leeway than you expect.
At the end, you lose the dagger, and are forced to climb the old way for a bit, playing from the last save point; it's good in a finale to make everything tenser, and underlines how you couldn't cope like that through the whole game. But when you get a sword that can kill in one blow it feels great.
It's all over now: on to Disworld Noir. Ooh.
It does a good if not perfect job of combining the scenery making it obvious what you can walk/climb and looking natural. The controls took some getting used to[1], but were well chosen.
The abilities to rewind, slow, and locally freeze time are a really great interface. If there's a tricky jump down, you can't just save there and repeat indefinitely or sacrifice a life to pass it, you have to do it right, but you get about six goes if you rewind when you fall.
In battle killing an enemy can refill them, so you can use the abilities fairly freely. And freezing everyone and moving at the speed of light is really cool.
Some people were dismissive of the puzzles. There was never anything very puzzly, but it worked well as an evening's entertainment: often enough not completely obvious that you have to experiment and work it out, but never frustrating for long.
The story is great; painted expressively with completely minimalist detail. The game being the prince telling a story is a good idea. The prince muses and editorialises in the distant way I love from old books; the whole aura reminds me of the pit and the pendulum. The love story is incredably archetypical ("cliched") and incredably sweet.
( Spoilers for the end of the story )
As the game progresses the prince's costume become increasingly wripped and torn away for bandages. Very Bruce Willis: it gives it a slightly earthy air. A lot of the other effects are beautiful, such as when he drinks. The running-on-wall type things are very satisfying, and give you just slightly more leeway than you expect.
At the end, you lose the dagger, and are forced to climb the old way for a bit, playing from the last save point; it's good in a finale to make everything tenser, and underlines how you couldn't cope like that through the whole game. But when you get a sword that can kill in one blow it feels great.
It's all over now: on to Disworld Noir. Ooh.