This is the second part of a two-part review of Prince of Persia (2008) and the “Epilogue” (2009) downloadable content. There are spoilers, but you already knew that. This review examines the “Epilogue” adventure and its relationship with the original game. The review of the original game can be read in Part 1.

Whether fans of Prince of Persia (2008) want to accept it or not, Epilogue (2009) is canon. At its core, it is a meandering journey through the corrupted Underground Palace that adds neither depth to the original story, nor game mechanics of any real consequence to the original game¹. So what was the purpose of this new content? The cynical answer to this question would be “to get stupid people to pay for the intended ending to the original game.” And while I can agree with that statement, there are parts of Epilogue that skirt the edges of something great – something that should have formed the basis for the original game. Epilogue implores us to keep the candle burning for this series, in a last-ditch attempt to convince us that UbiSoft hasn’t lost their touch with the franchise they resurrected so successfully six years ago. Prince of Persia (2008) was just the beginning; we can expect more from the obviously planned sequels. Except Epilogue fails to convince us that there is anything worth waiting for.

How a company like UbiSoft could fall so shamefully and completely to the allure of downloadable content, when it has been pressing boundaries in areas of game design that we could only hope for in big budget titles, is colossally disappointing. The Epilogue feels tacked on; the lingering strands of the story left behind by the heartbreaking ending to the original game are left feeling just as undeveloped.

Instead, Epilogue adds a new area to explore and perform more of those one-button maneuvers that had grown so tedious in their limitations by the end of the original game. To satisfy the player obsessed with collecting things, in place of Light Seeds there are a meager ten Frescos of Light scattered throughout the Underground Palace – but they aren’t much of a challenge to obtain if you’re paying attention.

As the new chapter progresses, it is expected that the relationship between the Prince and Elika would take a darker turn. Elika, a woman who had been selfless for the duration of the original game, is brought back to life by her friend that should know she would disapprove. And yet beyond the slap in the face at the beginning of Epilogue, their relationship is no worse for wear.

Since Ahriman’s corruption is back, it’s time for the Prince and Elika to set things right in the world again. This time, they’re just going after her father. The scope of this postscript was obviously scaled back to provide an adversary for the sequels.

On the way to Epilogue‘s conclusion, the agreement between Player and Game set out by Prince of Persia is redefined. The challenges are not as forgiving as the original; there is a lot more trial and error. There are far too many areas where it requires the Player to perform a long string of moves without the platform break points that were so prevalent in Prince of Persia. Furthermore, the ooze-dodging sequences that were spread so far out to be unnoticed are now everywhere, as if to artificially extend this chapter through an increase in difficulty. This is a glaring contradiction when Prince of Persia had clearly established lower expectations of the player in the original game. As much distaste as I had for the lack of control in Prince of Persia‘s mechanics, this sudden lack of flexibility cheapens the experience. This is Prince of Persia, not Frogger.

Yet despite its shameless repetition and mildly challenging lever-throwing puzzles there is a glimpse of The Sands of Time, where the jumping and wall-scaling puzzles come closer to approximating that experience than the original game. The Tomb, which is a series of walls that must be moved and adjusted to be accessible, was my favorite part of Epilogue. In one room, the walls must be rotated and angled so that by the end of the puzzle, you have wall runned, climbed and swung over every inch of them. It wasn’t terribly challenging, but it felt like it was the Prince versus the room itself. It’s an approach that the original game would have benefited from, considering how little exploration and combat was involved to offset its lack of difficulty.

The first boss encounter is with Elika’s father, who is entirely consumed by Ahriman’s dark influence. Naturally, you don’t defeat him right away – you will come to face him a few more times before Epilogue‘s conclusion. To add some variety, boss characters from the original game were brought back as well. These encounters serve no purpose except to provide speed bumps in the progression through the game.

This was an incredibly lazy design decision, and even more insulting after the Player had spent the course of the original game trying to kill them (and succeeding). To get around this obvious disregard for the Player’s intelligence, UbiSoft Montreal created the Shapeshifter, who can take the form of the Hunter or Warrior bosses from the original game. Their role in the fall of Elika’s kingdom is unknown. Epilogue hopes you don’t care.

But that’s not the point of the Epilogue; it’s made pretty clear that this chapter in the new Prince of Persia story is merely a stage to set up the final confrontation between the Prince and Elika’s father, the Fallen King. When the King fell into the pit at the end of the original game, there was the sense that he would be seen again. After all, he is the reason that Ahriman was released into the kingdom in the first place! The dream-like sequences that are revealed through the course of the original game show the events surrounding Elika’s death, her father’s choice, and her resentment towards him for sacrificing peace in the Kingdom for her life. No matter how well-intentioned his actions were, he is ultimately responsible for the state of the kingdom.

But was it truly necessary to kill him? Is there no place for redemption? The Prince himself illustrated over the course of the original adventure that it’s possible, and it’s a key theme of the game’s story. Killing is such an extreme reaction when there are examples throughout the original game that the corruption itself can be removed. You don’t go around destroying the land; with Elika’s assistance, you heal it. When the Prince is corrupted by falling into the ooze, he is saved by Elika. When the Prince’s corruption is an actual plot point, he is healed by Elika. The Fallen King is not a character in this story; he is simply grouped with all the other boss characters you’ve had to face to that point.

As a result, Elika’s relationship with her father is never truly resolved; instead, you simply fight him over and over in his Ahriman-possessed form until he is killed in a very anti-climactic encounter. The Prince isn’t even directly responsible for his death, just for pushing him onto a spiked throne. This isn’t closure – this is a video game exposing itself.

Even as the Fallen King is slain, even as Elika sullenly departs to be with her people and rebuild a lost civilization, you want to turn the next page. You want to find out how this all ends. For an instant there is the glorious thought of promise and possibility with the sequel that is surely on its way. And then, in a massive, crushing realization via some tortuous form of refrigerator logic², you realize what has just taken place. You resent Epilogue for its unfulfilled promise of closure, and are sickened at how a game publisher has so unceremoniously left the player twisting in the wind after offering nothing more than a footnote to the text of the original game.

This is the first part of a two-part review of Prince of Persia (2008) and the “Epilogue” (2009) downloadable content. There are spoilers, but you already knew that. Taking UbiSoft Montreal’s intentions at face value one should be able to review both as a complete game, but I don’t think it would be fair to the intent of the original…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

When I finished Prince of Persia (2008), I was left feeling incredibly disheartened. The game’s ending made me question what I had been spending the last seven hours trying to achieve; it basically undoes everything you have been setting out to do for the entire game. But I did not feel frustrated; rather, I felt the ending was necessary – and the game brilliantly makes you a willing participant in this sequence of events. It does not give you a choice because it is something that you know, deep down, needs to be done. Prince of Persia is not an action game. It is barely an adventure game. It is a roleplaying game without the choice and the number crunching and the inventory management. You are given the role of the reluctant hero, thrust into a situation that clearly requires significant physical and emotional investment, and ultimately tasked with making a decision that has but a single response.

As a storytelling device, Prince of Persia excels. In fact, if this was a review for an interactive storybook, Prince of Persia would be the best and most beautiful interactive storybook of 2008, The End. But it is not. It is a video game.

As a video game, Prince of Persia leaves me wondering whether this is yet another milestone on the road towards the future of video games that I have come to dread. It leaves far too much out of the hands of the player, and instead relies on a few button presses to initiate the marvelous acrobatic moves that take place on screen in the march towards an inevitable conclusion. Prince of Persia manifests every video game enthusiast’s complaint about linearity and player freedom. And because it is so overt, it is identified as the greatest fault committed by this game.

Should Prince of Persia be held to a different standard because it simply illustrates what we all know is true about video games that rely on narrative? The way it showcases the story as the main driver behind the action is no different than the most linear of first person shooters, but there is a degree of skill involved in running whatever gauntlet a FPS would present. Prince of Persia is flexible in its controls, easily forgives failure, and yet when it tries to offer complexity in the form of Player-initiated exploration and a structured combo system for combat, they are in such sharp contrast as to be superfluous to the game’s design. Prince of Persia is in constant struggle with what is expected of it, and what it wants to achieve. And the game ultimately suffers for it.

It’s obvious from the beginning of Prince of Persia that Assassin’s Creed (2007) was a big influence on the Prince’s movements. Taking what they learned from the previous Prince of Persia Trilogy, they created movement animations in Assassin’s Creed that make traversing the dusty streets of Jersualem an acrobatic yet completely natural exercise.

It’s strange, then, that movement in Prince of Persia feels so inhibited, as if the freedom of movement was scaled back to suit the game’s unwavering linear progression. The fluidity of movement is still there, but jumping and running through Prince of Persia feels like bouncing off the walls inside a glass box.

At first, the game captures some of the appeal of the previous Trilogy, in the way that it slowly teaches you how the Prince can wall run, swing from bars and columns and scurry along ceilings. But the variation in movements are revealed in the first map, so that all future obstacles bear an uncanny resemblance to what has been seen before. And the Powers obtained after collecting lightseeds – abilities that feel like they should open up the game – are just extensions of the Prince’s isolation from the environment.

Under analysis, Prince of Persia reads like a continuous Quick Time Event ¹. There are on screen instructions if you want them, but survival is just a few timed button presses away. There aren’t many combinations to remember, and there is evidence in plain sight as to how each obstacle should be approached. There is no pressure for perfect execution of these maneuvers because you can’t actually die. Elika, the Prince’s companion throughout the game, is there to save him.

I didn’t hate the game for this, because it allowed me to enjoy the artistry poured into dressing up this game, and the free-flowing banter and backstory that takes place between the Prince and Elika. But none of it is required to proceed. It’s just there. You’re walking the garden path right along with them.

With such a limited range of movement, one would expect that exploration is permitted to make use of these environments. And despite the obvious care and detail that went in to constructing them, the environments impose the same constraints.

The dark god Ahriman is on the loose, and the land is plagued by Corruption. Setting off on their adventure, the primary objective of the Prince and Elika is to relieve this corruption by cleansing four different areas in the unnamed kingdom that provides the setting. But you don’t have to heal these lands in order: UbiSoft Montreal has given the Player a choice as to how they complete this objective. Which was a mistake.

UbiSoft Montreal took control from one area (the core mechanics of the game), and placed it into another (the game’s flow of narrative) unnecessarily. The game is trying to tell a story, and by allowing the Player to control the narrative it makes the design of key plot points and encounters impossible. It simply confirms that the game’s designers were not even confident in their own philosophy for the mechanics: freedom, but not really. The Player may feel like they have a choice in the matter, but the ultimate destination will always be the same, so why even allow this choice if it’s going to make telling a continuous story impractical? It’s the same reasoning that the designers of Medal of Honor: Airborne used to make it seem like their FPS was “open” by allowing a free drop at the beginning of each mission. And yet passing the first few checkpoints you find yourself still inside the corridors of a first-person shooter. What’s the purpose, except to hijack all meaning from the words “freedom” and “choice” in game design?

It’s frustrating, then, to be presented with such beautifully crafted environments that cannot be fully experienced. This is distressingly evident once the Boss characters from each map are defeated, which removes the corruption and creates light seeds that must be collected. At every wall vertex and unscalable cliff, the words “How do I get up there?” always found their way into the reaction to these intentional obstacles. Dejected, there remains only one choice: go where you’re told.

On each wall or cliff face, there are obvious wear marks showing you where to proceed. When they aren’t leading to the Boss characters, they lead to light seeds. These paths inscribed in stone leave nothing to the imagination. Even as the Powers of Ormazd are granted over the course of the game, the Seals related to each power are the only way they can be used. Flying through the air like a button on a string, you’re still a tourist in this world.

And yet there is nothing to hold the player back, or to slow progression. Each level is only moderately challenging to get through, with the biggest task overtaking the Boss characters at the end of them as they increase in power and ability. What few puzzles lie in wait are of the turnstile- or lever-pulling variety, and provide little more than a break in what is already a leisurely stroll throughout the game’s world.

You can’t die, so even in the limited exploration that is necessary to collect light seeds there is no risk. Elika saving the Prince from death is a mechanic that gives purpose to the Prince and Elika’s relationship, but like Ninja Blade ² comes across as the ability for the Player to correct his mistakes instantly, and not be forced to learn from them. This extends to the combat system, which can be elaborate if the Player decides to learn the combinations and time them correctly. But there is no incentive to do it, as simply bashing enemies with the sword when the buttons flash on screen and rolling to avoid corruption is sufficient.

Nevertheless, the constant direction by Prince of Persia feels like a respite from the typical overstimulating action of its contemporaries. It presents a form of play that allows the player to take in their surroundings, with a series of forgiving button combinations that do not require their full attention. They are just constantly admiring the surroundings from a distance.

So are we merely bearing witness to Prince of Persia‘s world, and the two fearless companions as they leap and fly and careen through it?

Prince of Persia‘s primary function is to tell a story. It had me in its grasp for the game’s duration, and made me think there is still hope for real storytelling in video games. It is a story of friendship and sacrifice, but told in a meaningful and completely natural way. The fact that I could see all this from the limited conversations I was subjected to – I rarely pressed the button that initiated more dialogue – is an accomplishment for UbiSoft Montreal. It’s a welcome change for someone who grew up with the disposable commentary between shooting galleries or the text riddled with spelling mistakes printed in some grubby instruction manual.

The relationship between the Prince and Elika is not romantic. Rather, it is a platonic bond that is strengthened by their need to see to each other’s safety. They also have a mutual respect for each other’s abilities: the Prince is valued for his plucky optimism and ability to surmount the obstacles they are faced with, and providing the brawn to defeat each Boss character. Elika, on the other hand, is respected for her otherworldly powers and choice to only use them when necessary, and her dedication to the preservation and restoration of her people. The relationship unfolds as best it can as the game progresses, given the Player’s ability to explore each map in any order.

The bond that develops makes the ending of the game completely acceptable: over the course of their adventures it’s made exceedingly obvious how much is owed to Elika by the Prince; she ensures his safety without question. It is only natural that he wants to do his part to save her, despite the consequences. That I was able to accept this plot conceit, means that the game has succeeded on that level.

So where does the “game” part of the experience emerge? The endgame is a foregone conclusion; it’s obvious how this story will resolve itself, and yet the player keeps going, thinking in the back of their mind that perhaps there is another way to resolve the conflict. The Prince himself says many times how they should just abandon their mission and start a new life away from the corrupted lands they are trying to save, since it keeps proving to be too big for the two of them to handle. And yet they continue, because the very least they can do is try.

It’s that same attitude that is reflected in the entire game: the constant desire to do more, to do something different, to make use of the environment that is on display. Maybe there is another way to scale that wall, or get across the chasm. But, like the story of Prince and Elika, there is a prescribed path that must be followed.

Prince of Persia is never sure about the level of interaction it wants from the Player. Providing freedom to explore the maps in any order, yet providing only meager means to move through them. Revealing a compelling narrative, yet permitting the Player to assemble it in any sequence. There never seems to be a comfortable compromise between telling a story and engaging game design, without resorting to hotbuttons and only moderate changes in difficulty to ensure the pacing of the story is maintained.

Prince of Persia struggles with the Boss encounters that close off each map. Each of them has a history, explained through dialogue as the Prince and Elika visit the different areas they are guarding. However, because each area can be played in any order, this back story cannot be told in succession to give a more representative picture of how each of these adversaries fits in the history of the world, and their role in the fall of Elika’s people. Therefore, there is no building towards a climax; instead, we are constantly reminded that Ahriman is our main objective³. The evil presence is just there, permeating every facet of the corrupted world, and yet the encounter with him is probably the most uninteresting aspect of the entire game.

Since there are only a few enemies scattered at random in each map, it raises the importance of these Boss encounters. And because you’re fighting the same four bosses in each of the main areas, the game arbitrarily assigns a few new wrinkles to their attacks and defenses, but no real increase in difficulty. These encounters become less and less enjoyable as you make your way to the end of each of the main areas – the repetition makes the Boss characters merely obstacles that must be overcome, like a chasm full of pillars or hard to reach handhold in a cliff face. This repetition does nothing more than underline the predictable – and safe – essence of the experiences in the game.

To compensate, Prince of Persia creates a fairly complex combo system that involves timing and positioning. This context-sensitive combat becomes even more pronounced when the hotbutton events flash on the screen. In this manner, combat in Prince of Persia is completely detached from the movement system. The movement system should be more complicated – much deeper than the combat system. Prince of Persia‘s environments are meant for exploration, yet the limitations in movement reduce any complexity in that regard. And combat is based on an unsatisfying system that degrades into button mashing on prompt simply because it works instead of thinking ahead and stringing together combos.

The inadequacy of the combat system culminates in the final confrontation with Ahriman, where you don’t even use it. You are simply charged with dodging giant fists and the black tide of corruption crawling up a wall you must run across. This is in stark contrast to every other boss that was faced in direct combat. There is no satisfying finish, there is nothing in the encounter that hadn’t been done in the rest of the game many times over – as simply navigating the terrain! The encounter could have been a closing movie and would have still produced the same effect.

Which is why I’m disheartened. I don’t think Prince of Persia is a good game. It was the vehicle for a story I had to see through to completion. A video game should not get a free pass because of its story. It is a game, first and foremost.

By removing the relative complexity of the typical third-person action game and Prince of Persia‘s progenitors, it is essentially creating one massive Quick Time Event. No real control is ever held by the player, and yet the game tries so very hard to make this interesting. And while this philosophy isn’t such an egregious transgression as Ninja Blade, this new Prince is setting a very dangerous precedent.

Challenge and complexity should never be completely sacrificed. What better way for a Player to appreciate the story than if they must earn it? The Story can effectively be used as a reward. I don’t want to watch my video games; I want to interact with them. I want to explore the world that has been so meticulously crafted; not allow it to be limited to a backdrop. I want to ask the question “how do I get up there?” and be allowed to answer it. I want to control the resolution of events, or at least be presented with the convincing illusion I can do something about it. I want to play.

So when the Prince does what we all expect of him at the end of Prince of Persia, there is a presiding feeling of accomplishment: the Prince’s destiny was fulfilled, as he repaid the debt to Elika the only way he knew how. But there is also regret: this achievement is predetermined, and like every other person who will play this game receives the same outcome to these events. You turn the page, and it reads like it does for any other.

Prince of Persia does not hide the fact that the Player has left no mark on this world. Like the indelible scratch marks on the walls of the many canyons and structures that have been traversed, Prince of Persia remains untouched by the actions that have led to its completion. And as the world falls into ruin once more, they are left wondering with foolish hope if the next Prince will have better luck in averting these circumstances.

The “Gaming Made Me” series of video game retrospectives started by Rock, Paper, Shotgun came from games industry writers, journalists and the designers that make them. It’s become a kind of collective autobiography sourcing the video games that shaped who they are.

Of course, the cynical part of me expected this community-driven effort to consist of mostly name-dropping key titles from the history of video games. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response of webloggers that have taken up the mantle where Rock, Paper, Shotgun left off¹.

So now I feel the need to contribute, because I think it is absolutely necessary for anyone who loves to play or write about video games to recognize the ones that got them into the hobby. Or in the case of game designers and professional writers, what made them get into the industry itself.

I have been into computers since very early on in my life, and playing computer games was a natural extension of that interest. However, I had no idea that this hobby would result in me creating a website to talk about them. I’m no industry figure, weblogging personality or budding game designer – I’m just a guy that loves to play video games, and write about them. For the people that truly love video games, they are as important as the books they read or the movies they watched when growing up.

For any game weblog, I’d say that writing something like “Gaming Made Me” is more essential than an “About” page. It’s important to let readers know where the author is coming from, and what games influenced their lives and opinions of what makes a great video game. It provides context for the reviews and criticism they produce.

At this point in my life, video games are no longer just a hobby. They have made me a writer, and they have taught me to be critical of things beyond video games. Both video games and this website have become such immutable aspects of my life, that I can’t imagine it without them.

It was hard to come up with this list. So hard, that I had to split it into two. I wanted it be a list of games that shaped me as a player of video games, as well as my viewpoints on what makes a great video game, instead of simply rewording a “favorite games of all time” list. So I’m not going to list off the Zeldas, the Half-Lifes, the Thiefs, or the Rainbow Sixes. That would be too easy for me. No name dropping of the classics and pretending as if they meant something to me in my early development as a gamer. The following list of games got me started in the hobby, tempered my opinion of the medium, and introduced me to the genres I love. Most importantly these are the games that eventually led me to write about them². They are the ones that left an indelible mark. And for that, they must be recognized.

Alley Cat (1984)

Bill Williams’ Alley Cat was one of the first games I got for my IBM clone desktop PC when I was nine years old (it had been out for a few years). The PC had no hard disk, and I had the game in PC Booter format – it booted right into the game without the need for an OS. The computer and game arrived in my house at the same time a lot of my friends were getting NES consoles for their TVs. I thought the whole home arcade thing was stupid. I could do more with a computer.

Except that all I had for my computer was a monochrome monitor. So I could play Alley Cat in black and green, or black and orange, or black and pink, or black and white. That’s some variety! Who needed the NES and its 8-bit graphics and low-fi chiptunes. I had a PC speaker.

Obviously, these experiences established my allegiance to PC gaming at an early age.

I played the living shit out of Alley Cat, mostly fueled by a white-hot jealousy of the friends that had an NES and Super Mario Brothers. So I got good at it. And for what appeared on the surface as a game for kids, it’s actually pretty hard. Jump into a window in an apartment compex, play a mini-game: a maze in a giant piece of cheese, a fishbowl with electric eels…it was pretty surreal and often frustrating. One of the mini-games involves seducing a female cat to increase the difficulty level, after which the other mini-games could be replayed. Alley Cat helped me define “keyboard bashing.”

Alley Cat was the first computer game I remember committing myself to, even if was for the wrong reasons. I consider it the start of both a rewarding and extremely damaging relationship with video games.

SimAnt (1991)

After the success of Will Wright’s SimCity, there were a series of games developed to leverage the “Sim” brand, which included SimEarth, SimLife, SimAnt, SimTower, SimTown and SimTunes. Little did we know this was just the beginning of a publisher’s business model built on the sales of expansion packs!

SimAnt is generally considered to be a critical and commercial failure for Will Wright, as it seemed to be too eccentric a riff on the SimCity formula. Instead of focusing on large scale empire building or ecosystem shaping, SimAnt was about digging tunnels in the ground, collecting food, managing population happiness, defending the colony, and avoiding lawnmowers. Most gamers weren’t ready for that.

A friend gave this game to me to try, because he thought it was cool. I was 12. I was so past the age of thinking bugs were interesting, so why would I want to create an electronic ant farm? The whole concept seemed ridiculous. Nevertheless, the game gripped me for months. It was better than SimCity: this game taught me about sustaining life³. I was so captivated by my ant colony, striving every day to keep my Queen alive so that it may prosper, that I began to assign my own narrative to it. I would later use these ideas to write a short story for my school’s creative writing contest, where I described a lowly ant’s adventures in saving his colony. I won fisrst prize for it, too. People thought it was such a creative and original concept. If they only knew it was inspired by a video game.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992)

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is my favorite game of all time⁴. It made me love computer games, and electronic games in general. It made me appreciate good scripting, dialogue and voice acting. It made me believe that an original story based on a well-known property could actually result in a good game. It also made me wish it had been made into a movie.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was the first game that helped me break down the barrier between “toy” and “medium” for video games. It is a game I go out of my way to play once a year, like watching a favorite film or reading a favorite book. The endgame brings sadness because I know it will be over soon. I have yet to encounter a video game that instills these feelings. Fate of Atlantis made me realize video games would be part of my life forever.

Diablo II (2000)

After finishing Ultima VIII: Pagan, I needed something similar. The game had captivated me with its isometric viewpoint, simple combat, epic quests and inventory management (really! I would have to leave excess stuff in people’s desk drawers and then come back to get it later). In response came Blizzard’s Diablo. While I would have to wait a year to play it (didn’t have the horsepower in my PC), I knew it was The Answer. See, Ultima VIII still had elements of adventure in it, as the world of PC RPGs hadn’t yet made the transition to the action-ready clickfests most of them have become. And you can thank Diablo for that.

Though Diablo was just the beginning of an obsession for me. The claustrophobic setting of a church with stairs that go down, down through relentless packs of monsters, down straight into hell, would occupy most of the time I spent with my computer. With Battle.net, Blizzard gave us multiplayer and co-op and (theoretically) endless replayability with their randomly generated dungeon levels, but it started to get tiresome. And with the release of Starcraft, the teaser trailer for Diablo II included on the disc confirmed its existence. It also gave me my reason for being as a PC gamer.

The wait for Diablo II was torture. It was the self-inflicted hell that the hero at the end of Diablo endured. My appetite for news on its development would not be appeased. I looked at screens, learned rumors of the new class types and the expansive maps that we would be treated to. The scheduled release was Spring/Summer 2000. I waited.

Closer to this time , I went to a local electronics superstore and asked for a specific street date. The woman who worked there looked at me funny and said, “You’re the 14th person to ask me about this game today. What’s so special about this Diablo II?” I had to bite my tongue at that point. Clearly society would never understand the cultural impact of video games.

I was away at University the week the game came out. I had to wait until the weekend to pick up my reserved copy, which was back home. After waiting over two years, you’d think that a few extra days wouldn’t matter. But knowing that it was there, waiting for me, just made it worse. Incidentally, I vowed to never pre-order a game after that. It hadn’t yet become as widespread a trend, but I could see that pre-ordering at a specific location tethers you to it. It provides no advantage over picking it up at any other store. Instead, you are made a prisoner with your own money and the con artists laughing at you from behind the counter.

But we are talking about Diablo II, the computer game.

The night I picked it up, I installed it on my parents’ computer. Over that weekend I must have logged close to 20 hours and stayed up way too late. I put the savegames on a diskette and packed up the CDs to go back to school. That week, I finished the game. In all it took me about four days, completing every quest and visting every random dungeon. I had beaten Diablo again. But where was Baal? The solid prospect of an expansion pack after I had finished the game helped sustain the euphoria of victory. These would be the best games ever made.

Of course, I was able to look past the hideous low resolution graphics (releasing a game in 640 x 480 game in 2000? Really, Blizzard?), the repetitive nature of the quests, and the game’s nefarious ability to make you want to collect things while in the perpetual loop of clicking a mouse button. Diablo II would provide the model for Blizzard’s own MMORPG, and an entire genre would be dominated by this game in the years after its release.

There’s no arguing Diablo II‘s impact on computer games, and video games in general. The simple “Click-Kill-Reward” concept had never been used to such devastating effect. This was a game I could install and play like some would play Solitaire, to pass the time. Everything became mindless, reflexive. I don’t think I’ve finished a game so many times as I did Diablo II. Hardcore mode provided an outlet for the experienced Diablo II player, where the character dies permanently. Losing my level 43 Sorceress stacked with a selection of rares and uniques to some pack of Fetish Shamans casting Inferno forced me to new depths of humility.

Diablo II was also responsible for something else. Back in that summer of 2000, another game was released. It was called Icewind Dale. Creating a mostly storyless dungeon crawler with the familiar rules and deep game mechanics of Baldur’s Gate had me equally gripped after I had finished Diablo II. So I decided to write an essay comparing the two. I thought Icewind Dale was the better game. I used pathetic excuses like “deeper”, “better soundtrack”⁵ and “nicer looking graphics”. I published the article on a website dedicated to games that didn’t last long. In time I realized I had betrayed a game that provided so many hours of enjoyment, and created stories I could share with the friends that also obsessively played it. Diablo II galvanized my love of PC gaming, and video games in general. Video games were more than a distraction to me at this point. I thought about them all the time, about their multiple layers of presentation, and how they were quickly establishing themselves in our cultural consciousness.

I began thinking about a proper website. I would have to write more about these things.

This is the first part of a two-part series. Read “Part 2: Critical Mass”

However, when I see headlines like “Why Adventure Has a Future” I take notice, because there’s nothing more entertaining than reading someone’s take on why they think an entire genre is safe from a fate that never seems to happen. It’s just too bad the article did nothing to usher in this new golden age of adventure games; instead, it just made me incredibly angry after being duped by an advertisement disguised as revelation.

Here’s an idea: let’s give the representative of a game publisher/distributor (ENCORE) a column at a very prominent gaming news website (EDGE online) where they can attach a sensational headline to something that amounts to no more than a press release to advertise upcoming games in their new product line (Mystery Adventure Games). It will be sure to get attention, and will actually do more to convince readers the exact opposite. It will contain insightful phrases like:

Adventure Games rely heavily on stories from literature, film, and historical events and people.

The games in question are Dracula 3: Path of the Dragon and Nostradamus: The Lost Prophecy, which obviously form the inspiration for such a statement.

Quickly reviewing the history of the genre, some of the best adventure games have come from brand new IP such as the Monkey Island series, the aforementioned Post Mortem/Still Life series, The Dig, and everyone’s favorite Grim Fandago. A bit of cursory research past writing the introductory paragraph in this article would have shown the author that there’s more to adventure games than full motion video and “interactive storylines”. Throwing a historical figure into your game doesn’t immediately make it more appealing (even if it’s the “first game ever” to do it).

Now for some focus-grouping:

Story-based game play lends itself towards non-teen; women based audiences, who have an appreciation for the genre and the story. Women tend to appreciate the character development, and interaction along with gripping storylines.

I think any gamer that’s been following the hobby for the last 20 years can appreciate those aspects of a game. And adventure games are not the only genre to adopt these tenets, either.

In closing, a relentless assault on my intelligence:

Well crafted Adventure Games will sell and what developers and publishers must keep in mind is that the key to making great Adventure Game [sic] is to deliver good graphics, game play and gripping story line. A good Adventure Game is as addicting as a good book but with the added bonus of story line interaction and eye catching graphics it is more than a book it is an Adventure Game.

The least ENCORE could do is hire someone who can string together a readable sentence to promote their games. Based on the aggregate scores at Gamerankings, it seems to me that neither game this article was designed to sell is doing very well in reviews. So why should any consumer consider these products? Because they are the unappreciated future of adventure games?

Like any PC gamer, I grew up playing mostly adventure games. Over the years the genre has been cast aside by the majority of game reviewers as niche, as the title that usually gets thrown to the interns. Adventure games need better advocacy, and not just by specialist sites like the excellent Adventure Gamers. Shameless promotional articles like these only serve to damage the reputation of the genre, by embellishing games that are obviously ill-equipped to represent it. Not to mention what it says about the editors at EDGE online.

I confess that I’m something of a literature snob, so it isn’t easy for me to admit I enjoyed a mainstream book like The Da Vinci Code – I love that it’s rooted in factual historical mysteries unlocked with factual historical information.

Except that it isn’t. I guess it was wrong to assume that Brown’s detractors had actively slagged both the book and the film enough over the past three months to get people to start thinking clearly, pointing out that the basis for most of his novel was either entirely fiction or a pseudo-historical text that had been written simply to support some religious crackpot theory. But factual? Come on, a literature snob would have at least done a little casual research before making a statement like that.

From this point forward I’ll be contributing there every two weeks or so, covering topics related to PC games both old and new.

In preparation for an article I’m writing, I played through Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis again over the weekend. I make a point of replaying this game at least once a year anyway, because I consider it the best game I’ve ever played and I want to make sure I’m not just deluding myself with foggy memories and nostalgia. There are a few things I picked up on this time around, because I was looking at it from a more critical perspective as opposed to someone setting out to simply enjoy the game. If you’ve never played Fate of Atlantis but plan on doing so, stop reading. I consider the following list spoiler-heavy.

• There is actually a third distinct pathway through the game. I always thought that you only had the choice of going solo or taking Sophia Hapgood along shortly after finding Plato’s Lost Dialogue. However, if you choose to go solo, you can actually take a more action-heavy path where the puzzles are more about kicking people’s asses Indy-style as opposed to pure puzzle solving. The puzzles felt a lot easier as a result. You are also exposed to some areas that are never seen in the other two options of playing the game.
• The submarine puzzle is still the most annoying task to complete. After comandeering a Nazi submarine on its way to Atlantis, you must navigate to an air lock at the bottom of the sea. This requires a trial-and-error approach in determining which adjustments (depth in the water and depth in the screen) to succesfully dock. Asking a player to think in three dimensions in a two-dimensional game with extremely restrictive controls and even more limiting graphics is frustratingly bad design.
• As the ever resourceful adventuring archaeologist, I never paid attention to the fact that I was always the one progressively unlocking the secrets on the path to Atlantis. After all, I was the hero of the story, and having the Nazis follow Indy’s great discoveries was always the way it happened in the films. However, there is one sequence that creates a kind of paradox. Aboard the submarine you steal back the stone discs from the Nazis, which are needed to open the gates to the underwater city. When you first arrive at Atlantis, you’re left holding the stone discs trying to get inside. However the Nazis are already there, and have control of most of the City. How did they get in if you’re the one with the discs? It doesn’t make any sense.
• Indy can die a lot more than I thought. Traditionally, the classic LucasArts adventure games were pretty family-friendly in the way they allow you to get out of most situations by dialogue trees or devious puzzles, but the main character will never die as a result of failure. In The Fate of Atlantis, there is one scene where Klaus Kerner (the evil Nazi Colonel in charge of locating Atlantis) kidnaps Sophia and you’re asked to hand over the stone discs in return for her safety. One of the dialogue options you’re given is “Over my dead body”. If selected, Kerner takes you up on this offer and shoots you, immediately ending the game. If you lose any fist fight, you will also die. The Lava River sequence before getting to the Atlantean God Machine at the end also can kill you if you linger too long on a tile. And of course, there’s the “bad” ending where you can’t talk your way out of being the first human to use the God Machine.
• Though the game itself is probably my favorite of all time, I’d say the ending is one of the best I’ve ever played as well. It brings true closure to the events, and stays close to what you would expect from an Indiana Jones movie. It’s equally amazing that it doesn’t involve some arbitrary boss fight, and simply relies on the wits of the player to navigate a very delicate dialogue tree. After winning the game, you feel like you’ve really outsmarted the bad guys, which gives a substantial feeling of accomplishment.
• I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark after I finished the game. Call it subliminal. I realized that Fate of Atlantis has quite a bit in common with this Indiana Jones adventure in particular. Both feature a plucky female lead with hints of past romance. Sophia Hapgood is an archaeologist turned psychic; Marion Ravenwood is an archaeologist’s daughter turned surly barmaid. Both get kidnapped – twice. Each of the leading ladies have necklaces that are important to the plot: Marion’s headpiece to the Staff of Ra and Sophia’s Atlantean artifact are both used to find the archaeological wonder at the centre of each story. Both Raiders and Atlantis have Indy visiting a maproom before arriving at the final goal, though Atlantis’ map room doesn’t really serve much purpose and seems more like they were simply slipping in an homage. Both feature submarine rides to the final destination: the Nazis’ private island where the Ark ritual is performed, and of course a journey to the bottom of the sea to get to Atlantis. It’s really quite interesting the parallels that can be drawn. I can only assume it was intentional.

The game was still as engrossing as the first time I played it. I had fun digging deep to remember the solutions to some of the game’s multi-layered puzzles. The story hasn’t changed, but I was nevertheless transfixed by Hal Barwood‘s superb storytelling. Indeed, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a genuine treasure.

It was a hard task to pull myself away from the development of my dwarven paladin, but I managed to do it long enough for a viewing of the Director’s Cut of the Dune TV miniseries this past weekend. The special effects are probably the only faults I have with this adapation of Frank Herbert’s science fiction epic, because there are way too many times where it was clear the cast was running around a closed studio piled with sand. The computer generated ships and planet locations were passable, but also looked as if they were created under a tight budget. The acting was generally good, and unlike the Lynch version that required a working knowledge of the entire Dune universe before viewing it, the story was carefully assembled into three highly watchable episodes. This isn’t to say that Lynch’s film is completely terrible, because I think it suffered from being released at the wrong time – audiences weren’t ready for such a complicated plot in a movie that was expected to be a typical big-budget popcorn movie.

All of this got me thinking about how ripe the Dune universe is for video gaming. Yet it remains ignored, except for the occasional lackluster release. Looking back, it’s not like the subject was completely overlooked; there’s a prototype for the Atari 2600 floating around for a game inspired by the 1984 film. However, the first official Dune game was released for the PC in 1992, and was a kind of action/adventure hybrid that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense based on the screens. Though what most of us would remember is Westwood’s Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty that came out the same year, considered to be the inspiration for every RTS game you’ve ever played. There were three separate campaigns based on three major royal houses: Atreides (good), Harkonnen (evil), and Ordos (more or less neutral) all vying for control of Arrakis. The base and troop building that most of us learned playing Command and Conquer had already been established in this game.

It wasn’t until 1998 that I actually got my hands on a Dune game, and this was Dune 2000, a desperate Command and Conquer clone also published by Westwood. It was a little ironic when considering the game’s pedigree; after all, this was just an update of the game that inspired the genre in the first place. The graphics and strategies were uncomfortably familiar, and as such resulted in a forgettable experience. Then again, John Rhys-Davies did appear as the Atreides mentat in one of the game’s many live-action cutscenes.

The release of the TV miniseries in 2001 renewed interest in the setting, and spawned two games: Frank Herbert’s Dune and Emperor: The Battle for Dune. Frank Herbert’s Dune was intended as a direct tie-in with the miniseries, but resulted in a dismal failure both in its disregard for the source material and lack of attention to actual gameplay. Emperor was apparently a pretty good RTS game, and probably marked EA’s entrance into 3D strategy before the release of C&C Generals the following year. After these games, development on anything Dune related basically stopped.

The sequel to the TV miniseries, Children of Dune, originally aired in 2003 but I never watched it, because frankly I had no idea it was even being made. The first miniseries I considered only a moderate success, because interest in Dune seemed to wane rather quickly and I figured that would be the end of this renaissance. I haven’t read the recently started series of books co-authored by Brian Herbert (Frank Herbert’s son) and Kevin J. Anderson (who has also penned his share of Star Wars novels). They don’t seem well received, and feel more like novels written to simply pacify fans eager to see the series continue. In other words, very much like the Star Wars novels. I have even seen the likes of a limited run tabletop RPG, Chronicles of the Imperium, and another one rumored to have been in development by Wizards of the Coast that was later cancelled. The Dune series is largely regarded as one of the pillars of modern science fiction writing, and yet it’s consistently pushed into the background as if to disregard its influence on the genre.

The Dune universe is one full of political intrigue and a more spiritual view of a possible future when compared with conventional science fiction that obsesses over technology. Though Dune may lend itself well to strategy titles, what’s stopping the creation of a roleplaying game? Ascending through the ranks of a royal house, plotting and scheming; a smuggler in the quest for spice; or a Fremen footsoldier simply braving the unforgiving desert could all be adapted to this type of gameplay. The world of Dune is more complex than previous games have given it credit for. I’d like to see a developer take advantage of this, and not simply use the Dune name to sell an action or strategy game in an established formula. It obviously comes down to a financial return, but I think fans would appreciate more dignified treatment of the material, and would be more than happy to answer with their wallets. Most importantly, it would open up the market for science fiction games without the prefix of Star Wars or Star Trek.

Remember when the name “LucasArts” used to mean something in the adventure game genre? By canceling two adventure projects in the last few years with recognizable IP that were almost certain to do well, they’ve essentially severed all ties with that heritage. I have my doubts that the company will be able to restore faith in adventure gamers, because issuing another Tomb Raider clone is not the solution. LucasArts needs to look farther than that. Back to when they were making games with the same engine, but still presenting highly unique adventures that actually told a story, and had an excellent sense of humour.

On most days I can easily call Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis the greatest game of all time. In fact, for the same reasons I re-installed Sim City 4 I began to play Fate of Atlantis again with the help of SCUMMVM. I know the puzzles like the back of my hand, and the dialogue trees are no surprise. But as I said about Half Life 2, playing a favorite game again is a lot like watching a favorite movie. If you leave it on the shelf long enough, it seems the magic is always there waiting when you return.

As a genre that the gaming press loves to declare dead on the PC, Adventure games have definitely seen better days. When the last bastion of Adventure gaming decides to cancel the development of Sam and Max: Freelance Police, an almost guaranteed success, solely because “the current market is unsuitable” makes me wonder where their allegiances lie. Lucasarts did the same thing last year with Full Throttle 2, another sequel to a much loved property that Adventure gamers were looking forward to – myself included. I suppose Lucasarts are content to continue spraying down the Star Wars license with a fire hose of money – Republic Commando and Star Wars Battlefront – two completely uninspired games that would have been better served as mods.

Interestingly enough, I caught a rumour last week about another possible installment in the Monkey Island saga. I would almost assume that this rumour could be classified as false at this time, unless LucasArts are following the disturbing example set by most traditionally PC-only developers; that is, getting into the console-porting business. Escape from Monkey Island (aka. Monkey Island 4) did fairly well, but it was also a console port. Full Throttle 2 and Sam and Max: Freelance Police were to be developed specifically for PC.

Some of my favorite PC gaming memories are of the SCUMM-powered Lucasarts adventures: Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, and my personal favourite adventure of all time: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, something I still pick up and play today thanks to SCUMMVM. I still firmly believe that a movie could be based on this game; the story and dialogue are absolutely incredible.

Sierra was the other heavy hitter back in those days: sporting such well-known franchises like King’s Quest, Space Quest, and of course the later Gabriel Knight series. You might also remember Infogrames’ groundbreaking Alone in the Dark (1992), probably my first experience with polygon-based characters and true 3D environments. In 1998, Sierra figured they would bring their classic King’s Quest up to current graphical standards with Mask of Eternity, which was widely agreed to be a funeral pyre for series. Numerous bugs and the complete disregard for the franchise’s history in favour of a more action-oriented experience left a lot of players disappointed.

Adventure gaming also seems to get a bit of a bad rap from those not familiar with the genre, mostly due to some developers morbid fascination with full motion video sequences. Myst was the game that made people buy a CD-ROM drive, but watching a series of movies is not necessarily the best way to present a game. They usually end up as pixel hunts and allow only limited interaction with the environment. Dark Side of the Moon may have gotten this right, however, as the engrossing story and high production values made it a favourite amongst adventure gamers.

LucasArts’ Grim Fandago won numerous awards and continues to be the flagship Adventure Game of recent years, followed closely by The Longest Journey (1999) and Syberia (2002), both of which are recieving the sequel treatment. Syberia II should be available shortly, and the long kept secret follow-up to TLJ, Dreamfall, will be out in 2005. Both games were praised for their character development, something that many adventure games tend to lack, eclipsed the developer’s constant obsession with creating obscure puzzles to outdo players. Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, released in late 2003, has also been favoured well amongst genre affectionados.

For those that still foster the adventure gamer within, Adventure Gamers has a great multi-part article that tries to pinpoint where the genre is going, and what the discerning fan can do so that it may survive. There is no talk of the genre’s halcyon days and how the best games are behind us. I think the biggest point you can take from it is that advancements in graphics are just a means to an end; it doesn’t signify an engaging story and real, likable characters will not exist in these worlds as well.

I didn’t plan for this to be a State of the Adventure Gamers Union or anything, but there you have it. It’s nice to see independent developers and publishers like The Adventure Company trying to carry on the traditions started by Sierra and LucasArts back in my early days of PC gaming, but to see a complete lack of interest by the major studios – and even the gamers themselves – is hard for me to accept. Have we turned into a bunch of twitch gamers, only able to withstand bite-sized sessions of gaming requiring minimal brain function? Are adventure games too much of a mental investment for the possible return? With the advent of online play, I think some gamers may consider adventure gaming a lonely experience. But ground can be made in this genre – just look at URU. An attempt at multiplay in a previously accepted “single-player only” environment is commendable, even though I have not played the game myself. Giving Sam and Max a graphical overhaul like LucasArts did with Monkey Island 4 was a fine idea, and would have probably done well in today’s gaming climate, regardless of what their marketing goons may have us believe. I just hope this recent cancellation does not mark the beginning of a larger, more devastating trend – that major game releases will be developed for all platforms as a rule, and PC gamers will have to settle for ports.

the universe will have its way