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 game^[1]. 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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Within the first fifteen minutes of playing a video game, I can tell if it will be good. I have yet to decide whether this is a useful skill in the context of adult life.

Services like Steam and the XBox Live Marketplace have effectively streamlined the process of consuming game demos, often before a game is available for purchase. This strategy is part of any publisher’s winning marketing plan. Let the masses jump on the game to provide free word-of-mouth advertising, and then watch them argue ad infinitum in every corner of the internet, since no one can be proven wrong. This is the ideal way to arrive at launch day. The review scores hit the usual aggregate sites based on the media’s preview copies, and people rush to the stores not just to get their hands on the game, but to prove everyone else wrong.

I am not usually such a person.

I have played and reviewed many demos since the inception of this website. In fact, I find myself relying on them more for the 360 than when I was solely a PC gamer. New PC games don’t stay expensive due to the high shelfspace turnover at electronics and even specialty retailers, whereas console games seem to retain their price a lot better^[1]. When I’m thinking about a new game purchase, reading exaggerated reviews and watching video samples of the game in action aren’t enough.

This makes the demo extremely important to someone like me. And once I start making notes on my first impressions of a game, it’s hard to stop. Most demos I’ve bothered to play provided me enough information to settle on an opinion. I knew the games weren’t going to get any better. And in the case of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, I was ensnared by nostalgia in the hopes that I would be playing Ghostbusters III. I wish I could say that was true.

Then there was Batman, a license that wields even more brand power, arriving in the form of Arkham Asylum last month to an unsuspecting audience. There was suprisingly no hype to speak of; no previews out of the usual. The demo was made available two weeks prior to the full version’s release. It caught a lot of people off guard, myself included. Everyone was excited over the possibility that a video game starring Batman was actually good. Naturally, the initial impressions were positive – and they spread.

I played the demo the week it was available for download and was prepared to post a negative review based on my impressions. There is no way the game should be receiving overwhelming praise. Except something held me back. My experiences with the game felt unfinished.

Surrounding myself with the opinions of people I know and who had played the full version, my suspicions were confirmed: the Arkham Asylum demo was terrible.

Read the rest of this entry »

“If you loved the films then this is the game that you have been waiting for.” – Extreme Gamer

“If you’re a fan of the movies this alone is largely enough to look past the game’s failings.” – Total Video Games

“If you dug the movies, there’s no reason that you should be disappointed with Ghostbusters: The Video Game.” – IGN

Reading the recommendations^[1] for Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) is infuriating; the reviews that avoid hauling out these useless tropes are in short supply. Though I can’t blame the reviewers entirely – it’s a function of the industry, and we’ve been programmed to tolerate it. The video game industry has an entire sector dedicated to parading our childhood out in front of us whether repackaged (just look any major XBox Live release), or bundled on some compliation disc. And it always seems to garner a wistful response from the video game media.

Yeah, I remember those times, too. They were great, weren’t they?

And we all know what happened with The Phantom Menace and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. After the initial euphoria wore off from years of waiting, we saw these endeavors for what they really were: cash-ins by creators who had lost touch with their creations a long, long time ago.

So why Ghostbusters? When you think about it, it’s been close to 20 years since a proper Ghostbusters game has even been made^[2]. Ghostbusters is the next logical target, waiting like some vein of precious metal to be exploited. Is Ghostbusters: The Video Game intended for the demographic of gamers who are slowly losing interest in the hobby because it no longer speaks to them? Digging up a beloved franchise is the easiest way to draw this audience back in; it’s clearly working for Hollywood lately^[3]. There was also plenty of turmoil surrounding who would actually publish Terminal Reality’s tribute. Originally to be published by Sierra, the merge of Vivendi with Activision in 2008 ejected Ghostbusters: The Video Game into publishing no man’s land. The internet erupted with righteous fury. It was obvious why people wanted this game: it represented their youth, a comeback of sorts for a franchise that never seemed to get the treatment it deserved.

The game was eventually picked up by Atari, and released last month. Which also happens to be the 25th anniversary of the 1984 theatrical release of Ghostbusters. I think the whole thing was staged.

Read the rest of this entry »

On the surface, X-Men Origins: Wolverine seems like a single player verison of Raven Software’s own X-Men Legends/Marvel Ultimate Alliance, that focuses more on the immediate thrill of the action instead of stat boosting and party management. Most importantly, they have learned from past transgressions X2: Wolverine’s Revenge and X-Men: The Official Game ^[1], which were pathetic responses to fans who have been waiting for a proper X-Men action game since the 16-bit era.

In Raven’s previous action RPGs, Wolverine was just another character that had a few powerful melee attacks and a regenerating health bar. As a member of a party, the personality and feel of the character were lost among the others in the game through the party’s inherent interchangeability. Not to say that his witty remarks and added durability weren’t welcome in any party; rather, it was the overall game’s design that limited the character depth to present the mechanical essentials of each character so they would do exactly what you would expect of them.

With Origins, I get the feeling that Raven wanted to show Wolverine fans they haven’t forgotten about their favorite character. They have attempted to create an unflinching portrayal of Wolverine that is all at once bestial, ruthless and completely without fear. They wanted to give him moves that were previously only seen on two page spreads in the comics. That’s probably why they included the sequence where you leap into the air and stab a helicopter.

With each slice and thrust, with each severed body part and spray of blood, Raven is trying to tell us something: Wolverine is a vicious animal. He is a meat grinder, an unstoppable force that will level the opposition into bloody chunks. You will see heads being lopped off. You will see enemies skewered on adamantium claws.

But is it satisfying? It is not.

Ninja Gaiden II is one of the most violent and bloody video games created by man^[2]. Even though you are using a sword, there is an affinity shared with the action on-screen. It subscribes to an ancient warrior philosophy: that the sword must be the extension of the body. The sound of a single steel blade blocking an attack, the visual feedback as sword meets flesh, the absurdity of blood spraying in every direction, the resultant thud of detached body parts – these are the expected outcomes of such activity. And they are exacted with such precision and ruthlessness that you can’t help but be drawn into the game.

And yet Wolverine, whose “swords” are in fact part of his body, yields nothing remotely similar. He could be punching the characters on screen for all I can tell. Considering how integral these weapons are to each attack, to the character’s very being, one would expect the level of emotional investment for each kill would increase exponentially beyond the use of a 30-inch piece of tempered steel. But this is not the case.

There are no mobs; instead, enemies are carefully placed around the level for you to use the environment (i.e. spikes sticking out of the ground), make Wolverine spin around in circles, or provides a launch pad for you to use the Lunge attack. One of my favorite additions to the genre, the Lunge attack is much more visually rewarding than jumping, an act that seems unnecessary in comparison. However, the Lunge simply reiterates the problem with this game: there is always distance between the Player and his objectives. There is time to think and decide about how to attack. There are combinations of claw attacks that can be used, and there are special powers that can be levelled up. Kind of like Raven’s other games.

But there was never a time where I was confronted with a horde of enemies, or felt I was in danger at any time. There was no risk or opportunity for this character who is famous for dealing with overwhelming odds, to excel. There is blocking, but there are no counter-attacks. The decapitations seem random and there is no equivalent to Ryu’s Obliteration Technique. Combat is procedural in Origins: go over here, attack, enemy takes some damage. Repeat. There is no fanfare. There is no real visual payoff.

Even in the demo, I can see how this approach to combat will fail in the long term. I know that it will be drawn out just to develop the missing chapters that the movie only refecences in passing. But despite these feelings (which are correct), I still want more. I want to be Wolverine because he is perfectly suited to such an endeavor. I want to repeat the connection I felt at Ninja Gaiden II’s most primal moments, where blade meets flesh and bone to produce buckets of blood. Origins seems to skirt the edges of what it means to have Wolverine’s claws to mete out his fierce vengeance, but the game never fully commits to this ideal.

The introductory film at the beginning of the game shows a Wolverine in a tattered X-Men uniform: attacking everything in sight, claws dripping with blood, spittle dribbling from his bottom lip. He was an animal that took pleasure in the act of killing. This is the Wolverine I grew up reading about. However, X-Men Origins: Wolverine doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain. It disheartens the player that has envisioned the displays of savagery that were reserved for the pages of comic books.

So I find myself incredibly angry at this game. And not the same as I was with Wanted: Weapons of Fate^[3] – that was the result of a development team that completely mishandled a fairly new property. This is Wolverine, people. A character that has evolved over a period of years through comic books, cartoons, video games and movies. We know him and we know what to expect from him. So why did Raven feel the need to hold back?

Despite the association with the terribly received film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine could have been an excellent action game standing on its own alongside landmarks like Ninja Gaiden II. But because Raven’s restraint is clearly exhibited in the game’s core mechanics, there is no way it can ever fully emerge as a study of Wolverine’s darkest characteristic: his killer instinct.