Penny Arcade

The Prince is back, apparently from rehab.  He is beset on all sides by improbably garbed whores.  The good news is that game we liked is in there, but it’s underneath a bunch of crap I ordinarily wouldn’t touch without gloves.

Brenna refused to believe it when I told her that the plot revolves around the Empress of Time, who lives on the Island of Time where the Sands (all together now) OF TIME were created.  All the same, that’s the kind of situation we’re talking about.  Jesus Christ, people.  Just call the island fucking Chronos or something.  Spell it with a K if you have to.  I can figure out that there’s some kind of time thing going on.   

I don’t have a problem at some default level with the thematic change, my aversion to the new palette (visually or conceptually) isn’t automatic.  They just want it too bad.  What’s more, I think they’re confused about what kind of personality they want the prince to embody.  The PC demo you can download has another voice take for the game’s introduction, which painted him as more “desperate” and less “x-treme.”  I preferred it.  It’s hard to prefer this Prince in a general sense, though, because (as Eurogamer put it) he’s just not likable.  The wry voiceovers and endearing progression of The Sands Of Time’s rude royal son charmed me completely.  I oversaw his redemption in the first game, apparently so they could take what I had done and negate it.   

They’ve got these Raider guys that are essentially the Cannon Fodder of Time, jackhole pincushions there explicitly for you to puncture.  They’re mean or whatever, but they don’t turn into crows or explode which makes them fairly mundane by Warrior Within standards.  The problem with these guys is their voices, which are hilarious, and not grim.  You can’t feel tough when you cut these guys.  Halo has those little grunts, and I guess I’m supposed to feel like a bad-ass when I destroy them but I actually just feel like an asshole.  They both seem like races that just fell in with the wrong crowd.  What they need are compelling after school activities, not death.

There’s a new combat system now, but there’s also way more combat, and it takes place all over, so whether or not it actually ceased being repetitive I couldn’t tell you.  Just as in the first one, I traverse the combat oriented areas so I can arrive at the next perfected, genre defining platform section.  It is like getting a ordering a pizza and getting a free walrus.  Even if the walrus were excellent, I mean truly exemplary, I’m really not in the market for it and it’s not why I ordered the pizza. 

I recognize that electronic entertainment is a business, but at its best you don’t see the ravenous, mercantile hunger throbbing right in front of you.  It’s indecorous.  You can go read the 8 and 9.0 reviews out there if you want to see it glossed over.  Sometimes, when you play it, you remember how good the first game was. 

(CW)TB out.

chit ta chit, rage cookie

Prince of Persia 2 is a good game in spite of the fact that the developer tried to ruin it. It’s like they did their best to burn the entire thing to the ground, but enough of the foundation remains that it’s still recognizable. What that means is that the fundamentals of the first game are so good they can withstand being covered in layers of disgusting music, hack writing and monotonous combat.

The clever, quick witted prince with the heart of gold has been removed. In his place is a cookie cutter brooding tough guy with zero personality and a handful of poorly written and often repeated one liners. I remember the comic book industry went through a similar phase in the early nineties. The success of books like Spawn lead publishers to believe that kids wanted dark anti-heroes. This lead to the creation of some of the worst comic book characters in the history of the world. Not only that but existing characters where retooled to be darker and more mysterious. For God’s sake they gave Super Man a black suit and I think for a few years Captain America’s shield drank human blood. Darker isn’t always better, especially when you’ve already got a character that people love.

The Prince isn’t the only character who will ceaselessly bombard you with shitty dialogue. No, you can expect the same treatment from just about every poorly conceived enemy you encounter. The “Balde Dancers” apparently quit their jobs as phone sex operators but can’t quite give up the lingo. They’ll comment on how they “like you in this position” or how much “pleasure there is in pain”. I’ve actually had to mute my television during some battles just to keep from throwing my chair through it. The best line is probably from the Time Bitch who appears in today’s comic strip. During her fights she says “I grow tired of this!” I actually responded out loud to her on multiple occasions, “Yeah, me too lady!”

I guess people complained about the combat in the first game not being deep enough. They even said the final boss was too easy. These people didn’t understand the game. Your enemy in the first game was the environment. You were battling against puzzles not monsters. The actual combat was there as a breather to give you a rest between puzzles. The final boss wasn’t even the vizier it was navigating the last level without your sword. The level was the boss, not the guy at the end. So now they’ve beefed up the combat and they make you fight all the time. So they listened to the people who didn’t like their game and totally fucked those of us who loved it. Thanks Ubi, you know a lot of people really hate all the sneaking around in Splinter Cell. Why don’t you give Sam a dual Uzis and a rocket launcher?

The game is still a good platformer despite Ubi’s best efforts to destroy it. It’s just sad to see a game that had so much potential ruined like this. My only hope is that since the series deals with time lines we haven’t seen the end of the Prince from Sands of Time. I’m not finished with Warrior Within yet but I’m praying that as the story implies he’ll die at the end.

-Gabe out

I think it’s pretty amazing that the art auctions alone are up to almost five thousand dollars - take a look if you want.  Those pieces of paper were just laying in a drawer, and now they could be anything - thirty consoles, hell, forty five if we went with Gamecubes.  Grab some Wavebirds so you can get down from the hospital bed, maybe.  We’ll see where the holes are in the purchases and plug those holes with game systems.

You might be wondering what I gave this year.  Last year, I gave Onyx and Cobalt GBA SPs.  This year, it broke down like this:

As you can see, the Onyx SP has become something of a tradition.  I’ve always wanted one myself, buying other people things I want is me trying to reverse engineer the karmic response of the universe.

Mario Party 6, though - that’s some pretty hot shit.  We played a game of that yesterday that was simply epic.  I’m not sold on the microphone as a legitimate addition to the series, but you don’t have to plug it in if you don’t want to.  And I didn’t.

(CW)TB

Div shot glasses are now available in our store. Personally I don’t drink…except for that one time in Vegas. Let’s just say the guys who run the bar at the Star Trek experience are big PA fans.  Anyway, I’m not really familiar with drinkers and their customs. From what I’m told you are supposed to fill this tiny glass with the liquor of your choice. Then you drink the entire thing in only one swig. How exciting!

-Gabe out

I don’t recommend playing Mario Party on a team with Tycho. Judging by my experience yesterday I’d say the fucker hates stars. I know it’s hard to believe but I watched him just give them away. He also likes to give the other team tips like “Hey don’t go that way! The star is the other way!” or “No No, throw the bomb back three spaces so it hits Gabe!” Thanks a lot asshole.

-Gabe out