Prince of Persia 2008 Review

Today I will be doing the review on another one of my favourite games in the world of gaming.
Namely the latest addition to the popular Prince of Persia series, whom you may have recalled got a total remake and comeback in 2003 with the Sands of Time Trilogy created in co ordination with Ubi Soft and Jordan Mechner (The creator of the Original Prince of Persia )
But its a few years since we last seen or heard any news from the series or the Prince and many thought that that was it, till our suprise Trailers started emerging in late 2007 and early 2008 of a new Prince of Persia , till the final release Desember 08.

Taking on a whole new storyline whis has nothing to do with with the previous predecessors, that and a completely new co - op fighting system and graphical en
gine (running on a modified Assasians Creed Engine )and look, the new Prince of Persia promises to bring on a whole new experience while staying true to it's roots.

That being said, lets continue on to the in depth review of the game.

The game starts of with our hero the prince strolling through the dessert in search of FARAH(his donkey ??? weird since Farah is also the Princess from Sands of Time ) and being caught up in a sand storm, when suddenly finds himself confronted by a girl running away from some guards and bumping into him.

It is this girl later revealed as Elika, whom plays a vital part in revealing the plot and story behind the game.A little further the main storyline becomes clear to you the player, and this not being a very sophisticated and good story as in the Sands of Time it's still fairly good.

The story basically begins with the destroying of the tree of life and releasing the dark lord Ahriman, who encases and releases corruption all over the Kingdom. It's then up to Elika and the Prince to free the land from this Dark Terror by reaching the fertile ground and using Elika's power to restore peace and cleanse the land again. But in order to do that she needs to collect light orbs.

And thus so the quest begins. To get back to Elika, as not much is known at the start of the game, about this mysterious campanion, all is revealed later in the game thorugh somehat funny cutscenes and conversations. Some being very sarcastic of nature.

But when the Prince and Elika ain't chatting there is a lot of work, err or should i say jumping and fighting to do.

And this is another diffrent aspect as to previous versions of the game.

Elika travels along side the Prince and does and goes where ever he does, and another new addition is the fact that the Prince can litterally never die, whenever he should fall of a ledge or slightly miss a jump, thus plumiting to his death, Elika wil be there to save / catch him and thus bringing him to the safety of the nearest platform. With a funny comment sometimes I must add.

Elika is also there in the fights in the game, helping the Prince out with some very crafty co op air combos.But the fighting and combos gets tedious after a while, and the combos and moves are the same all over again, thus when seeing all, every fight later on becomes more of a frustration, and done that seen this effect.

The Prince is also not nearly as agile as its predescessors. And battles are also always one on one, no mutliple enemies.

But with a little work and improvement being done, I believe it can become quite a good system.

The game also takes on a whole new graphic style, leaning towards the more cartoon look, as can be seen in some new games today, a good example would be the new RA 3 from EA, (Also see screenshots.)

The enviroment looks and feels much more alive and vibrant, as opposed to previous versions.

Furthermore the fighting system also got a whole new revamp.

With this new style also comes a whole new way of choosing your game path, the paths are very linear thus enabling you to choose the order in which you want to complete the game, each of the area on your map are marked with special colour markers, showing u which areas are accesible with the accquiring of the diffrent power plates (which I would go into, a bit later. )

After the the successful cleansing of a corrupted land / area, power orbs appear, it is these orbs that give Elika her magical powers and needs to be collected in order to unlock additional power plates to reach previously in accessible areas.

I am not going to go into details about the various powers, as this would very much be a spoiler, all i can tell u is that it's pretty awesome.

Unfortunatally the game lacks the inclusion of the various puzzles as seen in the previous games.

If I recall correctly there is only one true puzzle in the game, and this is towards the end of the game, and isin't very hard to figure out or complete, thus coupled with the never die mode, may give the idea and feel of an to easy game, or maybe it's designed in this way to lure more gamers to this genre and also making it easier and more playable for the younger game.

All in all the new concept, story and design is looking very good, and promises a unique experience ,while staying true to roots of plattforming. The new Prince of Persia certianly aint without it's fair set of bugs and flaws.

A part from the slow and repetitive fighting, the Prince looks more like a Pirate now than a Prince, still talks with an American accent(Mmm Persia, where does Persia fit in ) and constantly makes lame jokes. There are some frame rate issues at times, and the overall game feels much slower that it's previous counterparts.

But putting all the above aside it's still a kick ass game, and an unique new experience.

And well worth buying and adding to your collection.

I played the PC version of the game, but it's also availible on the Xbox360 and PS3 Consoles.

And although I played this on the PC, I played it with a PS2 USB Gamepad, and must say I found it much easier to play with the gamepad than with the native mouse and keyboard.

The System Requirements for the game are a bit more steeper for this release.

Minimum System Requirements

Supported OS: Windows(R) XP/Windows Vista(R)
Processor: Dual core processor 2.6 GHz Intel(R) Pentium(R) D or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 3800+ (Intel Core(R) 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or better recommended)
RAM: 1 GB Windows XP/2 GB Windows Vista
Video Card: 256 MB DirectX(R) 10.0–compliant video card or DirectX 9.0–compliant card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher (see supported list)*
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 or 10.0–compliant sound card (5.1 sound card recommended)
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0 or 10.0 libraries (included on disc)
DVD-ROM: DVD-ROM dual-layer drive
Hard Drive Space: 8 GB
Peripherals Supported: Keyboard, mouse, optional controller (Xbox 360(R) Controller for Windows recommended)

* Supported Video Cards at Time of Release:
ATI(R) RADEON(R) X1600*/1650*-1950/HD 2000/3000 series
NVIDIA GeForce(R) 6800*/7/8/9 series

My scores for the game are as follows:

GFX: 8 / 10 - A new graphical style and look, proves once again that Ubi Soft knows what they are doing.And gives life to a whole new vibrant world filled with rich detail.

Sound: 6/10 - The sounds are generally good, but the game lacks the epic soundtracks and music found in the previous ones.

Gameplay: 8/10 - Same old running,jumping and sliding as in the previous ones,a proven success formula, and with the addition of some new moves and animations with unlocking of powers to use via power plates makes this still a proven success formula.And with a Single player campaing of round about 9 - 12 hrs, it should keep u busy for quite a while.

Replay ability: 5/10 - After the main story there isin't much reason to return to the game, other than unlocking extra skins.

Overall: 7

As metioned before if u are a fan of platformming games and of the Prince of Persia series, you will feel right at home with this game, the controls are also easy to learn and for most part it's a pick up and go game. And promises for a pretty unique experience

Well thats all from me, keep well and Happy Gameing !!!!

The BOX ART




































The All new Graphical Style


Mysterious Elika

FEAR Review

Every now and then, in the gaming world a gaming gem is born and today im going to review just such a gem.

As you have read from the title the games name is FEAR, which in actual facts stands for First Encounter Assault Recon. Its a FPS (First Person Shooter ) game combining sleek graphics, with a twisted and mind boggling story all mixed together with an eerie dark soundtrack and a few very scary moments.

The game was created by Monolith entertainment and published and released in 2005 by Sierra.
Now before reading any further keep in mind the technology available at that time.
And it's in this area where the game truly shines. With some great in game effects like bullet time (those familiar with, Max Payne ) not to mention some great shadow and lighting effects.

For example, when shooting some overhanging lights the light will begin to swing around and the lights shadow will follow the movement creating very realistic shadows. Furthermore when in bullet time and shooting against the walls you can actually see the walls break apart when shooting them, and kinds of debri's just flying in all directions.All this without the need of an complex PhySX card.

The AI in the game is another great achievement and surely one for setting standards for upcoming titles. They mostly operate in squads, and are in constant communication with each other, and for example most of the game is played in dark levels with only a flashlight with limited battery life , to comfort you. You still have to worry about the super soldiers clones (for most of the game the main enemies ) , now don't just think they strafe a little to the left or right, no these guys are equipped with Delta tactics and will comment on your behaviour if provoked.
And as far as possible do all kind of tactical manoeuvres to make sure u don't advance.

To give an example. Lets say ur peaking around the corner and u hear some soldier walkie talkie conversation. And there u see an enemy behind a glass room...you take out your grenade, lob it towards the window and think well there u go, nothing to it...one less enemy....think again as soon as the soldier sees the grenade or hear the glass break, he will either jump roll out the window and get out of harms way or run out the nearest exit, and call for backup...making your life just a tad bit more interesting..

The story is pretty complex and told through telephone conversations and logs hidden throughout the game, which makes it difficult to keep track of what exactly is happening.
I went and downloaded a faq from www.gamefaqs.com where the full story was explained .
Im not going to go into details about it, since it's going to be a spoiler.
But I can tell u this, if love twisted and scary stories u will most likely digg this story as well.

The Single Player campaign isin't very long and can be completed in about 6h, playing on Easy difficulty.There are some great scary moments in the game, from blood dripping from walls and ceiling to the occasional eerie sounds and voices,coupled together with some scary flashbacks.All making this game an unique FPS Horror experience.

The Multiplayer aspect of the game is also alot of fun, and with the added bullet time effects makes for a pretty unique experience.
Since this is an rather old game now the system requirements aint that high.

Below is a link to the official game site, which will tell u the basic System requirements for the game, but to give u an idea of what is needed

PS: These are the recommended specs im gonna give you for playing the game.
Always make sure you have a bit more than the Min. Req. thus ensuring a smooth and LAG free game play experience...

CPU: 3.2 GhZ AMD or Intel P4 CPU.
RAM: 1GB or more.
GFX Card: Geforce 6800 or Ati X800
HDD: 5GB

My summary of the game is as follows:

GFX: 8/10 (Some pretty good effects and GFX for a 2005 game )
Sound: 7/10 (There aint to much music in the game, but the scary sounds and voices blends well together with the overall sound and feel of the game )

Lastibility: 6/10 (Though I doubt you'll go back to the Single player aspect of the game, the Mutliplayer would surely keep u busy for a while. )

An overall of 7/10 for me then...

It truly is a must playing for any FPS fan, and even if you are not it's still worth checking out.
If u love games like Resident Evil and the Silent Hill series, you will feel right at home with this.

This game is also available on the PS3 console.

Be sure to check out the sequel codenamed Project Origin(The name would make a lot more sense once you finished FEAR ) due for release in February
http://www.whatisfear.com/


That's all from me

Happy gaming !!!

Just some of the delighted friends you meet later on in the game !!!