Multi-Media Week Review II: Prince of Persia; Sands of Time (Part 1: The Game)

I should point out that there is actually a series of games going back to the dark ages of gaming history. The original was just a boring side scrolling plat former like every other game of the time whose only notable feature, “realism” only served to remove the fun. The series was eventually revived (very poorly, but I didn’t play that, so whatever) and then revived again, this time good. The good revification began with Prince of Persia: Sands of Time developed by Ubisoft Montreal. As games go, I never thought it was great. The combat was not particularly deep or varied, and frequently you'd have four enemies constantly on top of you, each replaced by a clone the second you kill them. It sort of makes you wonder what the combat actually brought to the end product. The core of the gameplay mostly involved insane acrobatics. Running up a wall, backflipping off it, catching a flagpole in mid-air, swinging off of that towards another wall, bounce off that, climb up a ledge, get cut in half by a trap you couldn’t possibly have seen coming, then rewind time with a Magical MacGuffin and duck under the trap. It gets old after a while, but it’s actually pretty fun and in this aspect outdoes any other game if only because they focused on the platforming rather than making it incidental. It also has surprisingly competent writing. Which is not to say it’s great writing or that there’s a lot of it, but most games have pretty bad writing. Of course, as we shall see, it could always be far worse.

But of real interest is the interaction between the titular Prince and the leading lady. The game is structured with the Prince recounting his exploits, starting with how, despite his distaste for battle, he sneaks into an enemy city and steals an ancient MacGuffin just to please his overbearing father the King. Long story short, the evil advisor turns out to be evil (no shit) and uses the prince to more or less screw over the entire world turning it into a hellish nightmare. Apart from the advisor, only a handful of people survive this ancient Persian apocalypse intact, one of them being the princess of the enemy kingdom, Farah.

Neither the Prince nor Princess are particularly likable. He’s whiny and arrogant. She’s secretive and controlling. But she knows things he absolutely needs to know and she’s handy with a bow, and he’s actually a good guy with some emotional issues but whose control over Time Manipulating MacGuffin and acrobatic skills are necessary for their survival. And that’s what it is. Slowly he becomes less of an ass (although he does very humorously talk to himself whenever the two split up which makes him seem slightly unhinged), and slowly she reveals a bit of the things they need to know and they use each other to survive because they aren’t superhuman. Just awesome. Anyway, it makes for a pretty good interplay between them because heroes usually are presented as superhuman (with love interests/side kicks being of the also super human variety OR the useless twit variety) so this is a huge mark in its favor. And as far as mainstream gaming goes, I guess you could even hold up the Princess as a shining example of how to write female characters. Interestingly, no reviewers ever seem to mention the part where she uses a combination of magic and seduction to steal the MacGuffin back from the Prince towards the end because both of them have serious trust issues. I’m guessing that since reviewers are pretty much all male, no one really thought this was a problem. It seems a little out of place. Not massively out of place though, and I like jumblies too much to really complain. Just thought I’d mention it.

And at the end, the Prince manages to fix the world by going back to the night before the war started. He kills the villain and it turns out that the whole game he hasn’t been telling the story to you, but to the Princess. So although the journey made him a better man and they were maybe a hair’s breadth away from loving each other or whatever, he has to give it up to undo his mistake. So it’s a decent twist and adds a slight tinge of tragedy back into the proceedings. Not real tragedy, but it’s not a happily ever after. In short, the game was good; not great, but perfectly fills a particular niche. For more information, feel free to consult a certain foul mouthed British man I intend to kill and replace.

Arbitrary Confection Rating: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. Sometimes you’ll wish those raisins weren’t there. Sometimes you’ll wish there were more. Ocassionally you’ll just start munching and pretending that it’s okay because, come on. Oatmeal raisin. Gotta be healthy, right? If you’re in the right mood, it’s gold.