Prince of Persia 3 interview and new media

[Everlost_MI]

Xbox.IGN (http://xbox.ign.com/) has posted a new interview (http://xbox.ign.com/articles/631/631295p1.html) that includes new screenshots and in-game movies for your viewing pleasure.
Here is a bit from the interview...

Our ambition for Prince of Persia 3 is to make it the climax of the Sands trilogy: as exciting and action packed as Warrior Within and as unique as Sands of Time. Both of these games have their own strengths and weaknesses. We know them well, and have paid particular attention to the voices of the fans of the series. Although POP3 will contain the best elements of the last two games, do not expect it to be a simple 'remix' of its predecessors. It's a unique experience, introducing brand new features, gameplay and emotions. As I already said, we want each game of the series we make to surprise gamers and have a strong personality; we will take risks again and have plenty of pleasant surprises for the gamers.

Never played PoP2, the first one wasn't too bad but it got really repetitive towards the end.

[Adam Blue]

Excellent series, although it is headed into the wrong direction. Fighting < Puzzles

[milkaxor]

No more Godsmack!

All I wanted to hear. (pun not intended)

[Wyrm]

I liked the second one...

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

PoP 2 overview:

-More combat, less platforming. Combat engine was only slightly improved over the original, i.e. passable but still medicore.
-Darker. Redesigned prince, with 200% more brooding angst. "Edgier" dialogue, performed incompetently. More blood and women with big tits. Godsmack.

The new game seems to be keeping most of the darkness but ditching the Godsmack. Whoopity doo. About half of this interview is devoted to the combat so I'm not really expecting them to re-emphasize the platforming, which was after all only the entire point of the original PoP games.

[Lutheran]

Ya the less puzzles for me means less interest..but the game does have decent combat and should be even better this time around from what I can tell..

[Bushi]

The first one had a great sense of style and story. It was reasonably well written and captured the Arabian Nights feel to it from top to bottom (ok no flying carpet but that was more then ok with me). It was fun, and I wanted to complete the story arch.

Two was some dark broody, wanabe heavy metal, goth remix soft porn wet dream created by some under sexed developer. The whole thing was just tragic.

I have no hope for 3 because they clearly just don't understand any of the time and place elements that made the Sands of times, or even the older one's, fun. Go rent some porn or something and stop fucking up a great legacy /em shakes angry fist

[Mr_Snuffle]

PoP 2 overview:

-More combat, less platforming. Combat engine was only slightly improved over the original, i.e. passable but still medicore.
-Darker. Redesigned prince, with 200% more brooding angst. "Edgier" dialogue, performed incompetently. More blood and women with big tits. Godsmack.

The new game seems to be keeping most of the darkness but ditching the Godsmack. Whoopity doo. About half of this interview is devoted to the combat so I'm not really expecting them to re-emphasize the platforming, which was after all only the entire point of the original PoP games.

PoP:WW pains me because even though it went angsty, I could still see potential. There were a few scenes where you could see the desperation in the Prince. I really wish they had played that angle a bit more than Generic Character Persona #1538.

[dr_qwandry]

I own Sands of Time and by god it's amazing.
anything afterwards is considered frisbee's/

[bait]

Ummm isn't this really going to be Prince of Persia 6?

PoP WW was not nearly as good as Sands of Time.

[Mr_Snuffle]

Ummm isn't this really going to be Prince of Persia 6?

PoP WW was not nearly as good as Sands of Time.

No umm about it, it will be the 6th PoP game. It really was a reinvention of the franchise, so resetting the numbers isn't that bad.

[Cubfan]

The first did have a fun story, great voice acting, some decent puzzles here and there. But damn if it wasn't overrated as the dickens. Repetitive, and the gameplay looked much better than it actually played. But I still enjoyed it and played all the way through. Couldn't tell you about the sequel, I was turned off by the hardcoredness, never played it.

[EGO]

The first one ruled! The second one sucked.
This one looks like more of the same. :(

[Blue]

I honestly don't get developer's needs to go and pee on a series that people - for the most - raved about. Simply taking a world and re-painting it in darker hues does not a) make for a better game and b) count as innovation. Jak 2 was kind of fun, but it lost the spirit of what made the first such a great game. I agree that the combat in the second (or fifth, I suppose) PoP needed a good revamp, but why then do they decide to hear "combat needs tweaked" and then run and make the Prince into a cliche anit-hero? I'm sick of a continuous bombardment with heavy, angst ridden characters. This is - still - one of the reasons I continue to purchase every system Nintendo has ever come out with. Most (not all, I realize) of their games have a light-hearted tone about them and there are days, shockingly enough, where I want to sit down and relax and even have a good laugh with the game I'm enjoying. Games are starting to edge dangerously close to soap opera spheres of character detail. We're looking at cookie-cutter, one dimensional figures that we're in charge of operating. Sometimes that works - a Mario title where I run around with a water-pack - but when you're dealing with a story that's attempting to be heavy-handed and live up to decent standards in telling an adventure, the character needs to have me at least somewhat involved emotionally.

I just don't buy that a character is laid back in one game and in the next they're just a straight forward killing machine. At least ease us into it, have something terribly tragic befall them half-way through the second title where we at least get to see a piece of the evolutionary process. It's such a jarring shift that it makes me almost not care what happens to the person come title number three (or six). I mean, Jill Valentine was near eaten by zombies on a few different occasions and she didn't go all Weird Brooding I'm Gonna Sulk.

My point is, I would like to see some time put into the process of characters these days where a quick fix isn't just implimented to make us think the developers are taking the story in a bold new direction. Saving the girl and then spitting blood from the mouth does not consitute change, it's a cop-out. It shows - to me - that the people behind said character appear to have had no real idea where they wanted to take the story so they just took what they had and traced over it with a sharpie.

[Quisition]

The reason is simple. PoP, while praised by critics, didnt sell that well. Warrior Within sold much better, and so despite how terrible it is, it shows the company that people don't want interesting characters and a deep story, they'd rather have an angsty anti-hero and women wearing as little as possible.

[Ravenlock]

The reason is simple. PoP, while praised by critics, didnt sell that well. Warrior Within sold much better, and so despite how terrible it is, it shows the company that people don't want interesting characters and a deep story, they'd rather have an angsty anti-hero and women wearing as little as possible.

*Sigh* Doesn't that just blow?

I'm still gonna buy PoP:SoT for the Cube someday, after playing through it on the PC and loving it but wishing I had a gamepad.

Warrior Within still had some of the right gameplay elements, but the atmosphere... it just hurt. :(