After 3 days of voting, the first round of Leveling Down’s Video Game March Madness 2010 is over! There were some close matchups, some blowouts, and of course, some surprises. As a reminder for those of you who may feel that some of these games were unfairly seeded, we seeded all the games based on Metacritic scores. It’s all their fault!

Anyway, thanks to everyone for voting! The first 32 have now been cut down to the Sweet 16. After the jump, check out who I voted for, my thoughts on the results, and a preliminary look at the Sweet 16 matchups.

Tiebreaker note: I decided that casting a tiebreaking vote was too arbitrary and I felt uncomfortable with the power! So for tie polls, I tallied up the registered commenters who voted as the tiebreaker. It seemed like the fairest thing to do, so make sure you’re logged in to make your vote count the most!

Hollywood Region – Round 1 Results

(1) Bioshock raptures (8) Prince of Persia: Sands of Time [81-19]
This was an easy one, and the only 1 seed that won in a blowout. I voted along with the general consensus, Bioshock has a very engaging story coupled with an even more amazing setting, the unforgettable underwater city of Rapture. The Sands of Time features an epic Middle Eastern adventure/romance story, one that’s good enough for the real Hollywood to make a movie about (Jake Gyllenhaal stars), but it just wasn’t enough.

(4) God of War assassinates (5) Portal [56-44]
This result made me sad. God of War is an excellent game, featuring a great revenge story pitting Kratos against the gods who wronged him. But Portal, PORTAL, has one of the slickest and best told narratives I’ve experienced in a video game. Perhaps part of it was the fact that I didn’t even think the game had a narrative when I started it. In the end, the subtleties of Portal weren’t enough to defeat the sheer strength of Kratos’ story. Too bad, but I have a feeling God of War isn’t finished yet.

(3) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic force chokes (6) Beyond Good and Evil [75-25]
Beyond Good and Evil is another small title whose narrative was surprisingly excellent. Unfortunately, it’s not a story that many gamers are acquainted with, because it’s old and also because very few people bought it. It made the field of 32 though on account of its powerful storyline. Who doesn’t like taking down evil empires? Of course, millions of people have fallen in love with Star Wars, and thus Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic took this matchup in a walk (I voted for it as well). Not only is the game based on the Star Wars license, but it features a great story with an awesome plot twist. The force is strong with this one.

(2) Metal Gear Solid sneaks past (7) Final Fantasy IV [50-50, tiebreak]
This was one of the toughest decisions for me, as it was for the readers as well. We had to end up going with a tiebreaker, registered commenters, and MGS prevailed. I ended up choosing MGS as well, but I could have gone either way – both these games have amazing storylines. Final Fantasy IV was the first game I remember having to face the deaths of characters I knew and loved, and I still consider it my favorite Final Fantasy ever. Metal Gear Solid introduced me to Solid Snake, one of my favorite video game protagonists ever. Hideo Kojima’s musings on the nature of war, friendship, and love made for a story that I never forgot. It’s a shame that one of these games’ tournament runs had to end so soon. Stupid Metacritic!

M16 Region – First Round Results

(8) Resident Evil 4 headshots Metroid Prime [63-37]
The M16 region features our first 8-1 upset, with Resident Evil 4 destroying Metroid Prime. I voted for Metroid Prime, just because I loved what Prime did to bring the franchise into a first person perspective. Unfortunately, Metroid Prime is a victim of Metacritic overseeding, but hey it makes things exciting! Resident Evil 4 is probably the best game from the last generation of consoles, so this is probably an upset in name only.

(4) Halo 3 energy swords (5) Modern Warfare 2 [52-48]
I expected this matchup to be close, and it did not disappoint. Even though I voted for Modern Warfare 2, Halo 3 is a worthy winner in this matchup. There is a lot of debate about which game takes more skill, but what’s not up for debate is the steel grip these two franchise have on the gaming community. This week, Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3 placed 1 and 2 on Xbox Live respectively. Think of that, Halo 3 was released almost 3 years ago! This was an amazing matchup, and it was fun to see it come down to the wire. Like MGS and FFIV, it’s sad to see one of these games go, but thems the breaks.

(3) Goldeneye exercises its license to kill on (6) Doom II [86-14]
This matchup of two classics was a tough choice for me, but I went with Doom II in the end. I spent many nights using my modem to dial up my friends and play deathmatch. Then again, I spent many nights playing Goldeneye with my friends using the Solitaire control scheme. Both these games paved the way for first person shooters – Doom II for the genre in general, and Goldeneye for consoles. How I long for the good ole days.

(2) Uncharted 2 crashes (7) Gears of War 2′s train [71-29]
Uncharted 2 is one of the most cinematic shooters out there, and its strong gunplay coupled with an amazing storyline literally blew Gears of War 2 away. Gears of War 2 is a great game in its own right, but it’s probably hurt by its machismo. At least Marcus and Dom will be able to keep each other warm at night.

Sun-Tzu Region – Round 1 Results

(1) Civilization IV wins a cultural victory over (8) Command and Conquer [53-47]
Sid Meier is so famous that he can put his name in front of his games, and Sid Meier’s Civilization IV was no exception. Civilization is the most famous turn-based global conquest game out there and that earned my vote. Command and Conquer was one of the best RTS games out there, until Starcraft came along. In the end, having your creator’s name in the title equals a win. Civ IV gets one more turn in the next round.

(4) Warcraft III hero assassinates (5) Dune II [82-18]
This was an interesting matchup, new vs. old, modern vs. classic. Dune II was the first RTS game I ever played, and probably the game that put the genre on the map. Warcraft III is the last RTS that Blizzard released (though Starcraft 2 is coming soon!), and it kind of reinvented the genre with its use of heroes. I don’t think many people even know what Dune II is, so this wasn’t really a fair fight, and I ended up picking Warcraft III in this matchup. But Dune II should just be proud for being here!

(3) Starcraft zerg rushes (6) Halo Wars [61-39]
Halo Wars is the best console RTS in the business, and is probably a model that all future console RTSes should follow. There is a loyal fanbase for Halo Wars, which probably resulted in this matchup being closer than expected. In the end, though, Starcraft is a classic and the benchmark by which all real time strategy games are measured. The game is criminally underseeded, and I still can’t believe Metacritic only has it at 88. I expect great things from Starcraft in the rest of this tournament!

(7) Final Fantasy Tactics defeats (2) Advance Wars: Dual Strike [72-28]
Not everyone knows this, but the Nintendo DS has tons of amazing turn based strategy games, and Advance Wars: Dual Strike is probably the best of the lot. I loved it, but the fact of the matter is that Final Fantasy Tactics is probably the most beloved tactical role playing game out there. That turned this one into a rout.

Hodj Podj Region – Round 1 Results

(8) Rock Band 2 rocks (1) Super Mario 64 [52-48]
Super Mario 64 is one of my favorite games of all time, and it is the game that really ushered in the 3-D gaming generation. Unfortunately, the broad appeal of Rock Band 2 proved too much for this classic. Really, this is my fault, because I meant to put Rock Band 2 (or some music game) in the field but forgot at the last minute. For the record, Rock Band 2 probably would have been the 2 seed in this bracket. But now I’ll never find out how much people liked Super Mario 64! (Not that much I guess).

(5) NHL 94′ one times (4) Warioware Inc.: Mega Microgame$ [68-32]
This one wasn’t even close, which is kind of indicative of the fact that not many people play portable games. Even I couldn’t bring myself to vote for the lone Game Boy Advance game in the field. NHL 94′s addictive gameplay and multiplayer factor make it the superior product. If you haven’t played a Warioware game before though, check it out – it puts the mini into minigames.

(3) World of Warcraft completes (6) The Secret of Monkey Island quest [68-32]
11+ million people can’t be wrong. World of Warcraft is the most addictive MMORPG out there – it offers great gameplay, the ability to play with your friends, and even an interesting storyline. The Secret of Monkey Island, one in a long line of great adventure games, just can’t stand up to that. Sure, Guybrush Threepwood is funny, but if that pirate ever ran into a death knight he’d be toast.

(2) Street Fighter IV KOs (7) Animal Crossing [91-9]
I thought this one was going to be unanimous. How did I put Animal Crossing in there over Rock Band? Mario Kart? Ugh. Anyway, Animal Crossing was there to represent for “sim” type games, and Street Fighter to represent fighting games, but really, this matchup should never have happened. How could I forget Kart!?! I’ll never forgive myself…until next year.

Sweet 16 Quick Look

Hollywood Region
(1) Bioshock vs. (4) God of War – an interesting matchup pitting two strong stories with incredibly different gameplay backing them

(2) Metal Gear Solid vs. (3) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – Light sabers vs. Solid Snake.

M16 Region
(4) Halo 3 vs. (8) Resident Evil 4 – Can Resident Evil pull off another upset, or is the Bungie juggernaut just too strong?

(2) Uncharted 2 vs. (3) Goldeneye – PS3 vs. N64. It doesn’t seem fair, but will nostalgia play a strong factor?

Sun-Tzu Region
(1) Civilization IV vs. (4) Warcraft III – Turn based vs. real time strategy, should be interesting.

(3) Starcraft vs. (7) Final Fantasy Tactics – After surviving a first round scare, can Starcraft show its true power against Tactics?

Hodj Podj Region
(5) NHL 94′ vs. (8) Rock Band 2 – What has bigger appeal, sports games or music games?

(2) Street Fighter IV vs. (3) World of Warcraft – Can Capcom’s finest stand up against Blizzard’s juggernaut?

Polls open tomorrow – happy voting!

Leveling Down’s 2010 Videogame Tourney Has Officially Started! The rounds will take place over the next couple of weeks, and will be heavily decided by you, our Leveling Down readers.

Voting for Round 1, which consists of all 32 games in the tourney, will close on Wednesday March 24, 2010 at 6PM EST. On Thursday, cmfl3x will announce the 16 games that will move onto Round 2 and we will open Round 2 voting Friday morning and end it Monday at 6PM EST.  Hit the jump to read more about our first tourney and to cast your votes!

Thanks to all of you that participated in voting for that 8th seed in each bracket. Unfortunately, 3 of those 4 8 seed votes were all ties: Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Assassin’s Creed II for the Hollywood bracket, Resident Evil 4 and Counter-Strike for the M16 bracket, and Rock Band 2 and Shadow of the Colossus for the Hodj Podj bracket.

This weekend, cmfl3x and I discussed what to do with ties (in both the 8th seed voting and in the actual tourney itself). We originally considered allowing both games that tied to move forward into the next round, so instead of two games for that next matchup, it would be three: the winner of one half of that matchup and both games that tied from the other matchup. Ultimately, we decided against it because to see three games in a matchup may skew the voting too much (anyone remember Ross Perot?).

Thus, for ties, cmfl3x and I will use some sort of criteria to decide who moves onto the next round. With this being our first videogame tourney and all, this may not be the best approach, but we’re learning as we go. I’ve decided to use the metacritic game averages to determine which game in a tie move forward. Unfortunately for Assassin’s Creed II and Shadow of the Colossus, their competitors ranked 1 point higher on the average review score. Heartbreaking – just like when I nearly cried as Michigan State sunk that three pointer at the buzzer to send the Maryland Terps home yesterday afternoon but we had to narrow it down to one winner each round.

Having said that, let’s get on to the voting for Round 1:

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Please feel free to share your thoughts!

Prince of Persia looks phenomenal, but where’s the gameplay?

Surprisingly, Prince of Persia is one of the worst games I’ve played that I can remember. Usually when I buy games, it’s under the impression that it will at least be decent, and get maybe a B or so in my book. But Prince of Persia just doesn’t cut it. Here’s a game that has great presentation, but gameplay that is the perhaps the worst I’ve played in a long time. The ironic thing is that this is the first time in a while where I’m not complaining about a game for being too short. In fact, with Prince of Persia, I just wanted to be done with it because of how bored I got. Read on for my reasons why.

Good
- alluring cel-shaded graphics look
- oodles of dialogue
- pleasant level design

Bad
- lack of gameplay
- lack of an interesting story
- frustrating collectathon gameplay

Intro
Prince of Persia comes to us courtesy of Ubisoft Montreal, the same studio that games us the Rainbow Six: Vegas games, Naruto: Rise of a Ninja and its sequel The Broken Bond, Assassin’s Creed, and Far Cry 2. In short, a pretty good portfolio for this specific studio. To be fair, the studio also released Lost: Via Domus and TMNT, but for the most part they’ve been pretty on task. Seems like this studio really likes collectathons in their games though, if you think about everything you had to collect in the two Naruto games, Assassin’s Creed, and Far Cry 2. What’s the matter with you, Ubisoft Montreal? You think people enjoy it or something?!

Anyway, the original Prince of Persia was released in 1989 on the PC by Broderbund. It was a very popular game that has had several reboots while still preserving the fact that the setting is ancient Persia and the Prince is acrobatic. When Ubisoft acquired the Prince of Persia license in 2003, it ended up releasing the trilogy consisting of The Sands of Time, The Warrior Within, and The Two Thrones all a year apart on last generation’s consoles. While I never played them, they got pretty good reviews and the series has its fans.

What I don’t understand is why Ubisoft Montreal would reboot the series again, removing all of the deeper combat mechanics of the previous trilogy and making this new series into simply a “monkey-bar” swinging game. Maybe I do understand it – they wanted the series to be more accessible to everyone. However, it looks like the 2.2 million copies already sold since release wasn’t as high as their expectations (what were they smoking?), even after giving it a $20 temporary price cut for several weeks right after its release back in December. It’s somewhat interesting too because when Assassin’s Creed came out, it divided the gaming world as well as some felt it was far too repetitive and others thought it was great – of course, it didn’t really matter though since the game went on to sell millions too. I tend to be more along the camp of those who enjoyed Assassin’s Creed, but I can’t say the same for Prince of Persia.

Before a level is healed, you will find Corrupted sometimes blocking your path.

Storyline and Premise
You start the game as the unnamed Prince (although he certainly doesn’t seem like one) looking for his donkey when an attractive woman named Elika appears, chased by armed pursuers. Helping Elika escape from the guards, the Prince and Elika head towards a giant tree and discover that Elika’s father was commanding the guards. Elika’s father then proceeds to free the dark god Ahriman within the giant tree, infecting the entire world with Ahriman’s Corruption. The Prince and Elika then proceed to all of the levels in the world to restore each of them.

Now here’s the premise of the game in a nutshell: there are twenty levels broken up across four different worlds. All twenty levels are Corrupted and it’s up to you to get to the center of that level, defeat the boss, and cleanse the level. When a level is Corrupted, there may be dark “Corrupted blobs” moving around on walls that you have to dodge or Corrupted enemies that will spawn when you land on platforms. Cleansing the level clears the entire level of the Corruption, and restores the level to full color instead of the evil gray/black it was. Once a level is freed from the Corruption, about 45 Light Orbs appear throughout the level. The player must collect enough Light Orbs to unlock a power that will enable him to move on to the other levels in the game. The four “powers” to unlock are nothing to write home about – for simplicity sake, it’s easiest to think that you need to collect Light Orbs to unlock other levels in the game.

The acrobatics can be pretty cool at first, but when it’s the main element of the gameplay, the game can grow tiring quickly.

Gameplay Mechanics
Elika
One of the major elements of gameplay that is present in Prince of Persia is the fact that you will always be traveling with a female companion named Elika. She is a magic user, so you can use her to double jump (hit the jump button again in the air and she will give you a magical boost) and she is adept enough to follow you however you navigate through a level. She is also helpful in navigating the world. If you go to the map screen you can set the level where you want to go to and in the game if you ask for Elika’s help, she will fire up a light ball that traces the exact path you need to take to get to that level. With it, you basically can never be lost or need to remember how to get somewhere.

The other signficant gameplay mechanic that she brings to the table is the ability to prevent you from dying. You never die in this game. If you mistime a jump and are falling to your doom, she will automatically grab you and pull you up so you’re at the ledge you just jumped from. If you’re fighting an enemy or boss and you’re about to die, she will step in to defend you from dying, letting your health regenerate. People may complain about it, but I honestly have no problems with this “saving” mechanic. It’s simply a convenience that beats the concept of checkpoints and having to reload every time you die. Of course, some may complain that not being able to die makes boss fights unchallenging – but I would argue that the boss fights are already unchallenging to begin with, so it’s a wash.

Acrobatics
Over half of your time spent in the game will be traveling from one section to another. While the game could have used ground paths to connect every zone in the game and achieved the same result, the emphasis in Prince of Persia is on acrobatics. This means that there are vines to climb, walls to run along, pipes to swing from, rings to grab, etc.

The game almost feels like you’re in control of a roller coaster, or an on-rails “non-shooter”. You have to run along walls, swing along pipes, grab hooks, etc. but they’re all along a set path and you have very little freedom to actually do anything different. Half of the time, it doesn’t really feel like you’re actually playing the game as much as you are just watching it. There’s not many decisions to be made. These types of mechanics are often in place in a game but with a much larger picture, adding some sort of opposition or other mechanic that doesn’t solely rest on the fact that the emphasis of the game is simply swinging from one pipe to another. Unfortunately, pipe swinging is the main game mechanic of this game.

Combat
Surprisingly, there is combat in the game, but not how you would expect compared to the previous Prince of Persia trilogy. In this iteration, the highest number of enemies you will ever face at one time is one. That’s all. Every once in a while when you are traveling through a level that hasn’t been cleansed of Corrupted yet, there are designated platforms that will spawn a Corrupted enemy if you take too long to get to it (if you land early enough you can simply prevent it from spawning and skip the battle altogether).

Engaging the Corrupted enemy is a relatively mundane affair as the combat system seems to lack any sort of “payoff”. You are able to block, but it’s better to time your block in such a way that you can deflect the opponent’s attack, giving you an opportunity to combo it to death. The combo system deals with most of the face buttons on the controller – there are predesignated combo chains that can be used to take on each opponent (like dial-a-combos in Mortal Kombat 3). But ultimately, the enemies are very unchallenging as I would just repeat the same 10-hit combo chain I memorized, killing them and moving on my way. Deflect, combo, move back to acrobatics.

Bosses are not much more interesting gameplay wise than regular enemies in the game either. With the game broken up into four hubs, each one is controlled by a particular boss: the Hunter, the Alchemist, the Concubine, and the Warrior. You fight each of these bosses four times, as they guard four of the five levels in their hub. While they prove to be a little more advanced than the regular Corrupted enemies you encounter from time to time, they’re ultimately not much more significant. Save for the Warrior boss, you can pretty much just deflect, dial your 10-hit combo, and repeat until each of the other 3 bosses are defeated. Even the boss of the game is a joke. Honestly, combat in this game seems to be an afterthought and is not what will attract someone to want to play this game.

Puzzles
Once in a while on a level there may be a puzzle that you will need to solve in order to move further through the level. I’ve personally never been much of a fan for puzzles in my action/adventure games, but I guess it’s a way for developers to throw a little variety (and sometimes frustration) into a game. Puzzles in Prince of Persia usually deal with the environment, such as turning platforms in such a way that they have beams pointed correctly at one another so you can leap from one to another. Take them or leave them I guess but there’s probably only about a handful of them spread out across the twenty levels in the game.

Light Seeds
Light Seeds are the main collectible in the game. They were my bane – just when you don’t think the game can be any less fun, something like Light Seeds are introduced. Apparently the developers thought the game needed a little more “depth” and decided to just randomly place hundreds of Light Seeds throughout the world for you to collect. And while it’s optional to collect all 1001 of them, you are still required to collect hundreds of them in order for you to progress in the game since you can’t unlock the next set of levels until you find enough of them.

That just frustrated me to no end. I travel through a level, defeat the boss, restore the level, and now I’m supposed to go through this same level again looking for Light Seeds? Several times I found myself short of Light Seeds to unlock the next set of levels. “What, I need 100 more of these things?! Son of a…” and then I would have to go poking through each level climbing the same poles swinging from the same bars, etc. all hoping I could find the stupid Light Seeds so I could actually progress in the game. What a waste of time. The game could honestly have been a lot shorter if we weren’t forced to go hunting for them for hours.

Get used to 1 on 1 combat in this game – you’ll never face more than a single enemy at once.

Achievement System
Based on how easy this game was I would have been simply content without Achievements. It’s honestly not a difficult game so I think Achievement design for a game is poor when it clashes with the general flow of the game. Prince of Persia suffers from this. While there are general Achievements for going through the game and clearing the levels, there are others that are just not in line with the game itself. I thought it was supposed to be a relatively relaxing magical adventure. And come on – not even individual icons for each Achievement? Lazy.

First of all, there’s an Achievement for beating the game in under 12 hours. I thought this game was about the journey and not the finish? Why give us a time limit at all? I guess I’ve always been against time-limit Achievements in any game, as they lower your ability to appreciate the game (although it’s obvious there wasn’t much appreciation I had for this game in the first place). And then there’s an Achievement for beating the game while being saved by Elika less than 100 times. Is this really an Achievement? Here we have the ability to simply save anywhere and reload, and that’s what people have to do to get the Achievement. Missed that jump and Elika saved you? Better reload to be safe. What the heck is the point then of having her saving you as a gameplay convenience when you still have to reload anyway?

And finally, the biggest annoyance of all: Achievements related to collecting every single Light Seed in the game. You’ll probably end up spending more time looking for and collecting every Light Seed in the game instead of trying to get through it. Thankfully, your map screen tells you how many Light Seeds you’ve collected and how many you have left to find on each of the 20 levels, but still – does anyone have fun with collection related Achievements? Just a waste of time and I felt like a monkey swinging around looking for every single orb.

Elika can always show you how you need to acrobatically get from one area to another.

Final Thoughts
Prince of Persia was a very difficult game for me to review. While I’m no longer in my “gaming prime”, I’m still a hardcore gamer and Prince of Persia can best be summed up as definitely not a hardcore game. The fundamentals of games I tend to enjoy either have me strategizing, planning, or simply playing well in order to beat levels, missions, objectives, etc. The only exception to that is my appreciation for RPG games, where the lack of challenge is made up by interesting characters, treasures to amass, and an involving storyline. Prince of Persia does not have any of these. It looks great, has enjoyable level design, and lots of dialogue, but there’s ultimately no depth to the game. Gameplay is remarkably shallow, and dialogue is meaningless due to a relatively generic story. I honestly had to stop playing it every hour or so just because I kept falling asleep.

It’s an unchallenging game that seems more fitting for people that want to play games not to win, but to simply enjoy. Yet at the same time, it still manages to frustrate with all of its collectibles! I give the game a C-. The gameplay is just not there even if the game itself looks phenomenal. But for me, gameplay means everything – graphics and presentation are certainly nice but can’t replace the main reason we play games in the first place. I can still play River City Ransom today with its NES graphics because the gameplay is good enough to stand the test of time. Such cannot be said for Prince of Persia.

The game seems to be a little more challenging than a typical casual game, but the problem (at least for me) is that it sits right in between a casual game and a gamer’s game. Ultimately, I think it will prove to be too difficult for casual gamers like our parents, but at the same time, too mundane for the hardcore crowd. If you’ve played the first level, you’ve pretty much played the entire game – the mechanics are the same but only the level design changes. There’s nothing really deeper than that – no new abilities learned, no items to use, no leveling up, etc. Maybe it’s worth checking out for some if they feel they want a casual game that’s an adventure but not as dumbed down as most games on the Wii. If you want any sort of challenge from a video game, avoid this one.

Prince of Persia – Hopefully I can get through this by the end of this weekend and get rid of it next week. Fell asleep a couple times last night when I was playing it.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Seems nearly impossible for cmfl3x and me to be on at the same time long enough to continue our co-op campaign these days. The AI seemed like a pushover until our last mission we just played. We nearly got worked there.

Unreal Tournament III – Decided to open this up a few nights ago and check it out. I then proceeded to drop it about 10 spots in my backlog queue as I completely lost excitement to play it. Maybe I’m just not cut out for that type of old school gaming anymore…

and finally…I got a new PC! Dell has been having awesome deals this past week, so I bit on one.

My new rig arrived with the following for $475 shipped after tax:

- slim tower case
- Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 Wolfdale 2.66GHz 3MB L2 Cache
- 4 Gigs of RAM
- 640 GB hard drive
- DVD+/-RW
- Wireless network card
- Microsoft Vista Home Premium
- 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3450 supporting HDMI

When I received the PC, I discovered that the new graphics card only had DVI and HDMI output. I run a dual monitor setup, and one of them is VGA so I was kind of screwed there. I could have gotten adapters for both (an HDMI to DVI and a DVI to VGA) but figured might as well just get a good graphics card while I’m at it. The only problem is that my PC is in one of those smaller tower cases now so I can’t use normal sized PCI cards. Instead, I had to learn about something that’s called a “Low Profile” PCI express card (I’m totally out of it when it comes to PC stuff these days). So to look for a new graphics card, I had to find ones that could actually fit in my system and still deal with my meager 250W power supply. I ended up spending about $100 (good thing my wife doesn’t read this blog) on a 1 GB GeForce 9500 GT. Apparently that’s the best graphics card for someone in my situation: low profile slot, 250 W power supply, and has a VGA port. I’ll just transfer this current HDMI out graphics card to my HTPC so everything works out. I’m all excited now though to play more PC games again. Bring on Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3!! (And maybe bring on Crysis while I’m at it haha)

Having completed Mirror’s Edge & Brothers & Arms: Hell’s Highway this past weekend, I decided to jump next into the new Prince of Persia game that was released by Ubisoft last month. I didn’t know too much about it, but I had heard that this was another one of those “love it or hate it” type games. I figured I might as well check it out and see whether or not a hardcore gamer like myself would feel about it. After all, the graphics have a nice cell-shaded look and Prince of Persia is kind of a household name so I figured why not. However, after getting about halfway through, I gotta say that I’m not really feeling this game.

While there have been many Prince of Persia games since the original released on the PC in 1989, I’ve only played that PC version. I remember as a kid I’d play Karateka and Prince of Persia (both created by the same guy) but when a new Prince of Persia trilogy reboot came out on last generation’s consoles, I skipped them. I think I played a demo for one of them briefly, and while there was plenty of action, I just never got into the series. Maybe I’m not a fan of a Persian backdrop for games?

Regardless, I figured I’d still check out this new remake for Prince of Persia on the 360, as it differs from the last console generation’s trilogy. In some ways it does have similarities to the original PC game, if I can remember 20 years ago – a lot of acrobatics, one on one fighting every once in a while, and a sense of adventure. To say that this new Prince of Persia is an action game is misleading – I consider it more of an adventure game. There is some combat in it, but for the most part, you’re spending your time running, jumping, and swinging.

It’s weird because I’m fresh off of Mirror’s Edge, and while I enjoyed that game a pretty good amount, Prince of Persia doesn’t resonate as much with me even though both games focus on acrobatics. The game engine acrobatics of Prince of Persia were a little stiff and took some time for me to get used to, but now that I have that under control I have no real complaints. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about Prince of Persia’s acrobatics just seems bland. It’s like you’re forced to do all of the acrobatics just for the sake of doing so – as opposed to using acrobatics how you see fit to dispatch enemies or elude them. Instead I think of Zoolander, where Ben Stiller is simply jumping around the screen while someone shouts, “You’re a monkey, Derek!” That’s how I felt – I’m forced to swing all over the place and it’s not like I have a choice or a reason why but simply to get through. But to what? More swinging?

The addition of the female character does add some enjoyable concepts to the gameplay, but the most notable fact that she brings is that you can never die in the game since she saves you from everything. If you mistime your swing and begin falling to your doom, she’ll pull you back up. If you’re fighting an enemy and you’re about to get finished off, she will step in the way and push the enemy aside with her magic. While some may complain that the fact that you can never die makes the game worse, I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. Honestly, her saving you from everything really just saves time from having to reload the last checkpoint over and over so I’m not going to knock that.

What I am going to knock about the game is that it’s just a big playground of monkey-bars. For some that may be pretty interesting or fun, but I honestly need something deeper than running, jumping, climbing poles, and swinging from bars for 80% of the game. There’s just not enough gameplay depth there.

The game world is large – broken up into about 20 different zones, and most of the gameplay involves traversing through each zone with your acrobatics. All of the zones are connected, and your goal in the game is to go through each zone and restore that world before moving to the next. In order to restore the world you need to collect a certain number of items called Light Seeds. Collecting enough Light Seeds allows you to buy a power that unlocks four of the twenty zones for you to play through.

Here’s the basic formula for the game: go through the first of four zones to get to the “switch” to turn it from dark to light. Once the switch is hit, about 50 Light Seeds spawn all around that zone. Go through the same zone again to collect as many Light Seeds as you can find. Move onto next zone, and repeat until enough Light Seeds are collected in the four zones you have unlocked so that you can purchase the power to unlock the next four zones. Repeat a few more rounds and beat the game in 10 hours.

I honestly got a bit bored swinging all over the place and just looking for Light Seeds. There would be times when I’d go through all four zones, and I would have to go back to the previously played zones to hunt for Light Seeds so I could get enough to unlock the next set of four zones. It’s an annoying constraint that I’m forced to hunt collectibles through a level I just played through – an artificial lengthening of the game. The majority of my time spent playing the game is swinging from bars to get from one point to another and the best the developers could do to lengthen the game is to make me swing through everything again?

There are adventure games out there like Metroid and Castlevania where you do have to unlock special powers to get to the next zones in the game, but there’s a lot more gameplay depth there. The adventure is just a part of their games filled with leveling, items, upgrades, etc. For Prince of Persia, there are no special powers or items or anything. The game relies solely on the adventure attribute, and while it may be interesting for some, there is just too little gameplay depth. On top of that, the whole game has a generic feel to it, due to its symmetry: four powers that unlock four zones in four different worlds. The level design for the zones area very well done though. But in the end, gameplay is king.

It feels like the game is meant for people in-between casuals and hardcore gamers, as there’s not enough gameplay depth for the hardcore crowd but there is just enough to prevent your parents from playing it. Sure I loved Aladdin when I was a kid, but I can’t sit through it several times like I did back in the day. That’s pretty much how I currently feel about Prince of Persia. The game has a magical fantasy feel to it, but as a more seasoned gamer it’s not for me. Apparently it’s also not for many 360/PS3 owners either, as the game has basically dropped from $60 to $40 retail in less than a month since its release. I guess in the overall scheme of things, this game is good for the industry. With the Wii being the gateway for casuals to become gamers, this is a good step for them to take before they move on to more hardcore fare and join us in games like Left 4 Dead or Call of Duty.

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway – pretty short game and the storyline is picking up a bit in the second half of the game. I should have it done by this weekend.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – at first I was pretty annoyed that the game was co-op (because I’d be playing with an AI controlled partner the whole campaign) but then my friend JPKewl got it so now I’m enjoying it a little more now that we can play all the missions together. We’re kind of slowly going through it whenever we both have time to play.

Unreal Tournament III – ended up picking this up at Best Buy last night since it’s on sale for $20 this week. I realize that it doesn’t have matchmaking and most of the online is dead (has co-op though), but I actually miss the game since I loved Unreal Tournament and UT2K4. I figure $20 is enough to play against bots on 50 different maps if that’s what it comes down to. Wish this version still had the Assault game type though but this video sold the game to me.

Prince of Persia – will probably get started on this next as my primary single player experience once I complete Mirror’s Edge and Brothers in Arms: HH this weekend. Heard it was sort of short so I might as well get through it.

Left 4 Dead – feels a little weird going back to campaign mode after spending time on versus mode. When you’re on a good team it’s awesome but when you’re with bad/non-mic players it’s probably one of the worst gaming experiences ever.

Left 4 Dead – Finally got the 1000. Dang it why did one of my friends have to just get the game this week though. Why couldn’t he have gotten it weeks ago?!

Shadowrun – Cool now maybe I can get back into this for multiplayer since I no longer have another multiplayer game to play at the moment.

Mirror’s Edge – Stupid Time Trial modes. I better just suck it up and beat them. Maybe I can clear them out this weekend.

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway – I should try to beat this soon so I can get rid of it while it still has some value.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – I wanted to start it but it’s getting bumped down so I can get through Brothers in Arms first.

Call of Duty: World at War – Tried it out again recently and maybe I won’t be able to hit the first Prestige after all. It’s just not fun anymore and the fact that I’ll have to put maybe 20 more hours in to get it means I’m pushing it back in my backlog queue in hopes the desire comes back later.

Prince of Persia – Looks interesting, but dang it there’s an Achievement for collecting like 1001 gems or something in the game? Ugh I’ll get to it later then. Same reason I ended up putting Naruto: Rise of a Ninja off.

Gears of War 2 – Epic announced that they’re actually going to release a patch to balance the multiplayer game sometime this month? Too late. And why aren’t they fixing the matchmaking that still takes 10 minutes to find a game?!