After playing Assassin’s Creed last year and playing Prince of Persia: Sands of Time a few years back, I was pretty stoked about playing the latest installment of the Prince of Persia series. Sadly, I was stoked only until I actually played the game because it wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.

The newest Prince of Persia is a totally different game than the Prince of Persia: Sand of Time, Warrior Within, and The Two Thrones trilogy.  Hell, even the Prince is different — he’s a total douche in this game and quite annoying when he talks (voiced by the actor from Uncharted, actually). The story starts off with the Prince searching for his donkey when he suddenly bumps into a girl, Elika, running away from some guards. He eventually pursues Elika and saves her from the guards and her father, the King, who has destroyed the Tree of Life and released the evil god, Ahriman.

Once the Prince finds out that Elika is a Princess and on a mission to stop her father and Ahriman from corrupting the lands with evil, the Prince decides to help her. Elika explains that she and the Prince must reach and heal the multiple fertile grounds in the area in order to give the tree of life power once again, imprisoning Ahriman. Obviously, the story goes on but any more about it and I’d be spoiling it for you.

The gameplay is quite similar to the past Prince games, with tons of wall-running and acrobatic moves, but this time there aren’t distinct levels, but an actual free-roaming, open world. In this new Prince of Persia, players aren’t just flying through the level wall-running and jumping to the next part, but must actually take their time to find their way from one point to another, which worked well with the open world. This is actually one of the best things about the game, but was also one of the game’s miscues.

I think the open world was a great idea, but it seemed to me like the developers over at Ubisoft Montreal wanted to make the game much longer than it had to be because they had an open world. This led to many repetitive missions, going from healing one fertile land to another, and continuing this same process. To me this became really boring, but at least the combat somewhat made up for it.

The combat system in the game definitely made up for some of the repetition in the open world. Unlike the hordes of enemies and button-mashing combat from the previous Prince games, the combat in this new Prince of Persia is set to 1-on-1 at all times and has a slower pace, using guard breaks and a combo system to add strategic elements. The combat also boasts some pretty nice attacks with aerial attacks and drawn out combos, leading to some great cinematic presentations with stunning finishing moves.

Although the combat may be better in this game, the acrobatic and aerial movements are no match to that of last-gen’s Prince. Most of the time the movements actually feel like they are on autopilot, seeming more like a scripted animation. The previous Prince of Persia games had smooth and quick gameplay elements, focusing on players skillfully executing aerial movements to continue on, whereas this new Prince really slowed the pace down and made the player think with different sorts of puzzles and contraptions to work with to proceed.

Oh, and did I mention you can’t die in this game? Yep, your new girlfriend Elika has all these strange powers and with them she keeps you from dying, whether it be falling to your death, being swallowed up by the evil corruption, or just being stabbed by a baddie. This part kind of reminds me of Sands of Time when you used the Dagger of Time to stop and go back in time and keep yourself from dying. Not being able to die isn’t necessarily a bad thing because essentially it’s just a restart point, and if you die, you’d restart anyway.

Graphically, the game is gorgeous, and I love the new direction of the art style Ubisoft Montreal went with. The Prince, Elika, and all other characters in the game are extremely detailed and the open world is just stunning. The graphics are definitely one of the game’s finer points.

Prince of Persia has been overly hyped and highly praised, but I really don’t see why. The game is repetitive, pretty easy, way too long and, well, kind of boring. But with all the bad there’s still some good in this game, just not enough. I’d say it’s a rental rather than a buy — have fun with it for a few hours, then return it… unless you like it more than I did.

GameInformer has finally confirmed the long-awaited sequel to Naughty Dog’s debut PlayStation 3 game, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. As you might be able to tell, the new game, entitled Uncharted 2:Among Thieves, will feature a radically different setting- snow. This time, Drake is chasing the treasure of 13th century explorer Marco Polo, and the game will feature a “free-climbing” mechanic and a stealth system. Hit the jump for the first trailer.

The full trailer will run at the Spike TV video awards on Sunday December 14. Can’t wait- this is sure to be a fantastic game, bearing Naughty Dog’s histroy of great games in mind.

Via Shacknews.

The first PS3 disc-based game to support trophies is Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, surprising us all today with an earlier than expected 1.10 patch.  The trophy support has seen a rise of interest in one of 2007’s best games, causing many a PS3 owner to boot up the game and begin trophy hunting.

Now PS3 friend lists are littered with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune players, all attempting to acquire 48 trophies (full list can be found here) including the first allusive Platinum trophy for achieving all others. There’s now great incentive to hop into Uncharted and improve your PS3 rank.  This is especially true when getting a bronze trophy for your first discovered treasure is magnitudes easier than gaining the same for 100,000 pollen in PixelJunk Eden.

Is this the end of the begining for the PS3 trophy love fest, or is it the begining of the end for PS3 owner’s sanity.  Personally, I’d count your blessings that Uncharted was the first to be patched, instead of a lesser game, like…Lair.

Playstation Home is getting more appealing by the second and the way in which Resistance: Fall of Man, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and Warhawk will utilize it is nothing short of awesome.

The Playstation Home portal for Resistance will function like some sort of museum, allowing players to use their avatars to explore some unforeseen areas from the game and experience bonus content such as back story. This is an absolutely ingenious way to further flesh out the game’s story while keeping the experience on the console.

The folks over at Naughty Dog will be allowing you to explore Uncharted’s world with your Home avatar without any fear of being shot, in addition to providing you with a supplementary Uncharted mini-game. It’s a 2D side-scroller that’s been described as “reminiscent of both Contra and Out of This World.”

Finally, the features that Warhawk will utilize with Home are by far the most exciting. The Home lobby for the game will act as a military war room in which players can get together and discuss battle plans, to the extent of even using a 3D map of the level and little army men avatars to lay out their tactics in 3D. This brings to my mind the scene in Star Wars Episode IV in which the Rebel Alliance discuss their strategy to bring down the Death Star. My heart just skipped a beat due to all this excitement.

According to Kotaku, Sony is pitching ideas like these to developers to get more out of their games. If these three titles are any indication, we have a lot to look forward to with Home.

To read up on Richard’s background and the character creation process for Uncharted, read the first part here. Otherwise, lets get going.

Patrick: Uncharted’s art style is very striking. When and why did you make the decision to go with this painterly art style?

Richard: This decision was made really from the very beginning. Naughty Dog has a history of creating all their art by hand. I think this is what gives all their games a very unique look. That is really what we wanted to go for on this project. We wanted to stand out from the rest of the pack. We wanted people to look on the shelves at the stores and see something that was unique and different.

I also personally think it helps minimize the creepy feeling people get when games try to mimic real life and fall somewhat short. Painting everything by hand and creating our own style gives us the freedom to create a world of our own. If we want to break some rules then we can do it without feeling awkward.

Patrick: How long did it take for this vision to take shape? I’m sure it was very important for you to make the characters look at home in their environment.

Richard: It honestly took the entire life of the project for everything to really come together and take shape. I was truly amazed how everything came together in the end. I think it’s a true testament to the talent that is here at Naughty Dog. All of us were able to do our own thing and really focus on our individual tasks.

One huge thing which I think really helped bring everything together was the lighting. From the beginning we wanted to tackle the huge problem in games where the characters just feel “off” from the environments. We decided to go with a global lighting solution which allows the characters and environments to take advantage of the same lighting, thus making everything feel consistent and in place.

Patrick: It’s been common in other games for shadows to either shimmer or have jagged edges. How did Naughty Dog achieve such sharp dynamic shadows?

Richard: That’s all technical!! But honestly, it was a huge goal of ours to make everything smooth and sharp. I think we rewrote the shadow engine like 10 times. We also wanted one global shadow solution. That is why you can see everything cast a shadow on everything else. It’s one giant shadow map!

Really though, I can’t begin to try and explain the technical end of that. All I can say is we have some damn smart programmers working here.

Patrick: Are you sick of people asking how much PS3 power you are using, or how much space the game takes up on a Blu-ray?

Richard: I guess I don’t really mind when they ask. I’m just not sure why people think it’s so important. I guess the power question is a little more obvious. If they see something great and find out it’s only using a fraction of the power, then our hope for the future looks promising.

However, I don’t really understand why it matters how much space we take up. The Blu-ray gives us the ability to do almost anything we want. It’s an amazing piece of technology. I think we should all just be thankful we are no longer limited.

Patrick: With that in mind, could you fit Uncharted on a DVD if the cutscenes were rendered in-engine, instead of being stored as HD movies?

Richard: Honestly, I ‘m not really sure. I think we have so much data in terms of textures, models, and animation that it probably would go over. I guess it is possible though.

The thing is, we never really thought about it since we didn’t have to think about it. We never held anything back, which we might have had to do if we were limited to a DVD. I never really calculated the space the game takes up without the movies or extras, so to answer this question would really just be too hard.

Again though, does it really matter? That’s the good thing about the PS3. We don’t have to worry about storage anymore. I think this question is trying to satisfy all the people who want to know if it is possible to make Uncharted on the 360.

That question will have to remain unknown since it will never happen :) Now if it did need to happen, is it so bad to go back to the days of “Enter Disk 2″! Actually it might be. I guess the PS3 is better…hmm….

Patrick: It’s almost universally agreed that Uncharted has the most impressive looking water on consoles.

Evan expressed in a recent interview that you had bigger goals for the water. In what ways could you improve upon it? Would there only be an improvement in the splash effects, for example?

Richard: Splash effects are one example which can, and will, be improved. We had some really great technology which didn’t make it into this version of the game way back when. It pretty much dealt with the interaction between the water and objects. You were actually able to effect how the water flowed as well as the ability to start and stop where the water comes from. This means changing the environment and having the water react accordingly. You can imagine the game play possibilities with something like that.

That is one example of some of the possibilities we intended with the water. Really we want the water to be as much a part of the game play as it is a visual effect. Hopefully we can incorporate some of this in a future project.

Patrick: Would this allow for Drake to swim underwater in future titles, since this was lacking from Uncharted?

Richard: Drake swimming was one of the things that was cut from Uncharted since we felt we didn’t have the time to tune it properly. Looking back, I think it was a very good decision for the game. Underwater swimming can be very slow and potentially confusing. I’m not sure it really fits with the pace of game that we want to create. But at this point it’s too early to say if we’ll ever take another crack at it.

Patrick: We noticed Drake couldn’t crouch or crawl. Though it may slow down combat, crawling through nooks and crannies has been a staple of adventure titles. Do you see Naughty Dog incorporating this into the next game?

Richard: It actually never was a feature. I’m not sure it even was brought up at any point. I guess with our gameplay mechanics this never seemed like an issue. We’re already using a lot of buttons to control Nate and we want to keep the game as accessible as possible. So whatever we do in the future we will always try to keep the controls as uncomplicated as we can.

End of Part 2. To read Part 1 please follow this link, or have a look at more of Richard’s work here.

The final part of our interview, which will hit this Wednesday, looks at Uncharted’s animation system, inspiration, the possibility of a “Gore Patch” and using objects as melee weapons, in addition to Naughty Dog’s modern relationship with Insomniac. While you’re waiting, read up on our review of Uncharted.

The third and final part of the interview can be read here. 

The notoriously critical UK Magazine has revealed its December edition scores. Another 10 is given, but not to a PS3 or Xbox360 game. Interesting scores this month, with Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect getting the same score. Find out after the jump.

Edge only gave out five 10/10 scores in nine years, but in the last three months there have been three additions; Halo 3, The Orange Box, and now:

Super Mario Galaxy – 10
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune – 8
Assassin’s Creed – 7
Crysis – 9
Mass Effect – 7
Call of Duty 4 – 9
Kane and Lynch – 6
Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground – 6
The Simpson’s Game – 5
Zack and Wiki – 8
The Witcher – 5
Bladestorm – 8
Castlevania Dracular X – 7
Silent Hill Origins – 7
Hellgate: London – 6
Timeshift – 6
Mutant Storm Empire – 8
Guitar Hero III – 6
Beowulf – 5
Need for Speed: Pro Street – 6

As soon as we find out the magazines pluses and minuses about some of these games we will post them. So check back soon to find out why Bladestorm got an 8/10 and Mass Effect only got 7/10.

While you wait, why not have a read of our reviews here at Ripten.com, which stack up quite well against the very harsh Edge Magazine.

Source: Neogaf