Gamesugar

May 24, 2010

Review – Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Brad Johnson @ 4:51 pm

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
It’s difficult to say whether the release of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a response to middling reaction to 2008’s Prince of Persia, or to the imminent release of the film—the truth probably exists somewhere in between. The 2008 series entry was a confused affair; more fun to watch than it was to play, the game featured a unique art style, an intriguing universe and a couple of fun characters, but little actual game. Playing like one massive, unfolding quicktime event , little challenge was offered except to those rabid completionists looking to reach every dubiously placed orb.

The Forgotten Sands fixes many of its predecessor’s mistakes, though I wonder if it was by conscious decision, or merely adherence to the conventions of the previous Sands of Time trilogy. Fans of that trilogy will find the game extremely familiar; all the old trappings are there: the Prince once again finds himself fighting an army of sand creatures, scaling questionably constructed palaces, evading ubiquitous traps, and saving himself from embarrassing falls with the power to reverse time. As someone who loved the Sands of Time games, it was immediately satisfying to sit down with these old conventions and play what, to my mind, constituted the first “real” Prince of Persia game since 2005’s Two Thrones.

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January 28, 2010

Q&A – Aksys Talks Deathsmiles

Filed under: Features — Tags: , , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 7:49 pm

Deathsmiles
Having previously established that I have zero objectivity and nothing but enthusiastic gibberish to share about Deathsmiles finally coming to North American 360 owners, it seemed like the only thing left to do was jump up and down on Aksys’ desk about the announcement.

For the sake of dignity I squeezed a few questions in along the way, which Aksys Games’ PR Specialist Cherie Baker was good enough to answer – while leaving me with a cliffhanger to wonder about.

Catch it all after the break.

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January 19, 2010

Review – Dark Void

Filed under: Reviews — Tags: , , , — Jamie Love @ 7:54 pm

Dark Void
My enthusiasm for Dark Void during the long march toward a retail release owes entirely to a conceptual proposition that represents everything I wanted from a game when I was ten. Admittedly I had no idea at that time that trying to merge two distinctly different styles of play inherently invites disaster – or at least it seems that way given how much trouble many designers have delivering on a single style successfully.

My thought at the time would have been that flying and shooting robots is cool, and running and shooting robots is cool, so that merging the two into a single title should reasonably create the greatest game of all time.

Maybe I wasn’t the brightest kid on the block, but let’s move on.

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January 14, 2010

Bayonetta – Taking My Sweet Time

Filed under: Editorial Rants — Tags: , , , , , — Jamie Love @ 5:02 pm

Bayonetta
Given the number of times I’ve thrown words to Bayonetta during the game’s development, I fully expected to have joined the conversation she’s stirred about sex, audience reactions, sex, female identity, and more sex by now. The reason I haven’t is straightforward enough, and provides a chance for you to say I’m biased.

If I am indeed biased, it’s because I love videogames, and Bayonetta loves being a videogame – enough that we’re a good match and someone should go book the chapel by the time I write a proper review.

As for avoiding the extensive conversations going around the net, my problem is simple – talking extensively about any of those aspects would mean that I’d have to stop playing the game long enough to do so.

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