Articles from September 2009

Thank God Harmonix got the franchise. Anyone else want to pick up Beatles Rockband?

I didn’t get into Prince of Persia until recently. I bought the Sands of Time trilogy last May and fell in love with the games (with the exception of Warrior Within which depressed me more often then wowed me). That being said, I just finished the newest game in the franchise, Prince of Persia.

As you can tell from the title and box art, this game is a reboot of the franchise. I don’t think all reboots are bad because they can allow new people to experience a franchise without having to know ten years of back-story. This game does a great job of this by not being connected to any of the previous games, making it so anyone can jump into the franchise.

What I really loved about this game is that not only is the game fun, IT’S GORGEOUS. If this game was a painting it would be the one that replaces the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. Every level of this game is so eye poppingly beautiful that worried I was going to go blind from staring at the screen too long. This really helps to immerse the player in the world.

The gameplay is similar to Sands of Time, but with new moves added. You can run short distances along ceilings, slide down walls, and activate magic plates to get to new platforms. However combat has been revamped so that it based more on strategy and timing rather than just slicing and dicing. Also you can never die, which at first sounds like a terrible choice, but this insures that the game never breaks flow because you’re constantly moving forward. The music is also one of the game’s strong suits. Every time you liberate a fertile ground(he he) you’ll be treated to an amazing suite that makes you feel like your on the most amazing adventures known to man.

What I think I like most about Prince of Persia is the fact that it’s different. Ubisoft could have easily made another “Prince of Persia: You’re Rewinding Time Again” and easily made money off the cash in. This reboot gives players something fresh and fun.

And now the reason I almost burned this game alive.

Unfortunately Prince of Persia can become very repetitive. You fight the same four bosses five times each. I’ll repeat that. THE SAME FOUR BOSSES FIVE TIMES EACH! Do you think that’s enough? Sure they change the strategy a little each time but it still doesn’t change the fact it’s the same guy!

But that’s not the sin that made me curse the games name. No no. The giant blotch of ink on this Rembrandt is the ending. I won’t give anything away, just know that the ending is frustratingly awful. It ends on a cliffhanger. A stupid cliffhanger.

Imagine you’re in a movie theater watching Star Wars. It’s the scene where Luke has just launched the proton torpedoes, saving or damning the rebel cause. Suddenly at the exact moment they’re about to enter the exhaust port, the screen goes black and the theater owner tells you that in a couple months you’ll be able to buy the ending for 10 dollars. This is what Ubisoft did.

So I paid my 10 dollars for the resolution to the cliffhanger and the end to the story that should have been in the finished game. Guess what? ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER! When I finally came to there was blood all over my room and the bodies of my roommates hanging from the ceiling.

I’d love to give this game a full recommendation, but my hatred for the ending really tarnishes the experience. If you do play this game just be ready for a lot of head shaking and yelling “Wait why!?!” at the end. Also just youtube the Epilogue chapter. It’ll save you a lot of time getting rid of bodies…

The new episode of Villainy INC is on the air. Be sure to listen for further talk of things we really should have discussed last episode, a formal apology to the listeners, and our take on the Disney-Marvel acquisition. And you thought we’d let that one just slip by.

[podcast]http://www.evillairproductions.com/podcast/ep82.mp3[/podcast]

No zombie segment this week since the only one we got was about 2 pages long. If you want your zombie plan read off on air, send them to greg@evillairproductions.com. And please keep them to a paragraph. We only have 10 minutes for this segment.

As discussed after the song break, a lot of our listeners loved the music from Howl’s Moving Castle. I now present to you music from the man himself. The man playing piano and then conducting is Joe Hisaishi, composer and pianist of almost all of Miyazaki’s work. This is one of his best themes straight from the source. Enjoy.

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A couple days a ago I had the pleasure of seeing Ponyo in a local movie theater here in Salt Lake. I’d been looking forward to seeing Ponyo since it had first been announced that Miyazaki was making another movie after Howl’s Moving Castle. Since my experience with his movies had only been on DVD (and viewed through my crap 12 inch TV), I danced with anticipation to finally be able to see one of these films on a 50 foot screen.

I’m not sure what else I can say about the experience. IT’S FREAKING MIYAZAKI. The man was a legend before Ponyo, and he continues his legacy of brilliance with his latest film. If you get a chance to see it in theaters, definitely take the opportunity. The film is fantastic. An amazing amount of care and detail is taken into every frame of the movie, and the story is something that anyone can connect with. Anyone remember how scary it was making new friends as a child? Now imagine your new friend is a magical goldfish girl. Yeah. Whoa.

The characters are breathtakingly human. The main child, Sosuke, lives and breaths on screen. You won’t believe how real he comes across. Ponyo is aggressively likable, and older audiences will definitely relate to the mother character. My favorite character had to be Fujimoto. He’s the oddball father of Ponyo, and his design and characterization instantly grabbed me. Hmmm I relate to the crazy misunderstood character most. Who’d a thunk it.

I’ll stop gushing now. Even though the film is intended more for younger audiences (i.e. Totoro), Ponyo is still an amazing piece of work that is defiantly worth your time and money. The story’s great, the animation rocks, the music is amazing. Definitely give it a try.