Zero Punctuation: Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

[QUINTIX]

I am just saying that the film is Prince of Persia in name alone. There really isn't more to it than that and it stole a basic item from a game that is still fully copyrighted. It isn't like Hollywood doesn't steal interesting pieces from one medium and attempt to make movies around it anyways.

Jordan Mechner [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473075/fullcredits#writers], the guy who created the game in the first place and did the writting for SoT, did writing for the movie. Nobody stole anything.

But...but...

Aww.

And because of which, it is not a terrible screenplay.

Edit:

Why does Yahtzee always displays the Xbox version of a game as opposed to the PS3 version? Xbox sucks.

Load times. Fillrate. Framebuffer bandwidth. CPU flexibility. Controller ergonomics.

 

[ROBOcity123]

If he's 50,000,000th in line for the throne, I would gladly kill the 49,999,999 ahead of him in order to have an awesome king

I'm sure he would love a fanboy like you.

 

[Tony2077]

i liked the game and the movie and i thought that the sands of time game wasn't as good as the rest of the series. Don't get me wrong it was good but not great. there i said it now flame shield activate

 

[romxxii]

Uhh, which Prince of Persia are you talking about exactly? Because those two things you mentioned above never happened in the original, the sequel, and the Sands of Time Trilogy, all of which I've finished several times. Perhaps it's from POP3D? Never did play that, so I wouldn't know. I've seen game footage of Forgotten Sands as well, and neither of those two events ever happened in that game.

Pretty sure it was the first one, though I was exaggerating the concept a little bit. It was dying from a fall of 6-8 feet which is still pretty bad. The running into a wall was just an analogy.

Like this.

and this

Those seem to be very specific deaths; doing a running jump headlong into a wall then dropping dead on the level below. Dropping from a ledge without doing a running jump ensures you survive at least a two-level drop, IIRC. I'm guessing this is a bug; the running jump makes the game think you've dropped from one additional level, and a three level drop is lethal.

EDIT: I downloaded classic Prince to recreate those bugs, so far, I've been surviving those running jump-to-the-wall drops.

The original series pales in comparison to the Sands of Time trilogy though, not just in the transition from sprites to 3D, but also with platforming, which allows you to do acrobatic Parkour moves (and survive 20 foot drops), but also with the Time Rewind mechanic, which ensures that if you do fudge a jump, you have a do over.

 

[Waif]

Spoiler

Uhh, which Prince of Persia are you talking about exactly? Because those two things you mentioned above never happened in the original, the sequel, and the Sands of Time Trilogy, all of which I've finished several times. Perhaps it's from POP3D? Never did play that, so I wouldn't know. I've seen game footage of Forgotten Sands as well, and neither of those two events ever happened in that game.

Pretty sure it was the first one, though I was exaggerating the concept a little bit. It was dying from a fall of 6-8 feet which is still pretty bad. The running into a wall was just an analogy.

Like this.

and this

Those seem to be very specific deaths; doing a running jump headlong into a wall then dropping dead on the level below. Dropping from a ledge without doing a running jump ensures you survive at least a two-level drop, IIRC. I'm guessing this is a bug; the running jump makes the game think you've dropped from one additional level, and a three level drop is lethal.

The original series pales in comparison to the Sands of Time trilogy though, not just in the transition from sprites to 3D, but also with platforming, which allows you to do acrobatic Parkour moves (and survive 20 foot drops), but also with the Time Rewind mechanic, which ensures that if you do fudge a jump, you have a do over.

Well, upon further thought.I do suppose that it is possible that I wasn't playing Prince of Persia the way it was meant to be played. I was very young at the time, and maybe I was treating it like super mario on the NES. Which may have never been it's intention. I didn't play it for very long, and I got frustrated with it because of these facets. I've had a bad feeling about PoP ever since, and it might not have been necessarily warranted, now that you have brought this up.

Though still, it's a tough feeling to shake, I might try a demo of PoP Sands of time, if only to give a chance I wouldn't have otherwise. Thanks and stuff ^~^! Here is some cake for your troubles:

 

[guntotingtomcat]

Enough of the formulaic movie games! Why do there have to be so many shameless sellouts in the gaming industry?!

I know they have to make a living and feed their kids blahblahblah, but why can't they use their brains and at least try to be creative?

Good review as always, by the way. Your consistency is apPreciated.

 

[Tantrix]

Why does Yahtzee always displays the Xbox version of a game as opposed to the PS3 version? Xbox sucks.

He probably gets payed by M$. Or he is a stupid fanboy.

 

[Quorothorn]

Ah-HA. So Yahtzee did get to unleashing a bit of snark Mr. Ebert's way. Nice.

Maybe it's because I live at home with increasingly grudging fatherly permission (in that joking-only-not-entirely way) and have a tendency to miss meals when not reminded, but "I mean when my parents wanted me to move out they just stopped cooking me dinner" line kills me every single time.

 

[SimuLord]

I absolutely adore any opportunity to throw in my piece about the artistic merits of gaming:

Roger Ebert is still right.

It's more or less obligatory at this point.

 

[MustaineV]

Hmmmm. I have that issue of FHM.

Can you tell me the issue number? That babe on the cover is just delicious

January 2007 its quite old.

Thank you !

 

[Greatness91]

The game takes place in Ancient Persia you tool, NOT Arabia.

Persia and Arabia are 2 completely different countries with completely different languages and culture. And most Persians like Jake are white. Not Arab brown.

Wanker.

 

[Scorp123]

The game was shit.I had more fun playing the prince of persia from 2009 and i though it sucked btw.The trilogy was awesome but ubisoft should have ended it there.

 

[Jing the Bandit]

Yahtzee would have been a bit of an asshole-ish flying squirrel.

 

['-_-]

How abt we all gang up and kill the 49,999,999 people in front of him and make him our king?

 

[Tantrix]

The game was shit.I had more fun playing the prince of persia from 2009 and i though it sucked btw.The trilogy was awesome but ubisoft should have ended it there.

True. However, I found 2008 better than THIS.
At least it is DRM-free AND had good art. And good models.

This is just a broken toilet beyond repair.

 

[Anchupom]

I laughed at the "Moo SMACK" above the telly

 

[Jack Frost]

the worst thing about Prince of Persia the sands of time is that with the power of the time travel you cannot die {which is lame}, unless you have zero skills at playing games and you still die, and in that case the time travel is usless for your use

 

[FoolKiller]

the worst thing about Prince of Persia the sands of time is that with the power of the time travel you cannot die {which is lame}, unless you have zero skills at playing games and you still die, and in that case the time travel is usless for your use

1. Welcome
2. To me the point of the rewind feature was two-fold:
a) getting rid of the boring platform deaths that plague many games
b) allowing me to try out interesting jumps without having to suffer through the reload screen

 

[Scarlet Mongoose]

Trilogy 1:
PoP, PoP: The Shadow and the Flame, PoP 3D: Arabian Nights

"Trilogy" 2:
PoP: SoT, PoP: WW, PoP: tTT, plus 2 extended cuts (ports), and 2 more in-between-quels.

"Trilogy" 3:
PoP, PoP: TFK, .... ??? Canceled the trilogy, to go back to the last one.

While PoP: TFS may not be as good as PoP:SoT, it's still better than all the other PoP games that came out after.

 

[xqxm]

Came here to confirm that Roger Ebert is an old tosspot.