Despite having a Metacritic average of 83, Ubisoft is upset that Prince of Persia didn't get more praise. The game did some new things, and signalled a change from the old PoP trilogy. Instant blowjobs expected!
"For years we've all been reading complaints about sequels and companies churning out carbon copies of proven formulas without focusing on innovation or taking risks," bitches producer Ben Mattes. "Fans, developers and critics alike seemed ravenous for new ideas—new IPs; major innovations—advances in this art-tertainment form we all love. We tried to really embrace this challenge on PoP. We set out to keep a few core fundamentals but to re-imagine everything else, discarding some very well entrenched ideas not only about the brand but also about videogames in general.
"What surprises me is how little these high-level risks seem to be noticed and appreciated as attempts to shake up the industry and push things forward. Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I think perhaps I was expecting a few more virtual pats-on-the-back for our attempts to do something new."
Mattes commits two cardinal sins here -- first of all, he stomps his feet over not having unanimous praise. An 83 Metacritic score means reviews were generally great, and we need to get out of this awful mindset that anything below 90%, Triple A or 9/10 is terrible. Secondly, he has done what several developers seem to be doing now -- trying a few new ideas and expecting innovation alone to be rewarded.
I am so sick of the "I" word now. It's not like new ideas are unwelcome, but a game still has be good first and "innovative" second to receive praise. Prince of Persia may or may not be excellent depending on who you are -- but to expect a pat on the back just for being different is almost as cynical as rehashing old ground for a quick and cheap sale.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
10:00 PM on 12.23.2008
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An actual quote I'm going to use when people criticize Bonerquest.
I agree, that term is stretching it. I bet he thought it was clever.
it looks great and all but a platformer where you cant die gets boring very fast.
People seemed to love Braid and its a platformer that you can't die in.
I mean, their games are bugged as hell (Rainbow 6 games), or seem to have little idea of what the fun parts are (Assassins Creed, FarCry 2), or are just trying to be different with not much thought into making it good(this PoP). Surely, with decent testing theyd figure this stuff out.
He bitches about people wanting new IP's and major innovations but the new PoP doesn't really deliver neither. It looks like they took PoP:SoT added some new moves and quicktime event combat... where exactly did ubisoft take "great risk" in this title? sure is seems different enough that you can't say its a rehash of the previous games, but it's not different enough that you could call it very innovative or a title that takes risks...
Ubisoft can go fuck themselves.
Why bother innovating at all, given the response given to those games that do? Not as if innovation in games will save us from a Video Game crash.
Should I be praised for re-inventing the respitory system? Such new-evolving inovation should be.
@AKK: Mirror's Edge might have been innovative, but like the article suggests, the game should be GOOD above all else. Innovation is a huge bonus, but a game shouldn't just rest on that.
in fact i thought every aspect of the game was stolen from other games, to the extent that i felt like i was playing "shadow of the prince of nosgoth".
it didn't even feel that much different to the previous POP games, apart from being much easier, and having retarded QTE's everywhere.
to be fair learning from other games isn't entirely a bad thing, however when the developers are claiming to be original it makes them out to be total fools, and in this case exposes the fact that they either don't know that everything they were doing had been done before, or they are lying outright to make up for not getting perfect scores.
The thing is that for quite a while, the gaming press was acting as though it was the opposite. Good games were nice, but where was the innovation?
Yes, the press was like that, and I hated it then too. It was around the time Lost Odyssey came out and people were criticizing it for not being "innovative."