Cam's Eye View: Prince of Persia Retrospective part 1: Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time for the PS2, GC, Xbox, and PC review

So yeah, game-to-movie adaptations still don’t work out very well today. It sucks since there are some decent ones like the Tomb Raider and the Silent Hill movie. Yeah they still aren’t great, but they are fun to watch. Well, the ones that aren’t made by Uwe Bowell are not fun and are just horrible, though, some light has shined though since Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time came out and has gotten somewhat positive reviews. Of course, it won’t be as good as the games, but it looks fun and I’ll go see it with a friend or rent it. I decided in this honor and since a new Prince of Persia game came out, I would do a special three-part review special of the Prince of Persia franchise. Now, I am going to look at three of the 3D Prince of Persia games and have no intention on looking for the original PC or the 3D version of the first PC game. I am going to look at the three that I think are worth reviewing. The first will be Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time, the 2008 version of Prince of Persia, and the most recent of the series, Prince of Persia: the Forgotten Sands. So, let’s get started with the first game I mentioned and winner of multiple awards from 2003, Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time.           

 The story starts us out with a narration by the prince himself, who for some reason, sounds like Legolas from Lord of the Rings. It shows us that he is a part of a kingdom that is very powerful, and this kingdom attacks another kingdom that holds an ancient relic known as the Sands of Time. After obtaining a unique looking dagger, the Prince leaves with multiple women and the Sands of Time themselves to this other kingdom to offer it as a prize for a sultan. Then, one way or another, the Prince gets persuaded by the mage of the kingdom to stab the dagger into the hourglass and release the sands. The Prince then stupidly lets the sands out, and that changes everyone but the prince, the mage, and a girl into sand demons. It is up to the Prince and the girl who is a princess to stop the mage from controlling the sands of time, and restore peace to the land.           

The game play featured in the Sands of Time is of an action platformer, like the PC games that came before this. You have interesting moves like wall-running and a wall jump, like in a Mario game. The sword fighting mainly has to deal with what you do and who your opponents are. You have to be very strategic with your fighting, unlike the Assassin’s Creed games. You can’t just slash willy-nilly when you have to fight sand demons that can easily surround you and kill you. By the way, here is my biggest tip for people who haven’t play this game yet. DO NOT and I mean DO NOT get yourself surrounded by enemies. You will find an early grave if you do. Just keep moving and you should be fine. The main gimmick however, besides strategic sword fighting and great, but challenging platforming, is the dagger of time that you wield. If you are ever in a rut or you get killed, you can turn back time to a certain point as long as you have sand spheres. You gain more sand and powers by stabbing demons in the back, like Link in the Zelda series. You can also use this to fix a mistake you did, like jump the wrong way to get hit by a buzz saw or something. It becomes very handy, but there are some kinks in it, which I will talk later about in what are the bad parts of the game, in my opinion.           

The graphics still hold up well, even though most of the people in the game look a little funny in a cartoonish kind of way. I think hands-down one of the best things of this game has to offer presentation-wise is the music. Composer Stuart Chatwood, who was famous for the now-defunct band The Tea Party, composed a wonderful soundtrack that fits every moment of the game. If you are curious, he has basically done the rest of the soundtracks for the rest of the 3D Prince of Persia games, so that is what he is famous for. The voice work for me is a bit on-and-off. Personally, I do not like the Prince’s voice. He sounds too much like Orlando Bloom or that wizard guy during the first episode of Gargoyles. Yuri Lowenthal who does the voice for the Prince didn’t do a horrible job doing his voice, it’s just I don’t personally like it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy. He has done some legit work in voice acting, but he could have used a better voice for the Prince. I also like the wall running ability, I just never get bored of it.

However, there are some things that didn’t age greatly with this game. The sword fighting, while it can be cool, is more or less tedious in this game. During the end of the game, demons become guard-happy and it becomes annoying. It becomes more tedious than fun. I also don’t like the little timer you are under, when you slow down time or reverse it. Even if I have four sand balls left and I die and the timer is low, I still can’t do jack about it! I also think the lighting could be better. A lot of areas look foggy and blurry. Why the heck are there flying enemies when the only way to kill them is to roll out of the way and then in 2 seconds strike them once? It makes no sense. Granted, it gives the enemy roster more variety, but it’s more annoying than creative. Another thing I have a deal with is with environmental stuff, like lamps and boxes. In some areas they are freaking everywhere and it makes fighting groups of enemies even more difficult than it should. I can’t count how many times I died because my back was stuck on a lamp or some form of item that you can easily smash. That’s another thing, why are there breakable things when they hold no money or reward? It’s like, “hey, I can smash things! Hey, where are the gold or blue energy orbs?” There is no point in having destructible items if they don’t yield any reward from smashing them. The voice acting in this game is bad and I mean bad. Some people just yell and sound like people found in a Monty Python skit. I couldn’t find one person I liked who did a good voice acting job.

So yeah, this game hasn’t aged well in some areas, but it’s still an interesting experience. If you are sick and tired of all the God of War clones, then I say rent this game, but ONLY rent it. I can see why it was a big deal back in 2003, but it didn’t age well at all in some areas. Oh well, that’s life, you know? Thanks for reading and stay tuned when I review the 2008 Prince of Persia.

This game gets a 7.5 out of 10

Cam's Eye View: 150th review special: Psychonauts for the PS2 and Xbox review

Just like the Tomba games, it’s a shame when a great game that was produced or designed by someone famous doesn’t do so well. Let’s take famous game designer, Tim Schafer. He is famous for his unique games like the PC cult classic, Grim Fandango and a recent favorite of mine, Brutal Legend. However, there was a game in-between these two that had a lot of great reviews and is considered one of the best games of all time. Sadly, it didn’t do so well in the sales department and caused the publisher, Majesco some financial difficulties, though it is still considered a great game and an underrated gem. The game I am talking about is Psychonauts for the PS2, Xbox, and PC. It’s been 5 years since this game came out and I remember very little advertising for it, but what I saw looked really cool. Too be honest though, the reason I am playing this game now is that well…how do I put it…I forgot it existed. It’s not that I lost interest, but with how little advertising there was for the game, I just forgot about it as bigger games were put on display. This game, along with Ico and Beyond Good and Evil, were sadly overlooked. Now, you all can hate me and send comments like “ YOU HAVENT PLAYED THIS?!” or “ Fail”, but like I said, I forgot it was around until people in my game classes talked about it and the small memory I had about the game came back, and I just had to play it. So let’s dive right in and see why many people call this one of the best games of all time.

The story takes place in a summer camp called Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, which is actually a government-funded training facility that is disguised as a summer camp. Coach Morceau Oleander voiced by Nick Jameson is briefing the new recruits about the human mind, and their ability to become Psychonauts or they can just die. However, it results in scaring the living daylights of the recruits who end up being kids. If I were scared to death by an army general at a summer camp for kids, I would sue. While debriefing though, they hear rustling in the trees as something falls from them, scaring the kids thinking that it was a lake monster. The two other teachers of the camp, Mr. Sasha Nein, voiced by Stephen Stanton, and Mrs. Milla Vodello, voiced by Alexis Lezin, using their psychic abilities, help General Oleander to bring forth what caused the chaos. They find out that it was a young boy with a pair of red goggles. The name of the boy is Razputin or as he calls himself Raz. He ended up running away from the circus to join the camp so he can become a powerful Psychonaut. While on his stay at the camp, Raz observes that something rather odd is happening to all the students, but seeing how odd the other campers are I can’t see how much weirder it can get. He then decides to train himself and find out what is going on and save the camp from whoever is causing the ruckus. I like the setting because what’s scarier than a summer camp? A summer camp filled with campers and adults who are insanely crazy with psychic powers.

Let’s talk a little about the history of Psychonauts. Psychonauts was designed and created by Tim Schaeffer. I LOVE this guy. He is like the Gennedy Tartakovsky of video games in my opinion. The idea started as a scene from one of his games, Full Throttle, where the main character goes through a psychedelic trance brought up by a cactus known as peyote. Originally, it was only going to be released on Windows and the Xbox, but Microsoft pulled out of the deal. Later, Tim Schaeffer and his company, Double Fine teamed up with Majesco to release it on the Xbox and Windows. In 2004, it was announced it would be released on the Playstation 2 also, which is good for me, since I don’t really need to get an Xbox right now, unless they make a second Conker’s Bad Furday. It was released in 2005 in April for the Xbox and Windows and June for the PS2 version. Sadly, it didn’t do well, only selling 400,000 as of 2007. As a result, this caused Majesco some financial difficulties, but it wasn’t all Psychonauts’ fault that they had a net loss of 18 million dollars that year. Another game they published called Advent Rising was over hyped, and was then panned by critics for being bug-filled and not well made. As a game tester, that is just annoying to me. However, Psychonauts was critically acclaimed and has been nominated for a multitude of awards from best story, best original game, best writing, to game of the year. People have been interested in seeing a sequel for this game, and Tim Schaeffer has shown interest in making one.

The game play featured in Psychonauts is of a free-roaming action adventure game with plat-forming elements. The main gimmick of the game is, of course, the psychic abilities you can learn by getting merit badges. There are multiple abilities that Raz can use. They are pyrokinesis, telekinesis, invisibility, levitation, clairvoyance, psi shield, psi blast, and confusion. The whole campsite is open to exploration and there is a lot to find in the game. There are arrowheads that are the game’s currency, psi cards to form psi challenge markers, and scavenger hunt items that help you level up. The way you level up in the game is to collect a few things. One way to level up is to collect psi challenge markers, which make you go up a rank. The other way is to collect things called figments as different sizes gives you different points. If the points reach 100, you go up a rank. You usually have to go up 10 ranks to gain a new psychic ability, but sometimes, you can gain them by completing different tasks, like getting to Mrs. Vodello in her funkadelic 70’s mind or helping Mr. Nein block out all the censor enemies in his mind. However, you mostly just want to level up to gain more psychic powers. There are multiple different scenarios like where Raz is a giant monster and has to fight what seems to be a parody of Ultraman, having to help put on a play, buying paintings, and wrestling Mexican wrestlers and a huge pink bull. Don’t ask why the bull is pink, you need to find out for yourself. Overall, this game gives you a lot to do.

The graphics in the game are outstanding. It helps that the unique art and character designs are by artist, Scott Campbell, who did artwork for Brutal Legend. The whole world is just mind-bendingly twisted, but not scary twisted like Silent Hill. The whole world is like if Tim Burton founded a summer school and took some form of acidic drug or just bit into a peyote. The music is very chill and calm, kind of like if Neverhood mixed with Mushroom Men and added a bit of ambiance camp sounds. This is helped by composer, Peter McConnell. This music composer is known for other games like Brutal Legend, The Bard’s Tale, Escape from Monkey Island, Herc’s Adventure, Full Throttle, Afterlife, and a lot of Star Wars games. It really fits, and I think it works for the game. It’s like Brutal Legend having a whole list of metal songs. The humor is actually really well done. It is kind of like the humor you find in King of the Hill, very subtle, but funny. There are even some jokes that seem a little odd for kids to say. Let’s talk about the kids one more time. These kids are not normal. Not because they have psychic abilities, but just how odd they are. It is like they ate a big bowl of peyote, which is a certain kind of cactus that can cause some hallucinogenic moments if you bite into it. The voice work, while not as good as Brutal Legend, is very good. You get the talents of Richard Steven Horovitz who did the voice for Zim from the cult classic cartoon, Invader Zim and Orthopox 13 from Destroy All Humans. You also get the voices of Stephen Stanton, Alexis Lezin, Nick Jameson, David Kaye, Steve Blum, David Boat, and probably my favorite female voice actor, Tara Strong. She only plays a minor role in this game, but she is very famous for her talents on shows like Powerpuff Girls and Drawn Together. Overall though, you have a good package of talent in this game.

Sadly, there are a few things that hold this game back. I remember in my game design class, people saying that the game moved slowly. Since I hadn’t been able to play it at the time, I didn’t know what to think. After playing it though, it isn’t sluggish, but it’s slow since you have to walk to everywhere, and each level can take some time to beat. Sometimes, the game gets a little repetitious during some areas like the Mexican art-themed world where you fight four wrestlers who are basically the same besides some different masks and moves, but overall they are the same. The technical issues I mentioned were not defects, but I got a defective disc that crashed on me and I couldn’t get it to run again. I wonder why some versions of games do this and some don’t. It just boggles the mind that of the 400,000 versions of this game that were sold, I got the one that crashed and had to be returned the next day. However, that is just a small gripe.

There is no excuse to not play this game. You can get it on the ps2, Xbox, and Windows, but it’s better if you get either the PS2 version or Xbox version since you don’t have to worry about lagging. This is definitely a well-made game. This game has more heart and soul than most games. I would think it has more heart and hard work put into it than most games. Let’s all hope for a sequel. It is definitely time for one since it has been 5 years. They could do a lot with this game, and I hope Tim Schaeffer does with this great title.

This game gets a 9.6 out of 10



Alter Echo for the PS2and Xbox review

Sometimes, it just sucks to be a reviewer and a gamer at the same time. It sucks more when that specific gamer/reviewer is also a tester for a game company like me! I say that because a lot of games recently have shown that the company that made the game, didn’t test it well enough, which just makes my blood boil to the extreme. I know it can be because of budget or time, but there is no excuse to release a half-baked product. Speaking of half-baked products, let’s take a look at one of Outrage’s last games, Alter Echo. Released in 2003, Alter Echo was released during the time when other games like Panzer Dragoon Orta, Devil May Cry 2, Silent Hill 3, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Beyond Good and Evil, Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando, Jak 2, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time were released. So, why was this game somewhat overlooked and only given an average rating from reviewers and critics? I can think of a few reasons.

The story starts out with a ship heading to a planet with a young shaper called Nevin, who can use a substance called Plast to shape it into anything he wants. He is accompanied by two other people, but is quickly separated from them by an unknown attack on their ship. Nevin then falls to the planet they were approaching, but is saved by a new form of plast called echo plast. The echo plast then gives Nevin a new shaper suit and the ability to turn into three different forms.  It is up to Nevin to stop whoever created the echo plast, save his two friends, and get off the planet. So yeah, to fill in a void I left out of the plot, the echo plast was made by a powerful shaper named Paavo who went nuts and was the one who shot down the ship Nevin was on. 

The game play featured in Alter Echo is an action/plat former/third person shooter/stealth. Nevin has three forms he can turn into. His first form is his default form, called sword form, which has nothing to do with the sword form used in Kamen Rider Den-O. He can basically do strong attacks and normal attacks in this form, and isn’t anything different than what other action games have shown. I will say that it is a lot better than the first Jak and Daxter game’s physical combat moves. His next form is a bulky muscular suit of armor with a big gun called gun form, and still doesn’t have anything to do with the gun form from Kamen Rider Den-O. In this form, Nevin can take out long-range enemies and groups of enemies quickly by the giant gun he uses. He can also stand in certain areas and become a turret-like gunner, and shoot down enemies in one area. The final form is the stealth form, which turns Nevin into a tropical tree frog on steroids. No, I’m kidding, but he does look weird and you can see the form on the front of the cover on the box. He can basically lunge at enemies and slap them around, go invisible and get back turrets, and launch enemies into the air with his tongue. During the game you can upgrade all your forms with more moves, better armor, a better sword, and you get the idea. Another main gimmick of the game is to control time to take out multiple enemies. You basically have to play a game of Snake, controlling it with the directional pad or face buttons and go over enemy icons or over controls to unlock bridges and such.

The graphics in the game are surprisingly colorful. I was surprised to see so much color since it seems like during the mid to late 2000’s, people forgot we could use color in games and not just gray, brown, and black. It gives the game a very comic book feel, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was based on a comic book. The music is also fun to listen to, but isn’t worth finding a soundtrack for. The voice acting is well, half and half. Some people do a good job and some just don’t do a good job at all.

Now, it is time to give this game a well-deserved beating for all the bad parts it has. First off, the camera is far too close to the person. I mean, look at camera angles from games like God of War 3 where it gives the camera a great position to be in, giving the player enough room to see what is going on around him. The enemies can be really cheap since during the rest of the game, you end up fighting enemies who are guard-happy and are very tedious to kill. It seems like they can hurt you faster and easier than you can. Another thing that annoys me about the forms is that during the beginning part of the game, you get all three at the get-go, and then the villain, the jerk that he is, takes them away from you. I mean, if you were going to take them away, then why give them to you in the first place?! The biggest thing that I just HATE about this game are the bugs that frequently pop up. The bugs I am talking about is that the game kept freezing on me and it had an issue with reading the disc. I mean, what kind of cheap testing team did Outrage have? No wonder they went out of business. They just made poorly made decisions, like “hey, let’s not advertise the game or have a good group of game testers!” Stuff like this annoys the ever-loving heck out of me! I mean, if it’s not ready, then don’t release it where a player can only get in an hour and a half of playing and then the game crashes and can never be played again unless you start a new game. What were they thinking?! Did they think the showstopper bugs were not important, or did some moronic tester not report them and instead went partying? Another issue I have is with the facial expressions on the people. They all look the same throughout the game. Did they just watch the most depressing film ever and not want to live? Well, I didn’t want to live either after finding out how bad this game is. Another thing that I have an issue with this game is that no one has ever seen fit to report in their reviews that the game kept crashing on them or freezing. Were these people stupid or were they focusing on something else and just didn’t know the game crashed or froze?

Overall, Alter Echo had interesting ideas, but was not executed at all very well, the combat is sluggish, the plot is boring, and the game kept crashing and freezing on me. Avoid this game at all cost! Heck, I would play Dark Void again and watch The Never Ending Story 3 rather than play this game. Now, I’ve got another candidate for my list of games to blacklist and destroy.

This game gets a 2 out of 10

Cam's Eye View: XIII for the PS2 review

When you think of a first person shooter, what usually comes to mind? Resistance and Killzone on the PS3, Left 4 Dead 2 and Halo 3 on the Xbox360, and Golden Eye on the N64. I basically have listed the more popular ones. I know I didn’t add Modern Warfare 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2, but I don’t know much about those games, and that is just me. I’m not much of a FPS kind of guy. It seems harder though to make an original FPS without some jerk to say it looks likes another FPS that is out. I mean, sometimes it’s good to say that since a game like Haze looks like a poorly made version of Halo. There have been some attempts at doing something different with an FPS game like Mirror’s Edge with its platforming. However, I think an interesting take on the FPS genre is stealth. I don’t mean being a sniper and sitting your butt in one place during the entire match and killing everyone, I mean a game like XIII. I wouldn’t say it’s a good example of doing something different with a FPS, but at least it tried.

The main story of the game revolves around a guy name XIII, who was found badly injured on a beach in New York, and has no memories of the past. He must find out what he did, since he is charged with the assassination of a past president. It’s interesting since it seems like the beginning was based on the Kennedy assassination. It shows the president getting shot in his car by a sniper during a parade. However, I have never read XIII, and I know nothing about it, but it caught my eye because of the title and the graphics, which I will talk about later. So, yeah, it’s your basic, guy has amnesia and must find out what he did or has done and who he is. It’s not like we haven’t seen this before…wait.

The game play featured in XIII is a mix between a first person shooter and a first person stealth game. Like I said, it’s hard to make a first person shooter game original, and when someone attempts to do it right, sometime it works and sometimes it doesn’t.  The first person shooter aspects aren’t anything new since you have your normal variety of weapons like pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle, and the works. The stealth section of the game is that basically you sneak around during some levels where you have no weapons and have to use stuff like bottles, ashtrays, and chairs to take out people who do have guns. You can take the guns off of people, but then it turns into a normal shooter. You do get some unique weapons, like throwing knives and a crossbow with a sniper scope, which can be cool since if you get a head shot on someone, it shows a quick three-sectioned comic showing the bullet or arrow heading to the guy’s head and hitting him. Other than that, there is a multiplayer section, but no one is on it and I think it might be shutting down, but I don’t know

The graphics are pretty unique, but nothing we haven’t seen in cel-shaded comic-style graphics. I mean, if you look at games like Jetgrind Radio, Killer 7, and No More Heroes 1 and 2, they also have nice cel-shaded graphics. I also like the voice work in the game. One of the most surprising voice actors I saw in the game was the Mayor of Quahog himself, Adam West. I was surprised since you see this guy doing voice work in shows like Family Guy, Boondocks, and other things, then you look at him as the 60’s Batman. It’s weird where he has gotten from back then to today. I happen to like his voice in the game. We also have David Duchovny, who was Fox Mulder from the X-Files movies and TV series doing the voice for XIII. He does a good job doing the voice. The music is also well done, giving the sound and feel of the game something like the film, The Professional or the anime series Noir or Cowboy Bebop.

Now, it seems like there couldn’t be a lot of things wrong with this game, but there are a few things. First off, the controls seem really finicky. They are just all over the place, kind of like that game Mr. Mosquito. It kind of makes you feel spoiled by the controls in shooters of today. The polygon count on everyone is pretty low. It looks okay as a PS2 game, but everyone seems so blocky and not animated as well. I don’t know if it was a budget thing, but it’s annoying since this game came out in 2003, and by then I think people should have gotten some knowledge on how to use the potential of the PS2. The voice work could have been better since some voices are just annoying, and it sounds funny when people say the word “alert”. It sounds like they are saying “ALEEEE!”

Overall, this game sounds good and is interesting, but falls short of expectations. It isn’t the worst game of all time, but it’s definitely not the best. I know some people think this is an underrated gem, but I think they need a brain scan. I would say it’s worth checking out as a rental, but just like Dark Void, it is mostly forgettable and shouldn’t be picked up more than once. I have read that some people want a sequel to this, and I would be interested in seeing if they do, but I highly doubt it with the game’s sell numbers.

This game gets a 5 out of 10

E3 2009: LeChuck! - The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

A scene from the upcoming Xbox 360/PC remake of The Secret of Monkey Island