Thoughts from Mirality

One of the games that I played over the holiday period was Prince of Persia (PC, Amazon) (the 2008 one, not the 1990ish classic).

Let me get the obvious stuff out of the way first: yes, it was dumb to re-use the name; yes, it’s a “reset” of the franchise (and an attempt to start a new trilogy) — which means that yes, it has new characters.

I didn’t actually pre-order it, but I bought it sufficiently close to the NZ release date that the pre-order packs were still available (one of the benefits of staggered release dates, I guess — since the game had already been out in the US for quite a while at that point, I had a fair idea of what to expect going into it). The pre-order pack was fairly weak, though. There was a mini-comic (admittedly a very nice one, though no doubt someone has scanned and uploaded it by now), a bonus content DVD (which contained a bunch of useless fluff and about six minutes worth of video — the rest of which you had to go download off the website like everyone else), and a code card to unlock some character skins for the old Sands of Time characters (which have definitely been broadcast far and wide). What’s more, the code cards were misprinted — they have a nine-digit code, but the game only accepts eight digits. (Fortunately, the first eight digits work.)

The skins are a mildly interesting touch; they’re basically just a wardrobe change (they don’t affect the facial model), but they do have a certain amusement value. Having said that, given the choice between the standard characters and the SoT-garbed characters, my preference was definitely for the standard ones.

But anyway, enough about the fluff and on to the gameplay itself.
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