Prince of Persia! Damn!

Hot off the success of Assassin's Creed comes Ubisoft's Montreal new game: Prince of Persia: Heir Apparent. What's changed here is that one, there is a new story therefore; two, there are a slew of new characters and; three, it's so gonna kick ass on next-gen.



I am so stoked to finally play a new prince with new graphics and better gameplay. And how much better can you expect from a Prince of Persia game and Ubisoft Montreal itself?

Worries
I am a bit worried, though. Since it uses the same engine as Assassin's Creed, I'm gonna have to expect some steep, steep requirements since I don't have a PS3 nor 360, and the DS version is totally gonna suck.DS?
Yes, like Assassin's Creed before it, the franchise will be receiving the DS treatment, and that chore will be handled by Ubisoft Morocco, so I'll hold out in downloading it until the reviews come out.

Cel-shaded
The developers at Ubisoft Montreal are now going for a different visual style, and it's gonna be cel-shading (in which they refer to as "an illustrative look"). Combine that with photorealistic locales, and you have yourself an awesome experience, particularly because they're pulling all the stops in the graphics department like using light bloom, dust and particle effects, etc.

Release date?
Right now, the release date has been set to a predictable Holiday release, so it'll most probably come out the same time as Assassin's Creed did last year.

The FIRST TWO LEVELS: No More Heroes (Wii)

I vowed myself that last night, I was not gonna try burning and get frustrated again, therefore I needed some outlet to pour out my frustrations, and you know what? The game my brother just bought on Tuesday (sa Tutuban) which was entitled No More Heroes, gave me solace. Seriously, I mean, who knew that killing people would be so pleasurable? Never since Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and God of War did I enjoy killing so much!

The controls are simple- Go near an opponent, press A and finish him off with a fatal slash that you execute via waving the remote to the direction shown on the screen. But the effect is an over-the-top death that's full of blood. Seriously, there's even more blood than Grand Theft Auto and God of War combined and the deaths can even match the over-the-top deaths of those so-good-it's-bad B-movies (slasher movies, sexploitation, etc.)!

But it's not all killing, because like Grand Theft Auto albeit in a limited manner, No More Heroes employs a "sandboxed" world where you can ride a bike and do whatever you want... and not get arrested (or so I think)!

But wait a sec, what's the agenda? Well, you play as Travis Touchdown, "The Association"'s 11th deadliest assassin, and being an assassin, well, you kill people. But the real deal here, to make a long story short, is that Travis wants to be number one; the deadliest assassin of the Association. What accompanies this are the retro graphics, and weird concepts (bathroom breaks equate to saving, of course with censors and all) as well as the aforementioned over-the-top killing. Of course, this game is definitely not going to cater to the kiddies, nor is it even family-friendly. But if your stomach is able to handle all this blood, you should have no problem going through the game.

The frame rate dips when you spill too much, though.

Written and directed by the acclaimed Suda 51, they bring to life yet another unique and refreshing concoction since their last creation (Killer7 for the PS2). You know what? I'm hooked. Especially since the boss battles are pretty much varied from time to time (and you even learn "old pro-wrestling suplexes"), and each time you win is sweet. If you're looking for a compelling mature game before buying the Wii, this is it. Just don't expect to find others like it when you're done.

GAMING FEATURE: NARUTO ROAN: When East meets West

I'm not a fan of Anime-based video games but it seems that one of them has caught my attention. But what makes it different from other games of past is the fact that a Western company is in charge of everything (except the source story).

Naruto: Rise of A Ninja (for X-Box 360 and PSP) is this game of interest. Though the core gameplay (during climactic fights) has yet to be demonstrated, the game seems to be heading the right direction and if successfully implemented, Ubisoft Montreal's version of the game franchise might just become one of the best anime adaptations ever.

There is this belief that the home country where something is created is best made in the same country but the thing is, Japanese developers typically LIKE making brawling slugfests from anime so it's not a big surprise that only few of those type of games gain any success commercially nor critically. Plus, it's also a rare thing to ever see an anime-inspired game fleshing out all the characters and the mythology in a story/anime, nor truly developing them as the story progresses. This is how Eastern sourced anime getting derived by the Westerners in a game got so significant.

Alas, Naruto: ROAN isn't the first (I think) game franchise to get developed and published from scratch by a Western company (I think.). But disregarding the cultural differences, this new Naruto simply has lots of promise especially since it is being developed by the prestigious Montreal studio of Ubisoft who has won accolades for the Prince of Persia series, XIII and let's not forget Splinter Cell (TRIVIA: They have a Shanghai studio, too! Hehe.). To prove this to you, you can visit Gamespot's preview here.

Halo 3: Bigger than Spidey?

Spiderman 3 raked in a total of 151 million big ones in a weekend. Halo 3 gets 170 million bucks in a day. Is it ever so obvious that games are simply more profitable than movies nowadays?

Well now that Resident Evil is doing big bucks in the box office, why not a Halo movie? Will that equal more money for Microsoft's Marianas-trech-deep pockets? Most probably. But thing is, the idea DID materialize since God-knows-when! Peter Jackson was slated to direct it but Microsoft, Jackson, Universal and 20th Century Fox backed out and stopped financing said project. Oh well...

Prince of Persia The Sands of Time and Warrior Within Reviews(PC version) and the mall of asia

Overall Score: 9.4
Graphics: 9 - the graphics can still amaze even in the next-gen generation, the movements are fluid
Gameplay: 10 - face it, the controls are great in the PC and the fighting can't get any cooler than this; puzzle solving can be easy though
Sound: 10 - soundtrack consists of Middle-Eastern and hard rock influences which sound truly great though they only appear in fights
Value: 9 - definitely worth playing over and over again
Tilt: 9

Full review:
One word describes Ubisoft Montreal's POP revival effort- magnificent.
If you think Prince of Persia franchise was dead especially because of the ill-fated revivals, think again. This one isn't just another bad revival, this one is a unique, original masterpiece that combines style with state-of-the-art technology. Most notable (and convenient) is the rewind feature which saves you from repeating the whole level from the last save point as well as the great level design and big-scale buildings made possible by Ubisoft Shanghai's rendering engine. The lighting effects and colors make for a certain kind of storybook appeal and the prince just looks mature and edgy I guess.

The trademark acrobatic moves of the prince are very fluid (in the PC) and smooth. He swings like a gymnast and is definitely the fastest ladder climber I've played in my own life. Putting that aside, the voice work puts a lot of personality on the character and is very fitting for the prince. Speaking of audio, the sound effects are great as well as the BG, which is a great mix of hard rock and Middle-East influences... too bad the music only plays during fights and not during the puzzles part of the game which is by the way, maybe a bit challenging to others.

The game is pretty short with a duration of 8-10 hours but it still provides addictive gameplay and a great (I just keep saying it) story courtesy of Jordan Mechner (creator of the original) himself. Keyboard controls are of a style used in FPS's (keyboard-mouse coordination) and they actually work pretty good. The game is great enough to be played over and over again though if you want to go on with the story, try Warrior Within which they say, is a worthy successor to the great game. Too bad the bonuses Gamespot mentioned in their review doesn't appear here in the PC version.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Overall Score: 9.1
Graphics: 9 - still looks really good
Gameplay: 9 - additional controls for the keyboard were added but what the hey, it works
Sound: 7 - annoying hard metal rock soundtrack! good SFX though
Value: 9
Tilt: 10

Improves upon its predecessor in many ways... but the soundtrack's way annoying!
In POP:SOT, the Prince released the Sands of Time and sealed it again and after that everything rewinded back to the time when nothing's happened yet. Now, a monster called the Dahaka which is basically a walking black hole wants to consume the prince because he opened the sands. Though the old man says, "You cannot change your fate. You will die.", the Prince tries to defy his destiny in this part of the trilogy which sports a darker tone and an uber-annoying soundtrack of hard metal rock! That is actually my only complaint since they improved on everything else. Sure, I can live with the darker Prince image but the BGM is the one that truly makes me wanna break the PC instead of being in a fighting mood for the times of combat.

More combos mean more variety in battle. You can behead or split an enemy in half in a gory fashion as well as do the acrobatic tricks the Prince is famously known for but the storybook atmosphere in the first game just fares better.

Now I conclude the review by saying that this installment is a bit too dark for a game with a theme and story like this but it still makes for a satisfying experience which should not be missed anyway!

Lame Holy Week...
We're only going to the Mall of Asia this holy week and we're gonna eat, perhaps, at the (very expensive, so we're gonna share) Highlands Steakhouse (ironically, meat shouldn't be eaten during the Holy Week...) but still, it's better than to make our skin "rot" at Island Cove or Splash Island...