After replacing a bad hard drive and a failed attempt at flying home for the holidays, I'm finally able to play my new Prince of Persia. And it's almost worth ruining Christmas! In all seriousness, it is a great game, and I'm very glad I've got it to keep me busy this week.

The basic concept is the same as the previous PoP trilogy: use gravity-defying acrobatics and fancy swordplay to save a magical kingdom from destruction. The story in the new Prince is nothing remarkable in and of itself, but it is told very well, through in-game cutscenes, optional dialog sequences (with heaps of character development), and the environment design itself. Together with the haunting soundtrack and unique graphical look of the game, it really does feel like playing a storybook.

Taking a note from previous criticism, the new PoP has de-emphasized combat somewhat. Enemy encounters are rare, you only fight one at a time, and the battle system is very free-form and forgiving: it reminds me a lot of the final boss battles in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. While far from difficult, the system is as fast-paced as you want it to be, and is very cool in the sense that it allows you to strike, parry, and so on at your whim. The system also rewards you for stringing together creative combos, encouraging you to consistently try new things in battle.

The non-difficulty is a persistent theme in the new Prince of Persia. If you've read anything about the game, the one thing you're most likely to know is that, thanks to magical female sidekick Elika, you cannot die. If an enemy gets the better of you in combat, she'll save your ass, the only caveat being that her magic powers become unusable for a (very) brief time. And if you leap to your doom while navigating through a level, she'll pick you up and put you back on solid ground. You may be wondering, well, what the fuck is the point of the game then? The point is of course, to get to your goal and defeat the bosses.

If you're worried about the effect this has on the challenge of the game, don't be. Think about it: what's the difference between Elika saving you, and your last save file saving you? This system removes the hassle of incremental "just to be safe" saves, and the time involved in "dying" and reloading. Simply put, it cuts the crap out of the game. If anything is lost here, it's some of the catharsis of finally getting that jump sequence you've failed to do a dozen times. But you also don't have to deal with as much frustration from those dozen misses; and the forgiving retries also encourage you to take risky maneuvers, just to see where they lead you. What's the worst that could happen?

Warrior Within and The Two Thrones did a lot to mix up the game's pacing in the form of Dark Prince segments. These segments were super-fun because they pushed you to move as quickly as possible, pumping your adrenaline as the Prince jumped from falling ledge to falling ledge. The new PoP does something fairly similar, but again leans toward the side of forgiveness. Certain elements of the level design, such as slides and wall-running handholds, require you to move and think quickly: combine this with the hazardous objects you have to avoid on your first run through a level, and you're encouraged to keep the pace swift (although more often than not, there is no harm in slowing down).

"First" time through? Allow me to explain. Once you get to the boss of an area and defeat him, you can heal the land there, which removes the hazardous elements and opens up new paths. Glowing items called Light Seeds appear throughout the area, which you need to collect to help Elika learn new magical powers. So now your goal is to survey the land, see where the Light Seeds are, and try to figure out how to reach them. Thus, the basic pattern is: acrobatic platforming, then a boss battle, then acrobatic puzzles. Very cool.

Though the land is divided into distinct regions, they are all connected, Metroid style, into one large world map. You can get to any region from any adjacent region, which is a cool explorational touch. And to ease the collection of Light Seeds and the progression to new areas, you can use the map to instantly teleport from any healed area to any other healed area.

All in all, this Prince is a really impressive game. The theme and setting are great, the gameplay is great, even the length is looking great at this point (I've put in a few hours already, and I've only healed four of the game's 24 areas on the map). The only thing keeping me from giving it a perfect score is that I have yet to encounter a really thrilling combat situation. But I also haven't done any of the game's main boss fights yet!

Progress: Healed four fertile grounds!

I had some leftover Wii points, and with a title like this, how can I say no?

Space Invaders Get Even is really cool for two reasons. The first, and this may not be cool to anyone but myself, is the revenue model. The game is split into packs of missions, each being two shooter levels and ending with a third boss level. The base game only costs $5 - and only comes with one pack of missions. Three additional mission packs are available for $5 each, and so one could say that the full game of 12 missions carries a $20 price tag; but you can buy fractions of it at your leisure. This is a really exciting evolution of the episodic distribution idea: the base game carries a price to recoup development costs, but is cheap enough so as to be almost free, and I wouldn't hesitate to think of it as a sort of demo. If a player is sold on the concept, he is then liable to buy additional levels for the game a'la carte, each in a bite-sized chunk that both stuffs Taito's coffers and satisfies the player's desire for new content. (I don't know if the game is architected to allow more add-on mission packs beyond the existing three, but that would really complete the business model.)

The second reason this game is cool is pretty much indicated by its title. Past the introductory narration, which is equal parts confusing and boring, Space Invaders Get Even is about exactly what it sounds like: the space invaders, after 30 years of living with the stench of failure, have come back to Earth for revenge. The scenario is sort of a post-campy setup, where, as you pilot the mothership with your nunchuk, you'll overhear terrestrial radio chatter like "we can't hit these 2D targets!" The invader ships that swarm around you can be directed into a number of attack formations that range from the expected, such as homing in on targets, to the hilariously bizarre, like forming the shape of a giant drill and plowing into an enemy.

The game plays like a vertical-scrolling overhead shooter with ground targets (in fact, you'll be firing at tanks more often than at helicopters). The playfield is also littered with military and civilian structures, and, Rampage/Blast Corps-style, you'll gain seconds on your level timer for causing wanton destruction. You also lose seconds for being hit, so blowing shit up is not just fun, but also meaningful to your goal of survival! My only real complaint about the gameplay mechanics is that, while they are initially hard to learn due to the number of attack formations you have, within a level or two you'll find out that about half of them are really ineffective and pointless.

What I don't like about Space Invaders Get Even is that, despite the new concepts and mechanics, the game is structured around high score pissing contests just as much as the original Space Invaders. Rather than unlock new abilities or features, your reward for killing everything or finishing quickly is racking up points, which are ranked globally in online high score tables within the game. If you like that sort of thing, then this game's implementation seems pretty good, but it's not really my cup of tea.

Nevertheless, I don't doubt that a boring evening at home could easily lead to me buying a $5 mission pack and invading Earth again.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished basic level pack

My hard drive is on life support, which ruled out HL2 and Assassin's Creed (and though my old Powerbook can play Lich King, its aging hardware mars the experience somewhat). So I turned on my Wii and checked out what's new on the Nintendo Channel: a playable demo of The Fallen King, which I had heard some interesting facts about. Namely, that it uses Phantom Hourglass-like controls, which I was curious to see at work in another title.

Basically, Fallen King is classic sidescrolling Prince of Persia, plus Phantom Hourglass touch-to-move controls. Though the concept is simple, the execution falters because PoP's gameplay is fundamentally different from Zelda's. Where Link can get away with using a stylus to move and use items from an overhead view, using it to tell the Prince to jump and climb walls from a side perspective is more of a stretch, and makes vertical segments a tiring exercise in jamming the stylus in the general vicinity of a ledge.

The game's secondary character, some sort of floating magi, is basically a device for enabling new level design elements - but he's not used very well (at least in the demo). You "switch" to the magi by pressing any face button or any direction on the D-pad, at which point, instead of doing tap-to-move, you're touching points of interest to the magi on the screen. Touch a grapple point, and the Prince and the magi will grapple to it. Touch an explosive magic item, and you can drag it to a destination. Touch an enemy or empty area, and the magi will fire a magic bolt out, which stuns an enemy briefly but does no damage (e.g., the complexity of combat plateaus at stunning an enemy so that the Prince can take a free swipe).

The puzzles in the demo, involving pressure plates and rolling boulders, were more difficult than I'd expect from a free taste: which makes me hopeful that the final product could actually have some genuinely challenging puzzle-platform gameplay in it. But I'll likely never find out for sure, as the rest of the gameplay is too tedious for me to sit through again. Moving to a traditional button-based control scheme would be a good first step, but even then The Fallen King is depressingly similar to the original PoP, albeit with brighter colors and meaningless magi objects.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished three-minute demo

This game is the reason I need to change how the Glog handles video game titles/versions. And yet, I still haven't done it. Huh.

Forgive me, Gunpei, for I have renewed.

Last weekend I caved in to peer pressure, and found myself flung back into Azeroth. In the interest of playing with people I actually know, I've started a new character, and since I'm on a PvP server this time - and with the Horde - I'm seeing a lot of the old game I've never seen before. Which isn't to say it's terribly new and exciting; though the quests are different, now that I'm past the starting zones, the geography is becoming pretty familiar. The good great news is that the old-world levels have become all but trivial, with reduced leveling requirements, increased quest/kill rewards, and more content that has so far made the early levels a total cakewalk.

I also decided that I would make my new character a Frost mage, my previous record for holding a Frost spec lasting somewhere around five minutes. There is no shortage of Mages who extol the "control" virtues of Frost - but I had never been satisfied with its damage output, and though this has been improved in the past years, I find myself in a similar situation today. Nevertheless, I will continue the grand experiment for at least a few more levels, until the allure of raw Firepower consumes me completely.

The new achievements system is kind of cool, but, just as with Steam and Xbox Live - given that achievement "points" cannot be applied or redeemed for anything - it doesn't really add anything of value to the game. In 2008, implementing Achievements is less an "exciting feature" than a "me-too" marketing point, and frankly I would rather development time had been spent on something meaningful like ... I don't know, robots.

Meanwhile, my existing level 70 is languishing in the purgatory of his old server; I only logged in briefly to buy materials for, and construct, the Engineering flying mounts that had been introduced shortly after my last WoW outing. Northrend beckons, as does the Death Knight class, but I know if I don't get this new dude leveled now I might never have the compulsion to do it again.

Progress: Level 27

Nintendo Power, Volume 226 (9.0/10):

[...] the modified translation somehow feels less inspired then [sic] the original, and, like in the PlayStation version of the game, there is a brief lag after battles.

[...]

The rest of the review praises the game heavily, but purely for retaining the greatness of the SNES original. Ehhhhh...

Progress: Gave Up

Alright, you know what? Fuck planet Rilgar. There are two ways to go from the landing site - one to a near-impossible underwater gauntlet that stretches the limits of how fast you can move (without drowning), and another that goes to a series of rooms filled with stupid amounts of enemies that are impossible to survive because of the camera and weapon aim sucking (and the last checkpoint is ten minutes back!). I'm like a third of the way through the game, this sudden spike in difficulty is not cool. As much as I'd like to be able to say that I played through R&C to the end, this frustration is not fucking worth it.

Progress: Gave Up -- Fuck planet Rilgar

I've barely had any time to play with AC, but already it's a puzzling beast. What you might not know about the game if you haven't played it, or seen it played, is that the "game" proper - that is, what's depicted in the title and box art - is not the actual setting. Rather, Assassin's Creed actually tells the story of a man descended from a line of assassins, in the modern world, who is hooked up to a machine that examines his "genetic memory" - in order to play back the events of his ancestor, Altair.

This is a really interesting concept that, while not exactly brand new, is quite rare, and I would say has yet to be explored to the depth that it is here. The modern-era frame of the story has its own plot distinct from Altair's, though it revolves around uncovering the story of Altair's life through the memories. This gives the game tremendous liberty to skip uninteresting portions of Altair's story, fast-forwarding through boring head-back-to-town sequences and jumping from important event to important event.

It also has the dramatic effect of giving you a fellow audience to reflect with, in the form of the characters in the modern frame story. This story, while intriguing and significant in its own right, does a good job of not overshadowing Altair's. Which is not to say that it works perfectly: it does feel odd jumping in and out of Altair's time on whims other than the player's. Given that immersion is one of the highest goals of the modern game designer, Assassin's Creed takes a roundabout approach to it, in that you are immersed in the real world story by way of contrasting it with Altair's (provided you suspend your disbelief about the whole concept of "genetic memory").

Anyway, the setup is very interesting, and I'm really anxious to see it develop further. The gameplay... well, it's very technologically impressive - Assassin's Creed has some of the coolest AI techniques in the industry so far, with the way people react variously to you and your actions - but, at least at my early point in the game, I have yet to be wowed by it. The PC controls have taken a little getting used to, but I really don't think the story would be different on a console; button/key actions change frequently based on things like switching between high and low profile, or mounting a horse, or climbing, such that everything is very context sensitive. It may seem overwhelming, but one of the successes of the game is that simple actions are boiled down to the point where it's easy enough to get by without becoming absorbed in the deeper intricacies of the control scheme.

In general, AC is very well polished. The graphics and sound design are stellar, and the way the game works in general is very admirable given its complexity. So far my biggest complaint is that it's something of a chore to actually exit the game: from within an Altair memory, you must pause the Animus machine, choose a menu option to exit the machine, then pause your modern character's game, then go to the Profile (save file) Selection screen, then select a profile, and finally Exit to Windows (because, even after all that, there is no Exit option in the Profile Select screen). It's not exactly game-breaking (obviously a case of the PC port team faltering in the translation process), but with the rest of the game's attention to detail I wish they had paid a bit more to the ability to quit.

Progress: Memory Block 2

As the last part of the PS2's holy trinity of anthropomorphic 3D action-platformers, I had the highest expectations for Ratchet & Clank. First of all, there's a robot. Second of all, of the three franchises, Ratchet and Clank is the only one still going (and is also by far the most prolific). Third of all, of each of the franchises' developers, Insomniac has arguably the best reputation in other genres. So I was more than a little disappointed, a few levels into Ratchet & Clank, to find that it was just as underwhelming as Sly and Jak had been.

R&C suffers from the classical tragic flaw of Mario64-likes: bad controls. Ratchet's unique gimmick is the inclusion of a bevy of secondary weapons, mostly projectile affairs, but tacking third-person shooting onto a 3D platformer is just as disastrous here as it is in the rest of the genre. It goes without saying that the camera is a pain in the ass. Forget seeing what's behind or next to you - when you can barely see what's in front of you, trying to properly use the game's armaments is a sick joke. Blind, mindless fire is pretty much the only way out of encounters with multiple baddies.

It's somewhat depressing that, though the menus, map system, planet navigation, graphics and sound, writing and voice acting, and almost every other aspect of the game is very well-polished, the meat of it - running through levels and fighting bad dudes - is more frustrating than fun.

I'm probably being too hard on it. Like Jak, R&C is far from a terrible game. But I just feel so let down. On the upside, Clank is an awesome robot.

Progress: Planet Rilgar

HL2 keeps impressing me just enough to keep me playing. Ravenholm was a pretty hard push: it stretched the limits of my aim and ammo supply, as well as my tolerance for creepy noises and zombie shit leaping at my face. But despite the fucking annoying jumping headcrabs, I found myself slowly pushing forward, curious to see what lay ahead.

Part of the game's challenge is finding your way through an area - and I wish the level design made it clearer what bland corridor I should follow, or if I should run through an area as opposed to methodically scavenging it (enemies respawn in some areas, but not in all of them). The other part of the challenge is in shooting things, and though some things take more shooting than others, it's easy to enjoy the simple pleasures of trigger-happiness.

I could say that Half-Life 2 seems pretty good, as far as first-person shooters go, but that doesn't really mean a whole lot to me. Yeah it can be fun, yeah the challenge can be satisfying - but HL2 is not about to make me a bigger fan of shooters.

Progress: Highway 17