The Marketing Within
So I just finished Prince of Persia:The Warrior Within last night. Afterwards, I noticed that some movies had been unlocked in the extras section. "great", I thought, "it must be one of those Making-of-the-Game movies". No, actually they were... previews. Trailers and footage of develpers talking about the cool features in this new game that I just finished playing. What's that you say? There's a dual weapon combat system? I hadn't noticed. Oh look, there's actual game footage. Yeah, I remember doing that.

WTF?

For those who don't know, Warrior Within is the sequel to Prince of Persia:The Sands of Time. Sands of Time was a charming game about the titular Prince who gets thrust into perilous adventure with a antagonistic, and modestly dressed, Princess. Throughout their travails, they trade witty barbs and eventually grow to love each other. This is played out through fantastic dialog that can heard while you are playing, and actually ties in with the things you are doing. This relationship features some of the best character development I've ever seen in a game. Near the end, when she goes missing, I really felt the sense of loss and confusion, which the game helped along nicely. Oh yeah, the game. Wicked fun. Revolutionary.

But I guess sappy romance didn't sell enough copies. So they replaced the Princess with countless bimbos with HUGE fake breasts trying way too hard to be sexy and saying things like "pain is so close to pleasure". The witty dialog was replaced by such winning lines as "Die you bastard!". The mystical Arabian Nights setting has been replaced with an atmosphere undoubtedly inspired by The WWE Smackdown. Oh, and there's blood and gore now. Sands of Time had no blood because the monsters were actually made of sand. Kill a monster, it turns to sand (The game is actually recommended by the National Institute on Media and the Family). In Warrior Within, they are still made of sand, but the also have blood. Why? Well, because if they didn't, then they wouldn't bleed, silly. I have nothing against violence in videogames, but the blood in this game is just stupid. Oh, and the plot makes no sense, and the time travel elements have already been done better (and to death) in the Legacy of Kain series.

The whole thing just seems to pander to this image of the stereotypical gamer and some lonely, horny teenager. Its the same feeling I got watching that intolerable videogame award show on Spike TV. These things aren't made for the gamers that I know. According to studies, the average age of gamers is 29. We have so much "dark edginess" in video games. Surely the market must be saturated with the stuff by now. Whats really frustrating is that Ubisoft broke away from that and made a game that catered to more mature tastes, only to betray their fans by making an utterly antithetical sequel.

Well, that and that the actual gameplay of Warrior Within is fanastic. It thought it was way more fun than Sands of Time, which was already a fun game. In this regard, it was very much the game that I wanted Sands of Time to be. It fixed everything I didn't like about the previous game. It didn't get bogged down with puzzles, it had a great sense of flow, and it didn't take away my powers at the end. In short, the gameplay was tight. Seriously. Masterful. It is the trappings of said gameplay that sadden me. They don't even offend me. They just make me sigh in resignation.

Oh, and for some reason, people (including the developers!) keep refering to Warrior Within as "Prince of Persia 2". Um, no. This is Prince of Persia 2. Its an actual game. It was made in 1993. Why doesn't anybody notice this?