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Prince of Persia: Warrior Within Demo Released

Posted by Zonk on from the best-use-of-sand-evar dept.

OneHungLo writes "Today, Ubisoft released an international demo for Prince of Persia 2: The Warrior Within. The demo is around 470MB. For those of you who would like to use the /. effect to help others get the file, get the .torrent here."

47 comments

  1. Torrents by tini1212 · · Score: 0

    Is it me or is EVERYONE using torrents these days? How much do they really help the server?

    --
    -Tony
    tonyville dot org
    1. Re:Torrents by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 3, Informative

      With modern clients, by approximately 4 orders of magnitude.

  2. Look at the size! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm sorry, but I HATE large demos. As people start using broadband and forgetting about us poor dialup users (who can't even download a torrent as we only have 5KB total, nothing to share.)

    Seriously, christ! My fully installed copy of Quake 2 is 350 MB! Have people completely forgotten about good compression and not putting in things you don't need?

    Sorry for going on a rant here, I'm just really pissed.

    1. Re:Look at the size! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're not pissed at the demo, you're pissed at your weak internet connection and the fact that you have the same status as an AOL user. It's OK.

      I've sent you a tube of Vagisil to make you feel better.

    2. Re:Look at the size! by Propagandhi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There really is no way around large demos, aside from scaling back content a ton. High res textures, complex level geometry, high quality sound, all of this adds to the demo's size.

      Heck, most demo's (not all, but many) are pretty short already, making them any smaller would defeat the purpose of even having a demo.

      My advice, if you don't have broadband subscribe to the CD-Rom (or DVD or whatever it is now) version of PC Gamer and get your demos and trailers that way. Yeah, it sucks to essentially pay for demos, but such is life..

    3. Re:Look at the size! by hollismb · · Score: 1

      There are people without broadband connections? Woah.

    4. Re:Look at the size! by nb+caffeine · · Score: 1

      The Demo for baulders gate 2 was 650 mb. in 2000-2001, whenever it came out. That was crazy back then

      --

      "Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
    5. Re:Look at the size! by masterren · · Score: 1

      That's still extremely high today.

    6. Re:Look at the size! by mrgreen4242 · · Score: 1
      Yeah, it sucks to essentially pay for demos, but such is life..

      It's probably still cheaper than having broadband... DSL is at least $35 a month in most places, and you can get dial up for $10 or less. I am sure than a subscription to said magazine is less than $25/month.

    7. Re:Look at the size! by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      " There really is no way around large demos, aside from scaling back content a ton. High res textures, complex level geometry, high quality sound, all of this adds to the demo's size."

      Tell that to these guys : http://www.theproduct.de/

    8. Re:Look at the size! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Erm... Sure, they have high res textures, but they look like puke. My dog can do nicer stuff! It's still good for 64k, but I wouldn't wanna play a game that looked like it.

    9. Re:Look at the size! by moonbender · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm sorry for nitpicking but this is a really common and equally annoying error: the game's name is Baldur's Gate.

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      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
  3. Is this a good direction? by JensR · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not really convinced the new style is the right way to go. I really enjoyed Sands of Time, but I only bought it after seeing a friend play it. All the trailers and screenshots were comparably boring.
    SoT was T rated, and the violence was on a level that I wouldn't be terribly worried if younger kids played it. Now explain to me, how do they expect to gain bigger sales by limiting their audience to "M"ature gamers?
    Don't give me the "average gamer is 28 years" shit, that's were most people stop playing games, and start worrying about families and mortgages.

    1. Re:Is this a good direction? by PreviouslySeen · · Score: 1

      Don't give me the "average gamer is 28 years" shit, that's were most people stop playing games, and start worrying about families and mortgages
      Nah, it is true that we old farts worry about such things, but still play games. Not as often, or as long (as with other "activities") unfortunately.
      When the kids get older, we game with them!!

      --
      Meet the new sig, same as the old sig
    2. Re:Is this a good direction? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh.. the best part of SoT were the puzzles. The fighting was boring and frustrating towards the end. With the revamping of the fighting engine, it's going to take the only shitty part of the last game and make it better.

      Can't go wrong.

      Mourne

    3. Re:Is this a good direction? by DarkZero · · Score: 1

      SoT was T rated, and the violence was on a level that I wouldn't be terribly worried if younger kids played it. Now explain to me, how do they expect to gain bigger sales by limiting their audience to "M"ature gamers?
      Don't give me the "average gamer is 28 years" shit, that's were most people stop playing games, and start worrying about families and mortgages.

      That depends on what your idea of "M-rated Gamers" is. From what I've seen, the ESRB concept of an M-rated game seems to be some sort of weird amalgamation of PG-13 and R. In a single category, we have Dante beating up puppets in Devil May Cry (a game which has only a couple of actually gory scenes), the over-the-top "Itchy & Scratchy Show"-like Mortal Kombat games that were always more funny than cool when I was a kid, and GTA's lovely process of screwing hookers, killing them, and taking your money back. Three completely different tiers of objectionable content, all in one rating.

      To me, Prince of Persia 2 looks more like Devil May Cry than GTA, or even Mortal Kombat. And since most of the parents I've seen that pay attention to their kids' gaming habits seem to rely more on word of mouth from other parents than on the shiny black letters on the game box, I don't think it's really restricting its audience. Besides, as far as I know, the only people that bought the original are the same hardcore gamers who bought Ico, Rez, and other "critically acclaimed" titles. Its core audience is shared with Katamari Damacy, not Tak: The Power of Juju.

    4. Re:Is this a good direction? by djRobbieB · · Score: 1

      The first game was all about style and polish. It was elegant and the characters were intriguing. This is blood, violence, excess, swearing, a jerky camera... it is so many steps in so many... well, directions that I wasn't expecting. PoP was my favourite game last year. This demo is enough to turn me off of the sequel.

      This isn't meant as a troll. I was so very much hoping to post something very different. By the way, I'm the "average gamer" at 28. I guess they're catering to a different audience...

    5. Re:Is this a good direction? by kreyg · · Score: 1
      I let my young son watch while I played SoT and we both enjoyed it. Based on what I've seen of the new game, I think we'll unfortunately be passing on it due to the content. Way to lose a customer guys.

      --
      sig fault
    6. Re:Is this a good direction? by MemoryDragon · · Score: 1

      Well, there are many adult gamers, some of them play with there kids. I am one of those 34, but I am probably an exception of not having a girlfriend or wife, and not being able to get one, due to a mental disease. I still enjoy games. But I will probably skip the POP2 (well actuall it must be pop7 or so) since the series goes into the wrong direction with less puzzles and more fights. In fact the fights were the worst part with the camera in Sands of Time, they were basically just jump trigger push jump, the first prince of persia (the one from 1990) had a better style in this regard, only one enemy and you had to figure out how to beat him.
      The second problem of Sands of Time was the camera, which sometimes seemed to lock into god awful positions so you had to make a guess jump instead of being able to readjust the cam again.

    7. Re:Is this a good direction? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have a look at http://esrb.org/esrbratings_guide.asp what their concept is. It is definitely higher than PG-13 and R.

      They could remove a lot of confusion by just mentioning the age groups, like the german FSK (http://www.fsk.de/) does: "free for all ages", "6 years+", "12 years+", "16 years+" and "18 years+".

  4. Where are the puzzles? by Ian_Bailey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I personally loved the puzzles best in Sands of Time, and was relatively bored/tired of the button mashing battles. I knew one person who just played the puzzles, and gave the controller to someone else when enemies appeared.

    The fact that they're pushing the gorier battles means to me that they're leaving behind what made the last game so much fun. So I'm probably going to pass on this one.

    To add to your comment, though, I think something I read at Insert Credit put what seems to be the main difference so eloquently:

    In Sands of Time, the Prince spends almost the entire game fretting about a servant girl he could just order to do whatever he said. After all, he's a prince.

    In The Warrior Within, he calls a woman a bitch.

    1. Re:Where are the puzzles? by JensR · · Score: 1

      I found they solved the problem of a 3D swordfight battle quite well. You could attack in all directions, use the environment, and reliably block enemy attacks. Of course, you can complete all battles just with button mashing.
      In The Warrior Within, he calls a woman a bitch.
      Is that a sign of quality?

    2. Re:Where are the puzzles? by Mattcelt · · Score: 1

      The Sands of Time is the game that has set the bar for playability for all other games for me. The controls were so incredibly easy and intuitive, it was possible to do complex maneouvers without taking hours to master the controls. The smoothness of rendering and control makes it a welcome addition to the PoP series, which I think is one of the most playable of all time.

      The camera work was also very good - not perfect, but very good - the ability to control the zoom and scope of the cameras was a wonderful addition. Compare that to games like Burnout 3 (whose camera work is some of the most frustrating ever !), and it comes out heads-and-shoulders better than most others.

      I go back and play PoP regularly (and I almost never repeat-play games) just because it is so refreshing and fun to play. I am very much looking forward to the next installment.

    3. Re:Where are the puzzles? by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      I agree with you entirely. I think this sequel is going to be missing the aspects that made the original so great. (And when I say the original, I mean *all* the original games... PoP, PoP 2, and Sands of Time all focused on the puzzles over the combat, and all had a tightly integrated storyline that moved the game along nicely.)

      Why would they get rid of Farah? Both as a love interest and as a gameplay element, Farah was pretty much what MADE the first game work. Farah was the mouse in the first PoP, but evolved to its logical conclusion. (Now, given how the story works, yeah it makes sense that Farah herself would not be in the second game, but does the Prince have any similar companion? All the previews I've seen give me the impression that he goes it alone.)

      Anyway. I'll wait for the reviews.

      --
      Comment of the year
    4. Re:Where are the puzzles? by nicksthings · · Score: 2, Informative

      Based on everything I've seen and read (previews, developer interviews), the puzzle aspects have not been tossed. An emphasis has been put on the fighting, however, since that's what did need the most work - the plan, I believe, is to mesh both the fighting and the puzzle in a more seamless fashion, as opposed to Sands of Time's "fight...puzzle...fight...puzzle" formula.

    5. Re:Where are the puzzles? by Sage+of+Lightning · · Score: 1

      Too bad Fiona is not a servant girl, who the prince could just order around, she is a Princess in her own right.

  5. The official site... by Lust · · Score: 2, Informative

    is here

    1. Re:The official site... by Doomstalk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Note to publishers: gigantic oversized pages made entirely of Flash piss me off, especially when they have loud sound/music I can't turn off.

    2. Re:The official site... by johannesg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Why, oh why must movie and game websites always be un-navigable flash monsters with bad soundtracks that loop every 8 seconds, stuff jumping all over the screen, stamp-sized images, and hard to read text? Is this some sort of conspiracy? Who makes these sites?

    3. Re:The official site... by MagicDude · · Score: 1

      Is the volume control on your speakers broken?

    4. Re:The official site... by Doomstalk · · Score: 1

      No, but I'm almost always listening to music while I surf, and I'd rather hear my own stuff rather than a 10 second loop.

    5. Re:The official site... by beakerMeep · · Score: 1
      because they're marketing - marketing guys like "wow factor" and the web designers like it because it gives them a chance to strut they're stuff. I agree with you to some extent though especially about the sounds. But in all honesty how would you market a video game? with a telnet server?

      that said this is one of the better flash sites I have seen in awhile with the exception of a mute button for the music but if you haven't learned to surf the web with your speakers off then I feel for you :)

      --
      meep
    6. Re:The official site... by johannesg · · Score: 1
      To market a game I would have...

      - A "downloads" section that contains a demo of the game, as well as any patches that have since been released. I'm fine with bittorrent if you want to preserve bandwidth, but do not make me wait for hours at fileplanet or some subscription based site just to get a demo or some patches.

      - LARGE screenshots (clickable from thumbnails of course). My screen is 1280*960. Screenshots that are smaller than, say, 128*128 are just too small to be of any use to me.

      - Descriptive text that explains what the game is about, rendered using a font and colors I can actually read.

      - No "entry tunnel" that takes three times longer to load than it takes me to click past it. That is soooo last century.

      - A menu system that actually lets me navigate the site in comfort. I was thinking hyperlinks (with text and everything) instead of buttons that float all over the place.

      - I agree about the mute button, but want to add that I usually play MP3's in the background so I do not want to turn off all sound.

      Basically I want to find out about the game (or movie), and many of these websites seem to spend a lot of effort to make this hard on me. But hey, if they do not want my money...

  6. System Reqs by Vampyre_Dark · · Score: 1, Informative

    Here's the system requirements, take a look at the noitce near the bottom. :S

    Supported OS: Win98SE/2000/XP
    Processor: Pentium® III 1 GHz or AMD Athlon(TM) 1 GHz
    RAM: 256 MB
    Video Card: DirectX® 9-compliant graphics card (see supported list*)
    Sound Card: DirectX® 8-compliant sound card
    DirectX Version: 9.0c (included on disc)
    CD-ROM: 16X CD-ROM or 4X DVD-ROM
    Hard Drive Space: 2Gigs

    *Supported Video Cards at Time of Release
    NVIDIA® GeForce(TM) 3/4/FX series (including 4MX)
    ATI® Radeon(TM) 7500/8500/9000 families or newer

    Laptop models of these cards not supported. These chipsets are the only ones that will run this game. Additional chipsets may be supported after release. For an up-to-date list of supported chipsets, please visit the FAQ for this game on our support website at: http://support.ubi.com.

    NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some CD-RW, DVD-RW, and virtual drives.

    1. Re:System Reqs by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      And I thought I had to worry about my GeForce 6 not being a supported chipset...

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  7. Are they serious? by Etone · · Score: 1

    I heard the opening chords of "Straight out of Line" on the menu screen and I was sure for a second that I had downloaded someone's sick idea of a joke. Talk about ruining the atmosphere/ambience that Sands of Time had... -E-

    1. Re:Are they serious? by djRobbieB · · Score: 1

      Couldn't agree more. What were they thinking with that music?

      I hooked my PC up to the TV so I could play the first game on a big screen. My whole family watched for parts of it, transfixed by the elegance and beauty of the game -- not just the audio but also the video.

      I downloaded this demo tonight, and turned down the sound because I couldn't stand the music, and am going to bed before I even make my way through what they've offered me.

      What a contrast.

    2. Re:Are they serious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not only the music, but at least the first game had some taste. What the hell is with the stupid leather-clad chick sticking her ass in the camera? Oh my god, I'll never buy this pile!

  8. Another download Link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.clubic.com/t/downloadall.php?idfiche=13 158&titre=D%E9mo+jouable+%231&langue=Multi-langues

  9. wow by Sv-Manowar · · Score: 0

    And here is me still playing the original platform version :(

    --
    Business Voyeur
  10. Bug? by Ferrmat · · Score: 1

    Is anyone else getting a bug where the golem becomes inactive? It seems very polished otherwise, but this problem (which i've gotten twice) is pretty glaring.

    1. Re:Bug? by Sta7ic · · Score: 1

      I got that bug too, just teleports into the corner after some odd "press [jump] to climb onto a monster's back" line disappeared. The game thought it was still active and kept the camera focused on it. Very nice up until that point. I think I'll hold off until I get an XBox version of it, combat just feels unnatural without the dual analogs.

  11. No go under Linux... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unfortunately, the game does not run under Cedega-Formerly-Known-As-WineX at all :-/ 470 MB download in vain....

  12. Opinions on the demo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Some of the highest points in Sands of Time were that 1) it had a sense of class, and 2) it never fell to some of the worst cliches in most games today.

    This demo features rock music for the title, and assshots and wiggly breasts for the first boss.

    Way to screw up the resurrection of a great franchise and poop out another craptacular action game. Fuck you guys!

  13. Don't worry, you're not missing anything. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This game is such a letdown, it's not even worth downloading on a T1. :(