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Avoiding Wasted Time With Prince of Persia

Posted by Soulskill on from the getting-to-the-good-stuff dept.

Zonk pointed out an interesting video presentation by Shamus Young on the importance of the new Prince of Persia, calling it the most innovative game of 2008. Young brings up the fact that many of today's games punish failure by wasting the player's time; being sent back to a check point, the beginning of a level, or sometimes even further. This cuts into the amount of time players have to enjoy the meat of the game — the current challenge they have to overcome. Unfortunately, as Young notes, modern controllers are designed for players who have been gaming since they were kids, and have evolved to be more complicated to operate than an automobile. The combination of these factors therefore limits or prevents the interest of new players; a problem Prince of Persia has addressed well through intuitive controls and the lack of punitive time sinks.

3 of 507 comments (clear)

  1. Re:missing the point by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

    >It's about immersion. True, basketball isn't about immersion, but some games are.

    I find it sad that people are playing BASKETBALL on a gaming console? Whatever happened to going outside and shooting some hoops? You get fresh air, some exercise, and you get the REAL immersion...

    Yeah, immersion in DEADLY ULTRAVIOLET RAYS.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  2. Re:missing the point by Leafheart · · Score: 5, Funny

    I find it sad that people are playing BASKETBALL on a gaming console? Whatever happened to going outside and shooting some hoops? You get fresh air, some exercise, and you get the REAL immersion...

    I find it sad that people are playing GTA on a gaming console. Whatever happened to going outside and shotting some hoes? You get fresh air, some exercise, and you get the REAL immersion...

    --
    --- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
  3. Re:missing the point by geminidomino · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't know about that...

    One morning when my girlfriend and I had her daughter at the sitter's, we were spending some quality time together. Just as we finished, that damn robotic car warranty telespammer called my cell phone. My generic ringtone is the Final Fantasy victory fanfare.

    I think it took us 20 minutes to stop laughing.