The Prince of Persia series, up until this point, has been a series I have stayed well clear of. Prior to my recent purchase, the only Prince of Persia game I had ever played was the NES port of the original. I only got to play While I thought it looked great and the animations were surprisingly fluid and the concept behind the game was cool, I absolutely hated the controls. I couldn’t get a feel for the momentum behind the character, which lead to continuous drops into spikes.
Since then, the series was rebooted with Prince of Persia: Sands of Time on Playstation 2, XBOX and Gamecube. That series eventually faded and Ubisoft tried to spice things up with the simply-titled Prince of Persia. To separate itself from its predecessors, this reboot made some drastic changes to its approach on graphics and gameplay. While the game was well received critically, it did not meet the sales expectations many companies were hoping for. Things apparently went so bad that the latest Prince of Persia games are going back to the Sands of Time style, which in effect reboots the reboot.
Having just finished playing through Mass Effect, I think this is one of the greatest video games I’ve ever played. When I played through that game, it is startling how big this game is, yet how awesome the experience is. When it comes to storytelling, scale, characterization and role-playing, I don’t think I’ve played anything better than Mass Effect.
Yesterday, while on my way to my girlfriend’s house, I passed by another Blockbuster. Having pillaged every Blockbuster in my city, I decided to check out the Blockbuster close to her house to see if I can find some gems in their clearance bin. While their selection had no shortage of old sports games, generic shooters and crappy movie-based games, I did pick up some stuff and there were other games worth noting.
Hit the break to see what I found.
Blockbuster has had it rough over the last few years. With multiple threats coming from piracy, DVD mailing services like Netflix and direct download options from sources such as iTunes, Things have been so bad, that I’ve seen a number of Blockbuster stores go out of business in and around my area.
I’m not one to rent stuff, but I have been raiding as many Blockbuster stores as I can of late, because they’ve been a great place to buy cheap games. A combination of closing sales as well as clearance deals have helped me flesh out my catalogue. I jumped in on most of these sales fairly late, so I wasn’t able to score games like Modern Warfare 1 for $10 (which I heard a bunch of people did get), but I did get some good stuff (and some not-so-great freebies).
Hit the break to find out what I’ve gotten so far.
If you’re a regular visitor of In Third Person, you’re probably wondering what happened with all the changes and assorted blog posts that all hit on the same day. I owe you an explanation.
I don’t play too many games that are squad-based. Off the top of my head, the only two I can think of are the Gears of War series and the Fire Emblem series. While both of these games are great for their own reasons, the stake you as a player emotionally have for your teammates is negligible. In Gears of War, they’re essentially there to make you not feel alone, even though they won’t die and they don’t really help you, either. The back-story of your squad is practically non-existent, with only Dom having one major plot point to his name, and the others are there to shout expletive-filled one-liners. In Fire Emblem, that series does try to make you care through some back-story, endings for each character and the permanence of death, though ultimately each person feels more like a piece in your intricate game of chess more than anything.
Mass Effect has made me feel really weird about my squad in a way that other games haven’t for me. The game has so much story and so many moments where you can interact with them that you can’t help but build a weirdly fascinating connection to them.
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When I first bought Puzzle Quest on the iPhone on the first day it came out in December 2008, I fully knew that I could have gotten the complete game on the DS, XBOX Live or the Wii. However, I felt that this style of gameplay would serve me better on the iPhone. Despite the initial display issues (which were later patched), I was having a lot of fun with it.
That was, till the game ran out. You see, at a discounted price, you got 1/3 of the game, with the other two parts coming at an undetermined date at an undetermined price. I was able to get through that initial chunk within a few weeks. I said to myself, “OK, cool. I’ll wait for the second chapter.”
For years, I wished that this game would get a fair shake. It never got the love that Goldeneye did, even though Perfect Dark is arguably better. I also wished for a day where the game wasn’t bound by the technical limitations brought forth by the Nintendo 64.
Well, my friends, that day has arrived.
In Third Person 