Disclosure Alert: Alpha Protocol: Episode 29: The Spy-Themed Beard Simulator

At long last, Disclosure Alert has FINALLY returned. For those of you who haven't been following the saga on Twitter, Aldowyn meant to have this out to you guys months ago, but forgot to bring his desktop computer to college with him. This was a problem because that was the only computer capable of editing everything.

So, we no longer have to keep you from that week's special guest. Shamus Young, contributor to The Escapist and owner of Twenty Sided is here this week. As memory serves, this was a very fun recording session.


Wow. It's been so long ago that Tom Braider jokes were still relevant. (For those who don't get the joke, watch the Tomb Raider season of Spoiler Warning.) I wish I could say that I felt bad for making Shamus feel old, but I honestly don't.

That glitch where Al-Samad gets a reputation ding is an interesting insight into how the game originally was supposed to work. I wish I could peer into the original designs of this game. It's fairly common knowledge that this game was a victim of publishing meddling on Sega's part, which explains so many of its problems.

Shamus is right, this game is heavily designed around Pistols, to the point where it's actively worse if you specialize in any other weapon. Chain Shot is just such a strong skill that it makes every other skill look worse. Plus, you can shoot behind cover.

When we made jokes about how long it would take for these episodes to come out, we did not intend for those to be literal. I imagine Aldowyn felt really bad editing these.

I really dislike "ambush" style missions in general, but this one is particularly bad. This whole "protect the trace" thing is clearly an excuse to force you to mow down tons of mooks. Especially since in other missions, Mina seems perfectly capable of bugging and tracing things discretely, like when bugging the G22 base in Taipei.

#66: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Retrospective: The Two Thrones of Compromise

(Spoiler Alert for the entire Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time trilogy)

And so we have reached the end of this little series. The Two Thrones, released in 2005, had a major problem from the get go. While most fans of the franchise vastly preferred The Sands of Time, there was enough of a positive reception to some aspects of The Warrior Within that its fans also needed to be catered to. This new game needed to walk a fine line between calling back to what fans enjoyed about the first game while taking in the improvements and knowledge gained from work on The Warrior Within, a challenging prospect to be sure. The end result was a carefully balanced compromise that works surprisingly well, more than making up for its lackluster predecessor.

The Prince himself is one of the biggest symbols of this compromise that the Two Thrones embodies. Yuri Lowenthal reprised his role as the titular Prince, with a harder edge than in the Sands of Time. This is the Prince people knew from the Sands of Time, as he still uses his old regal speech pattern and rarely resorts to simply uttering curse words. He also has a fair degree of snark, self-awareness, and snide confidence. However, experience has made him a colder and harsher individual than he used to be. This is a man who is significantly less likely to go out of his way to assist others unless he has made some form of vow to them in the past. However, gradually as the story progresses, he learns the error of his ways and slowly, but surely, returns to who he used to be, going so far as to literally combat his darker self, appropriately referred to as the Dark Prince. It is as if the game is performing a sort of meta-commentary on how the Warrior Within's take on the character was so reviled compared to the Sand of Time's take, which I found to be truly fascinating.

The other thing that the story did right was bringing back the premise of being a retelling a story that has already played out. However, instead of the Prince himself telling the story to the player, who is revealed to be Farah, the sidekick from the same game (due to the Prince's complete rewind of time, she has no memory of the events that transpired). Rather, the story is told by Kaileena, the Empress of Time from The Warrior Within. Though this does give the game all the advantages that it gave the Sands of Time, it does not make as much sense. The Prince never dies in the series and is known to be a bit of a braggart, so it makes sense that he would be the one to tell the story even before the reveal that Farah is the audience. In The Two Thrones, Kaileena dies very early on in the game, so it is weird to have her tell anyone a story. Even though she is brought back to life by the end, she leaves to go to a different world so that the Sands of Time cannot be abused again, making it implausible that she is telling the tale to anyone. Though I appreciate the return to form, I wish that the conceit of a retelling of the story, like it was in the first game, was more plausible in the game's narrative context.

One last criticism that I would make towards the plot to the Two Thrones is that is it completely necessary to know the plot of the previous games in order to fully understand what is going on before playing. This is something that even The Warrior Within did better. One of the early cutscenes in the The Warrior Within took a few minutes at the most to explain why the Prince was on his quest and what happened not just in the Sands of Time, but in the time between the two games. The Two Thrones explains some of what happened purely through the implications of what characters say, but without any outside knowledge I am fairly sure it would be hard to follow. There is no attempt to summarize or explain what happened in the previous two games to catch new players up. I weep for the poor fools who went into the game with no prior experience with the trilogy.

The underlying compromise between the Sands of Time and the Warrior Within also extended to the gameplay in a number of ways, the biggest of which is the combat. Combat in the Two Thrones is taken wholesale from the Warrior Within, taking the systems of that game and refining them a bit more. However, the game included a very interesting addition not present in either of the other two games. In the Two Thrones, it was possible to sneak up to an enemy and silently dispatch them without them ever noticing you. Though it is technically a stealth system, in reality it is a method for allowing players to bypass combat sections by utilizing their platforming skills to keep out of sight of enemy groups, picking them off one by one. This accomplished several things. One, it forced enemy encounters to be in small groups of 3-4 enemies to avoid making any one section of the game last too long. Two, it gave fans who enjoyed platforming more than combat a way to either avoid the combat or make it a little bit easier by removing a few enemies from the equation.

The platforming also got an few notable additions. The most visceral of these was the springboard. While wall-running, the Prince will occasionally end up on a springboard, which he can use to leap off of in order to change direction and land in otherwise inaccessible places. The Prince is also now able to brace himself in narrow wall spaces, allowing to climb up and down them. Lastly, the prince is now capable of sticking his weapon into groves in the wall, keeping himself from falling. Like most of the returning platforming features, all of these additions also have stealth kills associated with them, allowing players to ambush enemies from many different positions. Including all of these new methods of transportation made the platforming feel much more interesting than it did before.

The game also ditched the open-world elements of the Warrior Within, opting to return to the linearity of the Sands of Time. This prevents the repetition that was present in the previous entry. Also, it allowed the developers to better focus and improve upon each area rather than worry about how a given area connects to the world at large. Linearity is not a bad thing, especially in the context of a platformer. Furthermore, since the Two Thrones had the same 6 sand tank limit that the Warrior Within had, there was still a lessened amount of wiggle room for players. However, the improved level layout and camera positioning made it so that the game was rarely impacted by it.

The big gimmick included in the Two Thrones is the Dark Prince. Due to the Vizier from the first game releasing the Sands of Time, the Prince became corrupted by the sands. Fortunately, he was able to grasp the Dagger of Time quickly enough that he did not completely succumb. Unfortunately, he was left partially corrupted, giving him a new, dark persona that manifests itself as both a voice in his head and a new, occasionally emerging corrupted form. Counter to what one would initially suspect, this is not some form that the Prince needs to gather rage to enter and gain a temporary boost to combat ability in. Rather, the Dark Prince will manifest itself at certain points in the story. Once the Dark Prince emerges, the Prince can only return to his normal form once he enters a body of water at the end of the segment.

While at first this seems like an odd choice for a super-powered dark side, it works in the context of the game. The Dark Prince has his own completely different move-set and gameplay style, separate from the Prince, and since the game has discreet sections of the story where he manifests, levels that include him are allowed to cater to his strengths. The biggest change that occurs in the Dark Prince's gameplay sections is that his health gradually drops as time goes on, which is lethal if left unchecked. However, he recovers full health if he defeats an enemy or acquires a portion of the Sands of Time. In that way, players have to work quickly in order to make sure that they get to their next fix of enemies or sand before they die. Although this could be a recipe for disaster, the Dark Prince levels space out enemies and sand just well enough so that getting to them can be a challenge, but hardly impossible.

The other thing that only the Dark Prince has is a chain attached to his left arm. Thanks to that chain, the Dark Prince does not have access to other secondary weapons like he normally would. However, the chain in and of itself more than makes up for it. Having a weapon with good range really changes combat by given players much more options on how to take down enemies. Furthermore, the chain is also useful when platforming. When making leaps across wide gaps, the Dark Prince can use the chain to latch onto hanging structure and gain enough extra distance to make it to the other side. This can also be done while wall-running to keep up momentum and stay on the wall for longer periods of time. It is only one small addition, but it does change the way players think about the area when going through platforming sections.

The Two Thrones had a lot to accomplish, bridging together its two radically different predecessor. Overall, it succeeded in that respect. I do not know if I would call it superior to the Sands of Time, but it is at least comparable in my opinion. Someone could make a case for it being the best in the franchise and I would be open to hearing it. There is a lot to like about the grand finale to the Sands of Time trilogy. It represents the combined lessons from the first and second games. If you guys out there were like I used to be, and avoided the trilogy for whatever reason, I would recommend that you play the Sands of Time, watch someone else play the Warrior Within, and then play the Two Thrones. If you enjoy platforms with light combat elements, you will enjoy this series.

#65: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Retrospective: The Blunder Within

Last week, I began a series of retrospectives on the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy. Starting with the original Sands of Time, I mostly praised the game for the many, many things it did correctly, including its gameplay, narrative, and setting. However, despite the great reception of the game, all good things must one day come to an end. Of course, I am referring to the direct sequel to the game, Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within. Released in 2004 as the second game in a soon to be trilogy, The Warrior Within had a lot to live up to. Sadly, it failed to do so it many, painful ways. For very good reason, this second entry in the trilogy has been labeled a black sheep by fans. Allow me to elaborate.

The very first thing that people noticed about The Warrior Within was that the Prince had undergone a severe personality shift somewhere between the two games. In the previous entry, our protagonist was a bit of a snark, but otherwise went out of his way to help those in need when he had the chance. His demeanor added a degree of levity to the preceding, helping to maintain the original game's fairly light tone. In its sequel, this was flatly not the case. Though he was technically the same Prince players knew from The Sands of Time, he acted in a completely different manner. As an example, one of the earliest lines in the game has our dear Prince calling a female lieutenant of an unknown enemy a “Bitch.” Now, to our modern AAA sensibilities, that is hardly a blip on the radar, since “Bitch” is such a common word that it feels tame. However, the Prince and a much more regal speech pattern in the Sands of Time, so this new personality was simply jarring, and the new personality permeates the entire game. Ubisoft even went so far as to get a new voice actor, Robin Atkin Downes to replace Yuri Lowenthal, who had voiced the Prince in the previous game, to sell fans on the new Prince.

If I am being honest, though. That was only a symptom of a greater problem. Overall, the Warrior Within tried to go in a much darker direction than the Sands of Time. The level design and graphics look noticeably bleaker than the much more vibrant locales of the original game. The original game's bright yellow sands, blue waters, and green grass have been replaced by dark caves, dark ruins, dark towers, and dark green gardens. Even the relative cartoon-like graphics of the original game were replaced with a more “gritty, realistic, mature” style (about 4-5 years too early, guys). This was so bad that the earliest female enemy was wearing nothing but a leather bikini with gauntlets and iron leggings in an obvious case of pandering. While Farah's outfit in Sands of Time was a little skimpy, it fit with the setting and her origins as a princess from India. This dominatrix leather outfit looked completely ridiculous, like the game was trying too hard to be mature.

Even the plot suffered from this new tone. To avoid spoiling the game for those who have not yet played it and for some reason still intend to, I will paint in broad strokes. With that said, after the time-bending antics of the Sands of Time, the prince is being chased by a Guardian of Time, called the “Dahaka”, because he was supposed to die in the “true” timeline. In order to save his own skin, the Prince embarks on a quest to the Island of Time with the purpose of going back in time to stop the creation on the Sands of Time. This will resolve the temporal paradox because he could never have fiddled with time had the Sands of Time never been created... or something. This element of the plot does not bother me too much because to some degree all time-travel plots have an element of “Just go with it”, being innately vulnerable to plot holes or logical inconsistencies. What bothered me was how the plot took all the light-hardheartedness and humor of the first game and replaced it with grim-dark upon grim-dark, since the Prince does little else but brood over his likely demise and complain to others about how unfair his circumstances are. I suppose that on some level, I can applaud the designers for daring to do something comparatively different. However, this was a bit of a slap in the face for series fans.

Not everything the Warrior Within changed was for the worse. Some of the things they tweaked were actually genuine improvements. The most notable of these improvements was with the game's combat system, fitting for a game called “The Warrior Within.” Now, the Prince has the ability to pick up secondary weapons for use in his off-hand. Though these weapons will break after enough use, the new combat system allowed players to very their attacks and perform different combos with them. In addition, secondary weapons can be thrown at enemies, permanently discarding them, but adding extra attack options to deal with ranged foes. Though I enjoyed the combat of the Sands of Time, even I must admit that this was an improvement. The combat has gone from a fairly hack and slash fest to a more visceral experience that skilled players can excel at.

Furthermore, even in the original game, ranged enemies could be difficult because melee combat was really the only option in a fight, meaning players had to either wait for enemies to come to them or find a way to close the distance. My biggest criticism of the Sands of Time was also answered, because enemies in The Warrior Within rarely exceeded 4-5 enemies, although there were points where they slipped into old habits. And yet again my praise is tempered with a handful of other issues. For example, while the game rarely threw large waves of enemies at the player, foes often had a large amount of health. I was no longer tired by the overabundance of weak enemies. Now, I was tired by the overabundance of health each individual enemy had and the sheer amount of damage they would soak up before they died. The series had gone from one extreme to the other, and neither one of them were exactly pleasant.

Other changes to the gameplay were made as well, aside from the combat. The most notable of these changes was the semi-open world of the game. In the previous game, the layout of the world was decidedly linear. Players would enter an area where they would then solve a puzzle, undergo a platforming segment, or fight a group of enemies. This would unlock a save point and the entrance to the next location and so on. The beginning of The Warrior Within follows this for a while. Then, the Island of Time opens up a little. Players are able to, with some restrictions, explore the island almost completely. Through sand portals, it is also possible to travel between the past and present versions of the island. This allowed the game to give players multiple objectives that they could tackle in any order in certain points in the story.

While this was an interesting little experiment with game design in a platformer, ultimately it had a number of problems associated with it. For one, it resulted in a major design oversight such that it a certain area of the game was not arranged in a specific fashion before it is revisited in the story, it would literally be impossible to finish the game. Another problem is that due to the similarities between past and present areas and the need to go back to previously explored areas, the Warrior Within feels like it is wasting the player's by literally forcing them to repeat already completed areas two, maybe even three or more times in the story in nearly the exactly same way.

Hardware limitations also stifled this pseudo open-world concept. As a special guest for nidoking042's Let's Play of the game, one of the developers stated that the original intent was to give players a series of shortcuts that unlocked once they completed an area in order to return to the central section of the Island of Time, similar to the way Skyrim always gave player's a secret exit at the end of a dungeon. However, the hardware of the PS2, Gamecube, and original Xbox were unable to load quickly enough to make this possible. As a result, when a player clears an area, they need to go back through it in order to make their way to the central hub which connects all the areas in the game. Speaking from experience, this added needless frustration to the game.

By comparison, other changes to gameplay are minor. For one, the amount of the Sands of Time players will be able to store is much more limiting than it was in the original. Though both games started the player off with three tanks of sand, the Warrior Within gives only an additional three through progression of the story, as opposed to the gradual upgrading via absorption of sand clouds in the original. Furthermore, the tanks are used to both fuel time rewind and the other sand powers obtained throughout the game. Unlike the previous game, where the tanks for rewinding time and for using powers were separate resources. While on the subject of sands, the Prince no longer has to absorb sand from enemies to finish them off, as he no longer possesses the Dagger of Time. Instead, sand is semi-randomly obtained through breaking objects and defeating sand creatures. These factors combined give the player a significantly smaller margin of error for making mistakes in the game. With less sand, players (myself included) would see the game over screen much more frequently.

In the end, this is easily the worst game in the Sands of Time trilogy. Fans of The Warrior Within do exist, but they are vastly outnumbered by the group who preferred the original game over it. As for myself, I ragequit the game when I realized how tired I was growing of constantly fighting enemies and dying while backtracking in platforming sections. I only know about what happens in the game thanks to nidoking042's Let's Play. This game was an experiment as to how to improve the Prince of Persia franchise, and for the most part a failed one. Even Ubisoft's developers realized that by the time development of the final game in the trilogy began. As loathe as I am to admit it, the Warrior Within is likely an important stepping stone to the grand finale of the Sands of Time trilogy as without it, Ubisoft would not have learned the lessons that they did. But we will talk about that in greater detail next time.

#64: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Retrospective: Where it All Began

(This article is spoiler-free, for those of you who, like myself until recently, have yet to play a game from 10 years ago.)

As a child gamer, I was told of the greatness of the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy. Despite the praise, I had never played the games because I had somehow convinced myself (with reasons that I can no longer recall) that I would hate them. Last summer, the HD collection of the franchise went on sale on the PlayStation Network for about $7.50. Even then, I was not terribly interested in the trilogy. However, this time I was much more open to the opinions of others. Hearing recommendations from a few people and considering how cheap the collection was, I decided to finally throw caution to the wind and take the plunge for myself. Now that I have played all three games in the trilogy, I strongly believe that they serve as an interesting case study in game design from the PlayStation 2 era. Because of this, I will be running a series of articles discussing each game in the franchise, along with its positives and negatives. There is no better place to start than with the game that started it all, so without further ado:

The Sands of Time trilogy began, fittingly enough, with the 2003 release of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. This game served as a reboot of the Prince of Persia brand name, since the original incarnations did not do terribly well in their day. Rather than shy away from its roots in difficult platforming, the game opted to embrace this tradition at the core of its design, setting the tone for the gameplay of the franchise henceforth. Death defying jumps, wall running, and various other feats of acrobatics and athleticism were par for the course. Fans of the platforming genre would be immensely satisfied by this element of the Sands of Time. However, the developers knew that they needed to do more than that.

Given that this was in the PlayStation 2 era, consumers were just beginning to shy away from the unforgiving style of older games. The mechanics of the game had to be updated in order to avoid the pain of constant failure states. This is likely what inspired the most well known mechanic from the trilogy: the ability to rewind time. In the beginning of the game, the titular Prince acquires an artifact called the Dagger of Time, which allows its user to absorb the Sands of Time into it and use them to manipulate time. With this weapon, players could rewind time up to 10 seconds into the past, allowing them to recover from receiving large amounts of damage in short periods of time and/or dying from a fall during a platforming section. In this way, players could recover from failure states, if only a finite number of times, and try sections again without getting a game over. Though this does not completely prevent the frustration caused by failing a difficult and long platforming section, it lessens the pain by giving players multiple chances to get passed troublesome obstacles with having to redo entire segments of play.

Another aspect of the game the seems geared toward limiting frustrations are the visions that the Prince receives throughout the game. Scattered throughout the game world are plumes of the Sands of Time that the Prince can step into. These plumes have two purposes. The first purpose is to provide save points for the player. The second is to give visions to the Prince. Visions give both the player and the Prince previews of future events, displaying a rough picture of what to do in order to complete the next section leading to the next save point. This removes part of the trial and error commonly associated with platformers of this type, especially when coupled with the ability to rewind time. As a result, the challenge of the game is preserved while stifling the unforgiving nature of constant game overs.

However, these elements cannot simply exist in a vacuum. Like any somewhat modern game, there needs to be a solid story to tie these elements together into a cohesive whole. Though I cannot be sure as to what the thought processes were behind the development of the game, I suspect the Ubisoft created the story to the Sands of Time in very much the same way that Naughty Dog created the story for the Uncharted franchise, which is the same way many industry veterans have done it. They created a set of mechanics and level designs, then wrote the story around them. Unlike many other stories generated in this fashion, it was very well received by those who played the game and stood out in its own right, for a number of reasons.

One of the smartest moves that the game made regarding the story was to present the entire narrative as a tale told by the Prince to somebody else after events have already unfolded. This alone serves multiple purposes. First, it allows the Prince to explain details of the plot that needed to be elaborated on, but the developers lacked either the time or resources to delve into. Like any good storyteller, the Prince is willing to fill in details and lampshade otherwise absurd notions in the story through his narration. Second, this gives an in-game justification for all of the countless deaths a given player will receive in a playthrough of the game. Although the game does a lot to keep players from reaching such a state, it is still possible, and quite likely, that players will achieve a game over at some point. When this happens, the Prince says something along the lines of “Wait. That's not right. I didn't die. Let me start again.” and the game gives the player the option to retry the section they died on. Instead of doing what most games do and making death something that never truly happens, The Sands of Time acknowledges the fact that it can happen and framed the story in a way that allowed it to account for player death.

Another intelligent choice made by the writers of the game is to only have a small cast of three major characters with only one or two minor characters. The Prince, his captured princess turned unlikely partner Farah, who players meet and befriend fairly early in the game, and the evil vizier are the only real characters who drive the plot. This allows the plot to be basic enough that any form of level or gameplay design can fit around it. Rather than complex politic intrigue and reputations with large factions, The Sands of Time chooses to focus on interactions between these characters and how their relationships and opinions of each other evolve throughout the course of the game. Instead of a global, world-spanning story, it is a personal one that, except for the prologue, takes place entirely with the Sultan's Palace. The way Farah and the Prince grow to respect one another is interesting, especially since they both have a snarky attitude that makes it nearly impossible for them to just come out and admit that they respect one another. Like the time reversal mechanics mentioned earlier, this lack of characters would grow to become a recurring element in the trilogy.

Lastly, the narrative is bolstered by a strong Arabian theme that is present throughout the entire game. Areas in the Sultan's Palace seemed ripped straight out of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. From the castle terrace to the caged gardens, and even the top of the Vizier's Tower all look distinctive in their own right while retaining a continuity of theme and setting. Another notable way that the Sands of Time establishes the Arabian theme is through the game's very impressive soundtrack. While many tracks utilize an electric guitar to an extent, they weave together Indian and Arabian instruments and sounds, resulting in a musical score than further immerses players into the story. Further selling the setting is the fact that the Prince can only regain health by drinking out of bodies of water. There are even special magical bodies of water players can stumble onto throughout the game that will increase the Prince's maximum health. In the desert, having a steady supply of water is very important. Making water a resource that players will need to seek out in order to keep themselves alive is a nice subtle touch that adds a layer of plausibility to the world. Together with the titular Sands of Time, these small, seemingly minor details form the gestalt of a believable Arabian setting.

However, despite the vast amounts of praise I can levy towards the game, there are a couple of problems. The biggest issue I have with the Sands of Time is its combat. The way combat works is that in certain areas of the game, Sand Creatures, humans and animals possessed by the Sands of Time, will spawn and strike out at The Prince. The easiest way to defeat these enemies is to attack them until they are downed, at which point The Prince can use the Dagger of Time to extract the Sands of Time from them and add those Sands to Dagger's supply of sand. Players can attack enemies with their scimitar in order to inflict damage, but they also have access to the usual arsenal of blocks, counters, and dodges. Since the Prince is an acrobat at heart, he is able to dodge over most enemies and strike at their blind sides. Furthermore, the Dagger of Time is given more uses than simple extraction and time reversal, which can be used to recover from battles that are not going in the player's favor. Other time powers that utilize the Sands include a freeze attack that leaves the afflicted foe open to an instant kill 2-hit combo and a move called Mega Freeze that drastically increases the speed and power of the Prince, allowing him to dispatch numerous foes in a short time.

Despite common criticism, I do not have a complaint with the combat system itself. In fact, I think it works. Enemies are not “bullet-spongy” and can be downed in a few combos (at the same time, so can players if not careful) and the system is enjoyable enough to make these sequences entertaining. The problem I had with the combat is the sheer amount of it that was thrown at players at any given time. While the system itself is fairly solid, anything can become a problem in excess. One of the first things I noticed when fighting Sand Creatures is that the moment I had finished dispatching of two or three enemies, another group had spawned in almost immediately. This would continue on until I was defeating at least 20 and possibly even 30 enemies in the same area in the exact same fight. Often times I was getting tired of fighting at around half that number of foes. The nature of the game's lethal play makes combat seem like it goes on for far longer than it actually does, giving off the feeling that combat is padding out the game. Although this seems like a minor issue, over time it makes an otherwise interesting combat system grow dull and repetitive very quickly.

The other issue is, by comparison, not as big of a deal. Towards the beginning and the end of the game, The Prince does not possess the Dagger of Time. As a result, the time reversal mechanic is not available to the player during these sections. This is an issue that is not particularly noticeable towards the start of the game. Since the game assumes that a given player has either no knowledge or limited knowledge of the game mechanics, the platforming in that section of the game is fairly easy to pull off. However, towards the end of the game, the game no longer has these expectations. In fact, some of the platforming segments towards the ends are some of the hardest in the game. When cut off from the time reversal mechanics that made failure states less of an issue, an otherwise simple platforming section becomes needlessly frustrating. While it is an interesting narrative and thematic choice to strip the Prince of his time bending powers in the climax of the game, the gameplay itself suffers as a result.

Overall, the Sands of Time was a fantastic game released during the PlayStation 2's lifespan. There are many, myself included, who would go so far as to call it the best game in the trilogy, if not the Prince of Persia series. So many things, both big and small, were done correctly in this game that the things it and its sequels did wrong strongly stand out simply by comparison. Going forward, all Ubisoft really had to do is refine the template laid out here and continue providing excellent platforming in an Arabian-inspired setting, with some slight refinements to the combat. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. As we will see in the next article, the sequel decided to go in another direction. A very annoying and stupid direction. Until then, see you next time!

#63: CRPGs: Why are They Always so Terrible to Start?

Much of my time this summer has been spent playing games from a bygone era. Because I have only recently started gaming on the PC a few years ago, there is a whole backlog of games, both old and new, that demand my attention. Of those older games on my backlog, I have mostly been playing some of the classic RPGs (cRPGs) from the late 90s and early 2000s. These titles include games such as Baldur's Gate and it's sequel, Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, Planescape: Torment, and Neverwinter Nights. All of these games used the Dungeons and Dragons license to create what were essentially virtual DnD campaigns, even using the same rules and systems. As a result of all the hours I have poured into them, these types of games have been occupying my mind and most of my thoughts lately. Although each of these games had their own way of utilizing old school RPG concepts, they mostly seem to have glaring flaws in one particular area: the beginning.

In almost every one of these games, the beginning is easily one of the worst aspects of it by far. This runs counter to what one might consider to be the logical way to design a video game. After all, the introduction to the game, including story and mechanics, is the point where the designer has the responsibility to hook the player and keep their attention. If the start of the game does little to generate interest and convince players to stick with it, than it has failed at its job. In my opinion, there are a number of contributing factors that led to this phenomenon. This week, I will discuss why I believe this happens and possible ways to help mitigate the problem, now that the genre is seeing a bit of a resurgence in the realm of Kickstarter.

One of the biggest reasons that the introductions to cRPGs can have problematic introductions is that often many of the most crucial choices a player will make in the game are done at the very beginning, before the player is even introduced to any aspects of gameplay. The Baldur's Gate series is a pretty good example of this. In both games, when the player selects “New Game”, they are immediately bombarded by a list of options. First, the gender of the protagonist character needs to be selected, followed by their race. After that, the player chooses which of the playable classes the protagonist will be (and if they wish to utilize any of the class kits made available). Next, the karmic alignment of the character is chosen among the axis of Law/Chaos and Good/Evil. It is then that the main character's statistics, include Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma need to be allocated from a static, finite pool of points. The same must also be done for weapon proficiencies (and Thief skills if that is the protagonist's chosen profession). Finally, the player is left with cosmetic choices like appearance and name.

As one can easily discern, that is quite the list of choices that need to be made. This alone can prove to be a daunting task for new players, but it is worsened by the fact that there is no real context with which to make those choices in beyond a typical DnD adventure. The player has no idea what kind of obstacles they will be facing along the way, which playstyle will suit them best, nor the amount/variety of situations they will be thrown into. At the very best, they can make an educated guess based on their own personality and possibly the track record of the company who developed the game. The player does not even know anything about the plot when making these decisions. Worst still, once they have been made, there is no going back and no way of correcting any mistakes aside from starting anew. If the player decides about 3-4 hours in that their character is no longer working for them for whatever reason, there is no way to mitigate the damage done and try to change tactics. (There is an exception if they are playing as a human, giving them the option to Dual-Class. However, since both games have a hard experience cap, this too may cause problems if not done early enough.)

However, not all cRPGs have this issue, despite its prevalence. Another, very well-loved game from this genre, Planescape: Torment, had a pretty interesting way of skirting around this issue. The only real significant choice players needed to make at the beginning of Planescape was which statistics to put points. Even that decision was partially made for the player, since no stat could be lower than 9 for the protagonist. Most other characteristics of the player character were either preselected or were emergently generated as a result of play. The player character of the game was a human male that had immortality, but no name and no memory of who he used to be. “The Nameless One”, as he was called by the game's text, starts out as True Neutral-alignment Fighter class. This can change depending on what actions he takes over the course of the game and whether or not he chooses to undertake training as a Mage or a Thief. As long as there is someone willing to train The Nameless One, he can always undergo a class change if his current profession no longer suits the current situation. Even if the player learns that he/she did not allocate his stat points favorably later on, leveling up to high enough levels of any class will grant them more stat points to allocate, so even then there are ways to “fix” any perceived damage done. All these elements combined give players the ability to react to the game and adapt to challenges as they progress as opposed to working around challenges based on what their party is capable of doing at the time.

Another very common problem I noticed in the introductory sequences to classic RPGs is that oftentimes the initial encounters are fairly difficult. Often, I found myself encountering enemies that I could not have been reasonably expected to defeat at the start of the game, even on the easiest difficulty setting. One example of this comes again from the Baldur's Gate franchise, although this time from the first game. I have a very distinct memory of the start of that game. After leaving the first town of Candlekeep and officially beginning the story, I explored the starting area of the game, just the very first zone. As with many games I play, I wanted to do as much as I can in a given area as possible before moving on. While looking around and making sure I did everything and talked to everyone, I encountered a brown bear. Thinking that this was the first zone, and therefore the designers could not possibly think to throw a challenge at me that a starting character could not be expected to overcome, I used my Thief skills to Hide in Shadows and go for the Backstab Critical. Despite landing a successful attack and dealing damage, the bear turned around and hit me, killing me in a single blow.

This was not the only such experience I had playing these types of games. In the first chapter of Neverwinter Nights, shortly after the prelude, players are task with locating four creatures important to the story scattered across the city of Neverwinter. I decided to check out the Prison District because that was my first lead. There, I defeated quite a few random thugs through Sneak Attacks and liberal use of ranged weaponry on my way. While exploring the area looking for clues as to where to go next, I was attacked by a Thug Leader and died when he landed a successful Sneak Attack. When reloading and successfully fending him off, at the cost of quite a few healing potions, I pressed on into the Prison District's sewer system. Shortly upon entry, I was felled by another Gang Leader and three of his henchmen. It took the use of console commands to boost my character's level a few times in order to defeat this foe. Only ten minutes later, I needed to utilize the console again in order to fight a Sorcerer whose spells kept defeating me in a single deadly blow.

This is a pretty simple problem with a pretty simple solution. All it requires is a better balance of enemies encountered throughout the adventure and a more clear communication of where tougher enemies are located. Although there is no way to be absolutely sure where players will go in these kinds of games, designers do have a general sense of what most players will do and in what order it is done. This can be used to better balance the encounters and provide a steady progression of more and more difficult opponents. Furthermore, since game designers know how much experience players can be typically expected to gain over the course of a given segment (through play testing and tuning the number of enemies and their positions), it is possible, though still admittedly difficult, to use that information to better tune the level and types of encounters throughout the game.

Though not exactly a classic RPG, and highly contentious among its audience, this is something that I found that Fallout: New Vegas did very well. At the start of New Vegas, players are explicitly directed to take the South path around to the town of Primm. However, the player is allowed to head north through Sloan if they choose. Should they do so, they will be warned that it is smarter to turn around and go the other way because deathclaws patrol the area. This clearly communicates to the player that the enemies they will encounter are well over their current abilities. With this information in hand, most will make the decision to go back and take the South path, which has weaker enemies that are designed for low-level players to fight. Some will undoubtedly go and fight the deathclaws anyway, but the intent and direction of the design has been made very clear. There is little in terms of ambiguity. As a result, the game has a steady progression such that players will rarely face a challenge that is too tough for their level unless they are deliberately making the choice to give themselves a tough challenge.

I am overall very pleasantly surprised by the coming resurgence of this particular genre of games. Though I have only recently begun to play them for myself, I find that there is a lot designers and players can do with it. However, I hope that the designers of this new wave of cRPGs learn from the mistakes of their predecessors. While many were of very high quality, they were far from perfect. There is clearly lots of room for improvement. The introduction is of particular importance to get right. Without a strong intro, players can find themselves quitting a game before it realizes its full potential. I hope that my advise will not fall on deaf ears.