Prince of Persia - The Two Thrones

[Friction]

I got this today thanks to the wonders of Tronix and FedEx (XBOX Version) and I have to say that I am really enjoying it!

First impressions are that this is everything the Warrior Within should have been!

I've played for a few hours now and I am really enjoying things. At this stage of the game it feels that the emphasis is definately on platforming and acrobatics, rather than the combat.

9/10 when you come across an enemy you can speed kill them - the speed kill system being very easy to do, and works very well - and if you can't do a speed kill the fighting is pretty simple to do.

One of the nicer things about speed kills are that sometimes it isn't always obvious how to get into a place where you can execute one (the screen will change slightly to show you can do one and you just hit Y and away you go. It's nice that it requires some thought, and it feels like you have to be a bit stealthy - Nice little touches being there can sometimes be birds on a platform and when jumping to that they scatter which can often alert the guards to your presence!

I've not played a huge amount but am really enjoying this one - I don't have the abilty to

->Open Spoiler<-

be the Dark Prince

but I expect it's going to happen soon!

All in all so far this is definately a return to form!

Any Q's please let me know!

[Light]

Sounds awesome, definitely wanna pick this one up. Do you know by any chance if the xbox version is much better than the ps2 version? I really wanna play this game now, but if I were to get the xbox one, I'd have to wait till I had an xbox360.... so a while away, really.

I've read in the Gamespot review that there isn't much difference, particularly due to the equaliser effect, but the load times are quicker on the box and the ps2 suffers from a bit of slowdown here and there. What do you think?

[John Beaulieu]

read that this isn't working BC on the 360 ... hopefully it will be in the next update

[Light]

Yeah, I've read about that as well, but I think it probably should... because both sands and warrior are backwards compatible with the 360, yeah?

[EvilBoris]

warrior isn't.

[Friction]

I don't know if the Xbox version is better than the PS2, but (though it might mean nothing) the last 2 games have been better on Xbox, so it might be the case here?

Either way it looks great, and having played a bit more now it's really starting to get good. Seconds after my first post I got access to

->Open Spoiler<-

the Dark Prince

which really opens up combat and acrobatics.

There seems to be loads more variety here too, fighting is more fun, though I have found it a little frustrating now given that the enemies actually block now (Damn them! ) and the new acrobatic stuff is great and really makes for a more fun experience.

[eastyy]

i actually liked the combat in WW

Does it still have the dual weapons and various combo strings?

[nekotcha]

i actually liked the combat in WW

Does it still have the dual weapons and various combo strings?

Yup. For my money the combat's slightly more forgiving in Two Thrones, but as I found Warrior Within unbelievably frustrating that can only be a good thing. As Friction says, there's usually the option of performing a speed kill as well - the thing I really like about the speed kills is that most rooms have an extra platformy route around them that you can use to clamber around, out of sight of the guards, before dropping down and speed killing them. So you have the choice of focussing on the combat or the platforming, depending on which you prefer.

I should warn, though, that in contrast to Friction, I found the 2-3 hours after the game had properly got started (i.e. after the introduction of

->Open Spoiler<-

the dark prince

) pretty annoying. There's a bit of a difficulty spike where if you're not very good at the stealth kills there's a lot of combat to wade through with some very poorly placed checkpoints and a complete absence of health-recharge spots. Nasty.

A bit further on though, there's a lovely fan-pleasing surprise (I'm not even going to give it away in spoilers because it's just too good) and the last few hours of gameplay have been (almost) classic Sands of Time fare - really enjoying it at the moment!

It certainly seems a lot more worthy than Warrior Within so far, although if you struggled with the combat in that game (or never played it), I'd strongly recommend taking the difficulty down to 'Easy'. I doubt you'll miss anything and you should get less of a frustrating time than I had.

Oh, regarding the difference between the versions, the PS2 version is very pretty, but does have some framerate issues, which have caused me occasional problems. At the same time however, I had the XBox version of Warrior Within and I had a nightmare of a time with the controls, because they had overloaded two different controls onto one of the triggers based on whether you tapped it or held it down, and the game kept misinterpreting a tap for a hold of the button (it's not exactly easy to tap a button that has as much travel as the XBox triggers!). No idea if they've fixed it but it was pretty annoying!

[Light]

read that this isn't working BC on the 360 ... hopefully it will be in the next update

You know I had a thought...

say that TTT will be BC on the 360 right.... and let's say that the xbox version is slightly better than the ps2 version....

but if we're assuming that the ps3 will be more powerful than 360, and that the ps3 will improve the game graphically (as well as the load times), just like the 360 does with the xbox1 games.... then wouldn't that negate the difference between the two versions of the game, if not put the ps2 one ahead?

[atrus]

I doubt that the PS3 will improve the PS2 games *that* much save for a bit of filtering, as PS3 will play PS2 games by hardware, as in there will be a little mini PS2 graphics GPU in there (the same way as the PSOne is supported on the PS2 through hardware), and PSOne games will be supported via emulation.
I guess these PSOne games will look a lot better (think Bleemcast).

Since the Xbox games are supported through emulation, clever stuff can easily be done to them (witness the Ocarina High Definition texture pack for N64 emus). I played Battle Engine Aquila last night on the 360, looked really sharp compared to Xbox.

[Magnakai]

Here, a few of you might find this interesting.
My friend was an artist on it.

[Friction]

Cool stuff there Magnakai! Your friend did a great job


Right so I played some more of this game over the weekend, well I actually finished it if truth be told and my feelings are a little mixed to be honest.

First I'm a bit sad it's all over now, huge fan of the PoP series and didn't really want this to end as it's so much fun and really great to play!

I did find it quite easy to play through, and didn't really get stuck, but I suspect that having played the last two offerings of the series one gets used to the little tricks and ideas that the devs come up in terms of planning a route around a level.

One huge bonus is that the back tracking that became really irritating in Warrior Within is 100% gone! Everytime you get somewhere its a whole new environment to work around. All the environments are nice and varied so it's worth progressing to see what comes next!

Combat is good fun at first, but soon becomes a bit of a drag. The speed kills are good but I have only once been able to do the 2 man speed kill we have seen so much of in early footage - this is a bit annoying as more often than not you speed kill a guard, only to have his mate stand next to him see you and start conventional fighting which seems a bit silly, and also frustrating! The enemy seems to spend all day blocking or have armour and so it can take an age to break through defences and do away with them - not forgetting you can often get rushed by 2 or 3 people!

Dark Prince Is good, adds some nice variety but

->Open Spoiler<-

you can't change into him at will as had been suggested previously, its's all scripted - also I somehow feel you weren't able to be him enough!

Regarding the ending

->Open Spoiler<-

It's good and rounds things off nicely, but it just seems a bit abrupt to me - more should have happened!

Whilst I know they won't make another game in the Sands series they have to make another in the POP series!

Overall I did really enjoy this, and it is much much better than last years offering of Warrior Within. Also I didn't encounter any major bugs at all (not really any to be honest) the only issues being that a couple of minor graphical details in a cutscene - which vanished the 3rd time it played?! And a sound problem where some sound didn't load in for a cutscene - but on replaying it did. I am running the game off HDD which may or may not be the cause of this.

I do feel that whilst Ubi have turned out a great game they've changed a lot from what they've shown and some bits that did make it (like Chariot bits) are in it so briefly it's hardly worth it - Chariots being a majot annoyance as they can be criminally hard and with no mid way restarts you gave to do them again and again!

Other than that, well worth a play, and I think I might even play through it again starting tomorrow

[eastyy]

played through a few hours i think i might have come across a bug not sure though

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when you get to the section where you can hear a man talking about finding the dagger and killing the maharaja you have to around the room pulling some smart stunts kiling a couple of people i then get to this dagger hole it looks like i i have to swing forward and wall run but it will not let me swing

Is that a bug or is there another route?

[Friction]

I'll have to load my data to check for you mate, but I never had any problems there!

What's the name of the area you are at? Will check asap!

[eastyy]

dont know the name will check later

it is where you are chasing

->Open Spoiler<-

the guards dragging the woman (forgot her name) you then come to a large open room with i think dog statues