The Asylum Game: An Open-Ended Adventure
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Subjects, will you read my full review and give suggestions for improvements?
Ahhh, Warrior Within? After owning the game for several years, I finally got around to finishing it, and decided to review it. Please keep in mind that this is the only game in the series that I?ve finished, so every reference to the other games is based solely on my brief experience with them. So, now that that?s said, let?s get this started.
Warrior Within begins with the Prince being chased by an apparently invincible beast. Shortly after escaping (how he does so isn?t actually shown, but I like to believe it involved a flying unicorn), he discovers that the beast is the Dahaka, the guardian of the timeline. It turns out that he isn?t too happy about all the Prince?s meddling with the Sands of Time in the previous game, and has come after him to kill him. So, the Prince decides that instead of waiting around and get killed, the best thing to do is travel to the Island of Time, so he can travel through portals that can take him back to the past, and fight the Empress of Time, hoping to prevent the creation of the Sands (of Time). It is a plot that raises interesting questions. Questions like: ?Can a man change his fate??, ?If the sands weren?t created yet, what is the golden grainy substance that powers the portals in the past?? and ?What did I have for lunch??
[small]I think I know the answer to that first one.[/small]
Warrior Within is mainly a platformer, with several combat sections in between. The platforming sections are very good, and are probably my favourite part of the game (which isn?t surprising, considering it?s? well, a platformer). The Prince?s movements feel fluid, and for the most part, look believable. Most importantly, the Prince generally handles well, and moves pretty fast, which is great if you don?t like spending a minute pressing down everytime you want to go down a ladder. The environments do seem specifically created around the Prince?s acrobatic abilities, with ledges and beams a little too conveniently placed around that trap you need to bypass, which makes it look a little artificial, but I guess that that?s an inherent problem with this kind of game. Meanwhile, the combat has been improved since Sands of Time. The Prince is now able to dual-wield weapons, and you can now perform many more moves. This makes the combat more interesting than it was in the previous game. I especially liked having several options to dispatch enemies. For example, after grabbing an enemy, you can choose to throw him away, choke him until he dies and taking his weapon, or simply cutting through his torso. You?ll probably end up using the same few moves over and over again, but it?s nice to mix things up a bit.
[small]For example, it was mixing things up that led to the creation of pizza.[/small]
Of course, the main selling point of the Sand of Time trilogy was the time manipulation. You can use your powers to slow down time so you can pass through a set of traps more easily, you can speed things up so you gain an advantage in combat, or you can simply release some of your Sands as a radial attack. What you?ll use most often, though, will likely be the ability to turn back time, allowing you to undo your mistakes and save yourself from death. Having this power makes the game more forgiving, allowing you to simply try another approach if your first idea fails, or to compensate for bad timing.
There are also sequences where you are chased by the Dahaka. These force you to actually move as fast as you can through the levels, and break things up a little, but eventually I got tired of them, especially because they devolve into monotonous trial and error.
While the gameplay is great, there are some issues, mainly with the camera. It gets somewhat hard to move around in tight spaces, and the way it is fixed in bosses during combat seems a little off. There were also sometimes where the camera angle would change, and the Prince would start walking in the opposite direction, but thankfully this was very rare. For a game that is much better played with a gamepad, the support is very limited. My Logitech gamepad was the only one I could get to work with the game. Some animations, like drinking water from fountains, take way too long, and you end up looking at the Prince drinking long after his health his full.
[small]All those acrobatics must make him really thirsty.[/small]
And one final complaint: during cutscenes, the sound and video are out of sync. Like, a lot. Eventually, you?ll hear a character speak while it?s another character moving their lips, and you?ll watch half of the cutscene with no sound. It gets hard following them, and, after the camera issues was what bugged me most about the game. Thankfully, there are pre-rendered cutscenes that don?t suffer from this problem, and look great.
But overall, the game seems pretty good, right? Well, having only the gameplay in mind, yes. But the biggest problem with Warrior Within was the presentation. The Prince seems way more aggressive than in the last game, like he?s making an effort to sound BADASS. He constantly spouts the same few one-liners during battle, which can lead to some awkward situations (You have more important matter to attend to that the final boss? Really?). The combat is more violent this time around, and while I like cutting heads off as much as the next guy, but when even the loading and the game over screens have copious amounts of blood pouring and splattering all over them, I find it a little excessive. Where it shows the most is in the characterization of female characters. While Farah in the first game seemed like an interesting character, the women in this game are oversexualized one-dimensional characters. There?s Sahdee, who wears a metal version of Borat?s swimming suit as armor, even though it probably causes more damage than a sword, and Kaileena, who wears what can be best describes as half a dress, and whose lines are all some variation of ?You cannot change your fate.? Even the female minions taunt the prince with lines like ?There?s so much pleasure in pain?, which makes it look like your enemies were hired at a local BSDM dungeon. To top it off, when you beat the game, you are rewarded with pictures of these characters in suggestive poses. It really isn?t classy, and they ended up alienating many fans of the first game.
[small]You misunderstood rule 34, Ubisoft. You?re not the ones supposed to make this.[/small]
Ubisoft tried too hard to make the game look ?mature?, and it ended up looking ridiculous instead. It?s really a shame, because otherwise, I found the game to very good. If you can let the darker tone slide or if you really want to know how the story goes on after Warrior Within, then by all means, play this game. But if you are a fan Sands of Time?s environment and overall feel, then Warrior Within will probably be a disappointment.
Warrior Within begins with the Prince being chased by an apparently invincible beast. Shortly after escaping (how he does so isn?t actually shown, but I like to believe it involved a flying unicorn), he discovers that the beast is the Dahaka, the guardian of the timeline. It turns out that he isn?t too happy about all the Prince?s meddling with the Sands of Time in the previous game, and has come after him to kill him. So, the Prince decides that instead of waiting around and get killed, the best thing to do is travel to the Island of Time, so he can travel through portals that can take him back to the past, and fight the Empress of Time, hoping to prevent the creation of the Sands (of Time). It is a plot that raises interesting questions. Questions like: ?Can a man change his fate??, ?If the sands weren?t created yet, what is the golden grainy substance that powers the portals in the past?? and ?What did I have for lunch??
[small]I think I know the answer to that first one.[/small]
Warrior Within is mainly a platformer, with several combat sections in between. The platforming sections are very good, and are probably my favourite part of the game (which isn?t surprising, considering it?s? well, a platformer). The Prince?s movements feel fluid, and for the most part, look believable. Most importantly, the Prince generally handles well, and moves pretty fast, which is great if you don?t like spending a minute pressing down everytime you want to go down a ladder. The environments do seem specifically created around the Prince?s acrobatic abilities, with ledges and beams a little too conveniently placed around that trap you need to bypass, which makes it look a little artificial, but I guess that that?s an inherent problem with this kind of game. Meanwhile, the combat has been improved since Sands of Time. The Prince is now able to dual-wield weapons, and you can now perform many more moves. This makes the combat more interesting than it was in the previous game. I especially liked having several options to dispatch enemies. For example, after grabbing an enemy, you can choose to throw him away, choke him until he dies and taking his weapon, or simply cutting through his torso. You?ll probably end up using the same few moves over and over again, but it?s nice to mix things up a bit.
[small]For example, it was mixing things up that led to the creation of pizza.[/small]
Of course, the main selling point of the Sand of Time trilogy was the time manipulation. You can use your powers to slow down time so you can pass through a set of traps more easily, you can speed things up so you gain an advantage in combat, or you can simply release some of your Sands as a radial attack. What you?ll use most often, though, will likely be the ability to turn back time, allowing you to undo your mistakes and save yourself from death. Having this power makes the game more forgiving, allowing you to simply try another approach if your first idea fails, or to compensate for bad timing.
There are also sequences where you are chased by the Dahaka. These force you to actually move as fast as you can through the levels, and break things up a little, but eventually I got tired of them, especially because they devolve into monotonous trial and error.
While the gameplay is great, there are some issues, mainly with the camera. It gets somewhat hard to move around in tight spaces, and the way it is fixed in bosses during combat seems a little off. There were also sometimes where the camera angle would change, and the Prince would start walking in the opposite direction, but thankfully this was very rare. For a game that is much better played with a gamepad, the support is very limited. My Logitech gamepad was the only one I could get to work with the game. Some animations, like drinking water from fountains, take way too long, and you end up looking at the Prince drinking long after his health his full.
[small]All those acrobatics must make him really thirsty.[/small]
And one final complaint: during cutscenes, the sound and video are out of sync. Like, a lot. Eventually, you?ll hear a character speak while it?s another character moving their lips, and you?ll watch half of the cutscene with no sound. It gets hard following them, and, after the camera issues was what bugged me most about the game. Thankfully, there are pre-rendered cutscenes that don?t suffer from this problem, and look great.
But overall, the game seems pretty good, right? Well, having only the gameplay in mind, yes. But the biggest problem with Warrior Within was the presentation. The Prince seems way more aggressive than in the last game, like he?s making an effort to sound BADASS. He constantly spouts the same few one-liners during battle, which can lead to some awkward situations (You have more important matter to attend to that the final boss? Really?). The combat is more violent this time around, and while I like cutting heads off as much as the next guy, but when even the loading and the game over screens have copious amounts of blood pouring and splattering all over them, I find it a little excessive. Where it shows the most is in the characterization of female characters. While Farah in the first game seemed like an interesting character, the women in this game are oversexualized one-dimensional characters. There?s Sahdee, who wears a metal version of Borat?s swimming suit as armor, even though it probably causes more damage than a sword, and Kaileena, who wears what can be best describes as half a dress, and whose lines are all some variation of ?You cannot change your fate.? Even the female minions taunt the prince with lines like ?There?s so much pleasure in pain?, which makes it look like your enemies were hired at a local BSDM dungeon. To top it off, when you beat the game, you are rewarded with pictures of these characters in suggestive poses. It really isn?t classy, and they ended up alienating many fans of the first game.
[small]You misunderstood rule 34, Ubisoft. You?re not the ones supposed to make this.[/small]
Ubisoft tried too hard to make the game look ?mature?, and it ended up looking ridiculous instead. It?s really a shame, because otherwise, I found the game to very good. If you can let the darker tone slide or if you really want to know how the story goes on after Warrior Within, then by all means, play this game. But if you are a fan Sands of Time?s environment and overall feel, then Warrior Within will probably be a disappointment.
Subject Ren, no major qualms apart from the lines that finish explaining something.
And then continue on to something else.
It just doesn't keep it neat and as tidy as it could do, in my opinion.
And then continue on to something else.
And one final complaint: during cutscenes, the sound and video are out of sync. Like, a lot. Eventually, you'll hear a character speak while it's another character moving their lips, and you'll watch half of the cutscene with no sound. It gets hard following them, an, after the camera issues was what bugged me most about the game. Thankfully, there are pre-rendered cutscenes that' don't suffer from this problem, and look great.
But overall, the game seems pretty good, right? Well, having only the gameplay in mind, yes. But the biggest problem with Warrior Within was the presentation. The Prince seems way more aggressive than in the last game, like he's making an effort to sound BADASS.
But overall, the game seems pretty good, right? Well, having only the gameplay in mind, yes. But the biggest problem with Warrior Within was the presentation. The Prince seems way more aggressive than in the last game, like he's making an effort to sound BADASS.
It just doesn't keep it neat and as tidy as it could do, in my opinion.
Subject Sas, do you mean that I should change the text? Or that there's a paragraph missing? Because the formatting got a bit screwed when I pasted it from Word, and I'm still going to take care of that.
Hey, subject Vee. Will you help proofreading my review?
Hey, subject Vee. Will you help proofreading my review?