Prince of Persia - Sigur Ros
Submitted by Mintz on Tue, 12/02/2008 - 1:36pm.
I've always liked Prince of Persia. I played the original back before my computer even had a colored graphics card. I bought Prince of Persia: Sands of Time for the Xbox. I skipped the second one because I heard it was terrible. The third one fell under my radar because of the second one. The new, yet-to-be-released Prince of Persia was dangerously close to being forgotten, but then I took a minute to download the above video on Xbox Live.
The music immediately took a firm grasp of my attention. It's from an Icelandic band called Sigur Ros. I've been listening to their music for months now, and I was just listening to them earlier today while I was working on my final English paper. I love them. Their music touches me on a plane no other band has before, and hearing my absolute favorite song from them played to a graceful video of the prince of Persia reignited my interest for this game.
If the development was at all influenced by this band, if the atmosphere of the game reflects the music at all, they have my money.
I'm looking forward to this game.
Here's a primer on a couple of my favorite songs from the band. Just hit play. If their music's not your kinda thing, that's fine.
SeeqPod - Playable Search
I think sound and music play a big percentage of your overall experience in a game or movie. Almost as much as visuals and graphics!
Totally agree, Oc. If the music is subpar and not that memorable...it really doesn't pull me in as a gamer(or movie watcher) as much as it would then, say, Halo's music score. Sigur Ros is pretty cool, Mintz. I'll have to check the rest of their stuff out later.
Oc, your post reminded me of a post I read on Engadget's Hi-Def blog; even on a blog dedicated to Hi-Def television and everything related to it, the editors agreed that high-quality surround sound is more important than an HDTV. Dolby 5.1 is pretty important for immersion!
Glad you like it, trigger.
Agreed on the sound being integral to game experience.
I'm constantly listening to video game music at home or in the car, but when playing that's the first option I go to turn off. I like to hear the games ambiance over the music for some reason. The music just gets on my nerves while gaming.
But on top of that, I like the tracks! I'll have to look into this group now.
http://www.ocremix.org/ is sweeet if this is your style of music. I think I own every single track on this site on my external hard drive.
Sigur Ros is good stuff. You may have seen their music used in commercials and I think they had a song in Vanilla Sky, for what it's worth. Besides that, they haven't had much mainstream attention. You may also like Spiritualized, although their sound is sometimes less ethereal.
Great writeup, Mintz. I'm glad to see the Prince of Persia games coming back under solid direction. This video looks great; dig the cell-shading used on the character art too. I remain skeptical about how the music used for the trailer will relate to the atmosphere of the actual game. I would love to be wrong about this, but consider those high-profile songs used in the Gears of War commercials. Gary Jules' cover of "Mad World" made for a fantastic commercial, (as does the use of DeVotchKa's "How It Ends" for GoW2) but it's less clear how well the game captured the emotion of the ad campaign (unless that emotion is exhilaration!). Speaking of emotion, some of those screen shots kind of remind me of Ico, which is no small complement. I'll keep this one on the radar, Mintz.
If they're anything like Sigur Ros, I'll definitely check out Spiritualized. Thanks for the heads-up, Roddy!
I'm a fan of the cell-shading the new game is using, too. It's not too cartoony, and it looks more like a comic book than a Saturday morning kid's show. Actually, I think the developers use the word "stylized" to describe the art style, and not cell-shading. Apparently, if they took off all the filters/effects that make it look that way, it'd be as detailed as Assassin's Creed.
The parallels you draw with Gears of War and the music in its commercials is a pretty good one, which is why I'm not banking on the music being in the game. The GoW games are great, though.
Prince of Persia is averaging an 85% on MetaCritic, and it's been described as "the easiest game you'll play all year." Easy doesn't bother me, especially when IGN describes the story as an "absolutely unforgettable adventure" that's "magical in every sense of the word."
PoP will get $8 bucks out of me :)
How is it only getting $8 from you? XBL Arcade?
A rental when I have the urge to play it, I'd only play it once no point buying it.
Yeah, I'm thinking about subscribing to a service like Gamefly for all the games I'd do that with. After my positive experience with Netflix, and buying/selling games I've only played once, I think it'd be a good investment.
Amazon had this game as their Deal of the Day for $40 yesterday and I pulled the trigger (not trigger119). I figure I'll beat the game as fast as I can (which reviews say shouldn't take very long), then sell it on eBay while it's still fresh. I sold my copy of Fable II a month after it came out for $41, so I'm guessing I'll be able to recoup enough money to warrant the purchase. Looking forward to playing this one.
By the way, I got the game, played it, didn't beat it, and just recently got around to selling it on eBay for about $30, at a $10 loss. The game was fun for a while, but after a while it just became repetitive. The main character never learns any new moves, never gains new abilities, and ends up just doing the same thing over and over in every area you travel to. My patience ran out, and I felt like I derived all the enjoyment I could from the game, so I sold it.
The game is most assuredly beautiful, and Sigur Ros is the perfect music for that video, but the game just wasn't that good to me.
Mintz, Gamefly is a really good service and you do save a bunch on games. But check out Gamemine too - they just updated their website, added a bunch of titles, faster delivery, and they have a 15 day free trial too. I have no idea how the long the trial will be in effect but you can check out a review at the link below:
http://game-rental-depot.com/video-game-sites-reviewed/gamemine
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