That's the Name of the Game - 5

Another week, another entry at bookspotcentral.com.  I've been playing through Prince of Persia (released last December), and its been getting me thinking.

But back to the “hand-holding.” It’s really odd splitting my gaming time between Street Fighter IV and Prince of Persia. They seem like polar opposites on the difficulty scale. But what I wonder most is whether or not I would be OK with PoP’s difficulty if it weren’t so gosh darn gorgeous? Maybe… Video games follow cultural trends all the time, and the downturn of difficulty in games is something that’s been happening over time. But really, being able to walk through Prince of Persia really makes it seem MORE like art. Hear me out: for me, in order for something to be considered art, people have to have the ABILITY to appreciate it.

This week I've been splitting my time between SF IV, Prince of Persia, and Bioshock.  I can't tell you how disjointed it has been playing such different games.  Each one has taken roads the other would never think about.  There are two contrasting pairs: Street Fighter/Prince of Persia and Prince of Persia/Bioshock.

SF IV has is this huge mountain, there is such a huge difficulty spike and PoP is really easy although there is a little trial and error when you mess up on a platforming segment.  PoP has this bright vivid visual aesthetic that breathes life into the game world and Bioshock is too dark to see anything, plus it scares the shit out of me.

I'll continue these, and tomorrow I'll be heading up to San Francisco to cover the National Street Fighter tournament, so I don't think I'll have any time for the other titles tomorrow.

In the mean time you can check out the rest my column this week at: "http://www.bookspotcentral.com/2009/04/thats-the-name-of-the-game-prince-of-persias-argument-for-games-as-art/"