Buttonbasher
Member
Sums up my thoughts exactly.Paco said:
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Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands |OT|
- Thread starter Zapages
- Start date
eshwaaz said:
all of this.
just finished playing and i was totally blown away at the amazingly smart level design, the platforming in POP:FS is really top notch and its really satisfying pulling off the acrobatics and conjoint power moves
visuals and the voice acting are amazing to, the PS2 graphic comparison is totally unwarranted and is definitely on the level of Assassins Creed (using the same engine of course) with some stunning encounter's especially at the end.
this deserves alot more recognition its really a enjoyable game and a reasonably lengthy one to, really hoping for a sequel to this instead as instead of 08. i feel foolish not picking ths up on launch day due to thinking it was a cheap movie tie in, boy was i wrong
if you love POP or even platforming games in general dont let this one slip
So after having the Wii version sitting around for a few months, I finally got around to finishing it. It was pretty good. I was actually surprised that it was a completely different game. Like I know people had said as much, but I thought they meant it was completely different in the same way that Ghostbusters Wii was different. But no, the Wii game had a completely different story, powers, and everything. I don't know why the games even shared the same title.
It's hard to say which I thought was better.
Gameplay-wise, PS360 was far more refined and polished, while Wii had far more clever new ideas. I really liked how PS360 refined the control scheme in a lot of ways. Like when on a ledge, left and right always go left and right instead of having to figure out just the right angle to hold your stick. They also made the jump button always jump away, while the wall run button goes left, right, or up, which helped fix the issue of unintentionally jumping away from a ledge when you meant jump up. Wii, on the other hand, felt like it took a few steps backwards. There's no no wall run button, but instead you just jump to a wall to run on it, and it... doesn't really work perfectly. It sounds like PoP '08, but it doesn't even work as well as that one. I found myself running up a wall or jumping into a pit instead of running along it a little too often because I was holding the stick at a slightly wrong angle. This of course wasn't helped by the camera, which technically let you angle it as you pleased if you held the C button, but was a bit slow and unresponsive. While judging a jump might be simple on the PS360 version thanks to the right stick, judging a jump in the Wii version was a pain because you had to hold the C button, then move the pointer around the screen and wait for it to go where you wanted it to.
On the other hand, in terms of what new elements they brought to the series, I think the Wii version easily wins. Using the pointer to make hooks and whirlwinds was a lot of fun, and once you get the ability to make them anywhere, the game really opens up. It no longer feels like there's a "correct" way to do most things. You can just make your own path. And they really put this to use near the end of the game. That's not to say that PS360's new mechanics weren't fun, because freezing water and making platforms appear were both fun mechanics that really made you do some finger gymnastics later on, but I don't think they brought quite as much to the game as the Wii version.
Graphically... well, obviously PS360 wins from a technical standpoint. But to be perfectly honest, it kinda felt like it was trying too hard to be Sands of Time HD. I liked the art direction in Wii a lot more, with the giant plants overwhelming a ruined city. And a few of the challenges at the end were just, wow. But Wii was a bit of a mess technically. Lots of low res textures, some badly pixellated. It honestly looks worse than the last-gen PoP games sometimes. So I dunno, it's a bit of a toss-up here for me. Throughout PS360, I kept wishing for sometimes besides sandy palace environments, while throughout Wii, I kept wishing for higher poly models and higher res textures. There's no clear winner for me.
My thoughts on the story are a bit similar to my thoughts on graphics. PS360 feels too much like SoT. Sand monsters break out in a palace and infect everyone except the Prince and a couple other people? I mean, yeah, you have some differences like the Prince's brother, but it overall feels a bit too much like SoT. Wii tries something different with the Prince visiting a cursed city and slowly understanding what happened, and I think it was more interesting early on. But, again, PS360 is far more polished. Cutscenes look nice and the story at least makes sense at the end. Wii is... a bit glitchy. I had cutscenes not load the voice acting, or play the sound effects desynched from the action, and the last ten minutes or so were so damn confusing that I honestly couldn't tell you what happened. The in-game banter between the Prince and the genie was fun, though not nearly as clever as the SoT Farah/Prince banter. Even so, I think I'll easily give this one to PS360.
Combat is kinda crap in both, slightly less so in PS360. Just boggles my mind that they're still botching combat so hard in the PoP series. But that's all I'm gonna say about that.
I can't really say which I liked better. I guess the only conclusion I can throw out there is to play both if you like the series. They both have their faults, but they're both good fun.
It's hard to say which I thought was better.
Gameplay-wise, PS360 was far more refined and polished, while Wii had far more clever new ideas. I really liked how PS360 refined the control scheme in a lot of ways. Like when on a ledge, left and right always go left and right instead of having to figure out just the right angle to hold your stick. They also made the jump button always jump away, while the wall run button goes left, right, or up, which helped fix the issue of unintentionally jumping away from a ledge when you meant jump up. Wii, on the other hand, felt like it took a few steps backwards. There's no no wall run button, but instead you just jump to a wall to run on it, and it... doesn't really work perfectly. It sounds like PoP '08, but it doesn't even work as well as that one. I found myself running up a wall or jumping into a pit instead of running along it a little too often because I was holding the stick at a slightly wrong angle. This of course wasn't helped by the camera, which technically let you angle it as you pleased if you held the C button, but was a bit slow and unresponsive. While judging a jump might be simple on the PS360 version thanks to the right stick, judging a jump in the Wii version was a pain because you had to hold the C button, then move the pointer around the screen and wait for it to go where you wanted it to.
On the other hand, in terms of what new elements they brought to the series, I think the Wii version easily wins. Using the pointer to make hooks and whirlwinds was a lot of fun, and once you get the ability to make them anywhere, the game really opens up. It no longer feels like there's a "correct" way to do most things. You can just make your own path. And they really put this to use near the end of the game. That's not to say that PS360's new mechanics weren't fun, because freezing water and making platforms appear were both fun mechanics that really made you do some finger gymnastics later on, but I don't think they brought quite as much to the game as the Wii version.
Graphically... well, obviously PS360 wins from a technical standpoint. But to be perfectly honest, it kinda felt like it was trying too hard to be Sands of Time HD. I liked the art direction in Wii a lot more, with the giant plants overwhelming a ruined city. And a few of the challenges at the end were just, wow. But Wii was a bit of a mess technically. Lots of low res textures, some badly pixellated. It honestly looks worse than the last-gen PoP games sometimes. So I dunno, it's a bit of a toss-up here for me. Throughout PS360, I kept wishing for sometimes besides sandy palace environments, while throughout Wii, I kept wishing for higher poly models and higher res textures. There's no clear winner for me.
My thoughts on the story are a bit similar to my thoughts on graphics. PS360 feels too much like SoT. Sand monsters break out in a palace and infect everyone except the Prince and a couple other people? I mean, yeah, you have some differences like the Prince's brother, but it overall feels a bit too much like SoT. Wii tries something different with the Prince visiting a cursed city and slowly understanding what happened, and I think it was more interesting early on. But, again, PS360 is far more polished. Cutscenes look nice and the story at least makes sense at the end. Wii is... a bit glitchy. I had cutscenes not load the voice acting, or play the sound effects desynched from the action, and the last ten minutes or so were so damn confusing that I honestly couldn't tell you what happened. The in-game banter between the Prince and the genie was fun, though not nearly as clever as the SoT Farah/Prince banter. Even so, I think I'll easily give this one to PS360.
Combat is kinda crap in both, slightly less so in PS360. Just boggles my mind that they're still botching combat so hard in the PoP series. But that's all I'm gonna say about that.
I can't really say which I liked better. I guess the only conclusion I can throw out there is to play both if you like the series. They both have their faults, but they're both good fun.
UpperCaseN
Member
Thanks, KevinCow. I got the 360 version for $20 and loved it. I had only played SoT before then, which I loved as well. I decided to play some of the other ones and started off with PoP 2008, which I am currently loving too. I didn't know that the Wii version is a different game from the PS360 version and plan on getting it now, thanks man
FrostuTheNinja
Member
gdt5016 said:
Both are very well made games and $15 is a complete steal.
Just picked this up for $10 on the Amazon sale. Loved PoP '08 with Nathan Drake, looking forward to this one as well!
Amazon Link for those interested
Amazon Link for those interested
UpperCaseN
Member
Fired up the Wii version for the 1st time last night. Clearly inferior to the PS360 version but seems promising. Hate the camera control, though.
edit: Wii version is terrible. It takes a lot for me to outright quit a game and this is probably 1 out of 2 instances this year. Bad camera, Prince would jump in the wrong direction way too often, terrible combat, annoying Navi sidekick, game froze on me, the list goes on. Stick with the PS360 version, folks.
edit: Wii version is terrible. It takes a lot for me to outright quit a game and this is probably 1 out of 2 instances this year. Bad camera, Prince would jump in the wrong direction way too often, terrible combat, annoying Navi sidekick, game froze on me, the list goes on. Stick with the PS360 version, folks.
Wise from yo gwave, thread!
I picked this up over the weekend with Gamestop's b2g1 deal.
It's pretty freaking awesome. I avoided it because I knew eventually it'd be 20 bucks and I've got tons of other stuff to play, but I'm going to run through this game. Music is ace, graphics are surprisingly good. I didn't realize how much I missed the old prince until he started making sarcastic comments as I ran through the castle.
So far it's everything I want in a PoP game. My only complaint is that this game isn't as responsive as the old ones. It feels more in line with PoP 2008. Not so bad as to stack comands, just that there's a slight disconnect between my initial button press and what happens on the screen. It took a moment to adjust, but every once in awhile I notice and it bothers me.
Combat sucks. Nothing new there.
/me goes back to playing.
I picked this up over the weekend with Gamestop's b2g1 deal.
It's pretty freaking awesome. I avoided it because I knew eventually it'd be 20 bucks and I've got tons of other stuff to play, but I'm going to run through this game. Music is ace, graphics are surprisingly good. I didn't realize how much I missed the old prince until he started making sarcastic comments as I ran through the castle.
So far it's everything I want in a PoP game. My only complaint is that this game isn't as responsive as the old ones. It feels more in line with PoP 2008. Not so bad as to stack comands, just that there's a slight disconnect between my initial button press and what happens on the screen. It took a moment to adjust, but every once in awhile I notice and it bothers me.
Combat sucks. Nothing new there.
/me goes back to playing.
I gave this Prince of Persia a shot after some GAF members saying this the most underrated game of 2010, and I really enjoyed it. In fact, I much preferred this installment to the 2008 one.
However, did the "Got Walkthrough?" achievement not register for anyone besides me? There's no mistake that I got all 21 sarcophagi, but I didn't get the achievement. It was the last one I had to get, but I will absolutely not playing the game a third time! I did switch to the easier mode on my second playthrough, so perhaps that has something to do with it.
However, did the "Got Walkthrough?" achievement not register for anyone besides me? There's no mistake that I got all 21 sarcophagi, but I didn't get the achievement. It was the last one I had to get, but I will absolutely not playing the game a third time! I did switch to the easier mode on my second playthrough, so perhaps that has something to do with it.
I picked this up in the steam sale and have been playing it. At first I loved it and it felt like SoT with great HD visuals, but now I'm about 2 hours in (just got water freeze) and the lack of variety is starting to bore me. It feels like I've been in "level 1" of the game for two hours and counting. There's only so much of "run through broken palace trap room" you can do before it gets old. So I gotta ask, is the game going to have some variety soon? Or is the entire game just running around this palace pulling switches and fighting skeletons? Pop 2008 might have been fairly repetitive as well but at least each area had a wildly different locational theme from airships to lava mountains. I just want some variety in FS!
I'm up to the city of the Jinn now and the game is pretty cool. It's nice that it's 98% a pure puzzle platformer and there really aren't enough of those games these days. The visuals got a little more interesting once you got to the baths and the rooftop gardens and such. I felt the water puzzles were neat. The sonic homing attack is pretty out of place though, wtf. This last power to recall stuff seems ok. My main issue with all these powers is I feel like the platforming is the video game version of twister with your fingers holding down/letting go 4 different buttons at once. I like puzzle platforming better when it's simple 1 or 2 button jumping about timing 
Playing the Wii version right now and it's awesome.
Like KevinCow said, there's some clever ideas here that make me feel it's a step in the right direction for the series. About halfway through the game you gain powers that allow you to create hooks and whirlwinds anywhere. A simple example: at one point into the game I saw a chest that I simply couldn't reach, so I kept going. Eventually I got the powers to create hooks and whirlwinds, so I went back there, summoned a whirlwinds to lift me in the air and then created a hook on the wall. I jumped from the whirlwinds to the hook and then jumped a little higher to get to the chest. Sounds simple, but they present some clever design later on to make use of the powers.
The developers said in a interview that the concept for this game was "make your own patch" and they delivered. Well, kinda of. Sure, there's still the "right way" to do most of the platforming, but the game does a great job creating the illusion that it was all your idea. The feeling of everything perfectly laid out so the Prince can keep going isn't as strong because of that.
Graphics are pretty good too, which was actually quite surprising to me since I thought the game looked pretty bad judging from the trailers they released. It's far from impressive on a technical level, but the art direction is fantastic. There's a lot of low res textures, but they are varied and well placed. It definitely looks better than the original trilogy, and it's the only time the Prince actually looked good (loved his ponytail by the way). Also, story and atmosphere feels a lot more like the 2008 version, which is a plus to me.
Even the combat isn't all that bad. I'm enjoying it and at the very least it is less offensive than the combat of the original trilogy. You can focus on the leader of a group of enemies and kill him, making the rest flee, which is a nice idea. Waggling sucks though, but at least it's responsive.
Unfortunatelly the game is a little rough around the edges and the writing / voice delivery are definitely lacking. Still, overall I would say it's my second favorite Prince of Persia so far. I still have to play the HD version (coming next), but I like it better than Warrior Within, Two Thrones and PoP 2008. Sands of Time is still unmatched though.
A few pics I took with my iPhone:
Like KevinCow said, there's some clever ideas here that make me feel it's a step in the right direction for the series. About halfway through the game you gain powers that allow you to create hooks and whirlwinds anywhere. A simple example: at one point into the game I saw a chest that I simply couldn't reach, so I kept going. Eventually I got the powers to create hooks and whirlwinds, so I went back there, summoned a whirlwinds to lift me in the air and then created a hook on the wall. I jumped from the whirlwinds to the hook and then jumped a little higher to get to the chest. Sounds simple, but they present some clever design later on to make use of the powers.
The developers said in a interview that the concept for this game was "make your own patch" and they delivered. Well, kinda of. Sure, there's still the "right way" to do most of the platforming, but the game does a great job creating the illusion that it was all your idea. The feeling of everything perfectly laid out so the Prince can keep going isn't as strong because of that.
Graphics are pretty good too, which was actually quite surprising to me since I thought the game looked pretty bad judging from the trailers they released. It's far from impressive on a technical level, but the art direction is fantastic. There's a lot of low res textures, but they are varied and well placed. It definitely looks better than the original trilogy, and it's the only time the Prince actually looked good (loved his ponytail by the way). Also, story and atmosphere feels a lot more like the 2008 version, which is a plus to me.
Even the combat isn't all that bad. I'm enjoying it and at the very least it is less offensive than the combat of the original trilogy. You can focus on the leader of a group of enemies and kill him, making the rest flee, which is a nice idea. Waggling sucks though, but at least it's responsive.
Unfortunatelly the game is a little rough around the edges and the writing / voice delivery are definitely lacking. Still, overall I would say it's my second favorite Prince of Persia so far. I still have to play the HD version (coming next), but I like it better than Warrior Within, Two Thrones and PoP 2008. Sands of Time is still unmatched though.
A few pics I took with my iPhone:
UpperCaseN
Member
I hated the Wii version, post 362 a few posts up, actually.
I found the combat incredibly repetitive, just do spin attack over and over and you'll beat anything. Camera controlled with the Wii pointer, but would move back to where the game wants it as you move forward. Too many bad forced camera angles, which can be awful if it's not cooperating with the extreme platforming you'll be doing. I made it about 5 hours in before getting rid of it for good.
I found the combat incredibly repetitive, just do spin attack over and over and you'll beat anything. Camera controlled with the Wii pointer, but would move back to where the game wants it as you move forward. Too many bad forced camera angles, which can be awful if it's not cooperating with the extreme platforming you'll be doing. I made it about 5 hours in before getting rid of it for good.
You just gave us the glaring flaw ALL Ubisoft PoP games have.Gryphter said:
Still, I played both versions and I think the Wii version is better than the HD versions. It's by far Ubisoft's best Wii game. Which isn't a hard thing to accomplish, but it says something. The camera can be annoying at times, but most of the time it's pretty stable. The Wii version has better platforming segments and some interesting ideas regarding Sand powers like the sand pillar. I really enjoyed the game, didn't expect that at all.
I thought the Wii version took a turn for the worse when it became so power focused towards the end. I realize some people are going to dig that since it gives you more freedom in the platforming, but I didn't really care for it. Otherwise I really liked it. I thought the art design for the outdoor areas early on was great and there was some great platforming and level designs for the most part. And where as PS3 version felt a bit phoned in by the Montreal team, I felt like with the Wii version, Quebec put a lot of effort into building an interesting PoP game for the Wii even if not everything worked out too well. The combat did stink because it was too motion-based I think, but combat in PoP games generally isn't very good so I'm kind of used to that.
Edit: Also like fernoca mentioned there were a ton of cool unlockables. PoP games usually don't have much in the unlockables area other than the old PoP games in Sands, but this one had some cool stuff. The 2D levels you could unlock were definitely my favorite.
Edit: Also like fernoca mentioned there were a ton of cool unlockables. PoP games usually don't have much in the unlockables area other than the old PoP games in Sands, but this one had some cool stuff. The 2D levels you could unlock were definitely my favorite.
So it's like Two Thrones? Disappointing, I thought it was more like Sands of Time.Bebpo said:
Shame you didn't like it. I'm almost done with the game and I'm a fan. I actually think the angles they used were good for most of the time. When they weren't, using the pointer was easy. Honestly I had more problems with Sands of Time because the camera refuses to turn when there's geometry.Gryphter said:
Combat... well, it's Prince of Persia. Still, I think the combat is at least better than of the trilogy, though I barely use the spin attack.
I think the use of powers is brilliant. The more they use, the more I love. Like you said, more freedom in the platforming is the way to go, imo. It alleviate the feeling that the locales were made specially for you, so it's more like there's this place and you have to figure out your way around.TripOpt55 said:
And yeah, Ubisoft Quebec clearly put a lot of love into this. It's a shame their ideas for the franchise probably will never take off because who cares about the Wii version, right?
Aaaand, finished the HD version too.
It was pretty good, but overall the Wii version is still my favorite. However, the PS3/360 version is more polished and the voice acting was way better (voice acting for the Wii version was definitely phoned in). The combat was a bit better too, but still only serviceable, and the game became very combat heavy towards the end. All the boss fights were pretty bad, except for the last one. Oh, and whoever says this game looks bad is crazy. Looks great.
Wii version, on the other hand, has better art direction, a more original story and a fresh, more creative and inventive level design. It's smarter while the HD version plays it safe, and it kinda suffers from identity issues since it tries to be Sands of Time but it's never quite as good. And I think the Wii version is longer too. I clocked 10 hours in that game and around 7 in the 360 version.
Still, level design was pretty good too, and the water / memory gimmicks provided some clever and demanding segments.
Overall I think this is how I would rank the series:
1 - Sands of Time
2 - Forgotten Sands Wii
3 - Two Thrones
4 - Forgotten Sands HD
5 - Warrior Within
6 - Prince of Persia 2008
It was pretty good, but overall the Wii version is still my favorite. However, the PS3/360 version is more polished and the voice acting was way better (voice acting for the Wii version was definitely phoned in). The combat was a bit better too, but still only serviceable, and the game became very combat heavy towards the end. All the boss fights were pretty bad, except for the last one. Oh, and whoever says this game looks bad is crazy. Looks great.
Wii version, on the other hand, has better art direction, a more original story and a fresh, more creative and inventive level design. It's smarter while the HD version plays it safe, and it kinda suffers from identity issues since it tries to be Sands of Time but it's never quite as good. And I think the Wii version is longer too. I clocked 10 hours in that game and around 7 in the 360 version.
Still, level design was pretty good too, and the water / memory gimmicks provided some clever and demanding segments.
Overall I think this is how I would rank the series:
1 - Sands of Time
2 - Forgotten Sands Wii
3 - Two Thrones
4 - Forgotten Sands HD
5 - Warrior Within
6 - Prince of Persia 2008
Aaargh, why didn't anyone tell me that the PC version has a 24Hz bug on HDTVs like Crysis? First the Ubi DRM servers are down for several hours at the moment I decide to start playing this game, and now this. Google tells me the Crysis bug can be solved by adding a custom resolution in CCC (I've got a 5770), but how do I do that? There already is a 1080p resolution and it won't let me add another one. Enabling GPU scaling brings it up to 50Hz, but why can't I have my 60Hz? The game looks and runs great otherwise.
Edit: After fiddling around for ages in CCC and Radeonpro, I managed to force 60Hz with Ati Tray Tools. Yay!
Edit: After fiddling around for ages in CCC and Radeonpro, I managed to force 60Hz with Ati Tray Tools. Yay!
Square Triangle
Member
Wicked bump but Bestbuy.com has this for $9.99 on all three systems.
AlphaTwo00
Member
Sorry for a necro-bump, but I've run into some trouble with this game that a)XBox Support said they can't fix and b)Ubisoft technical support throw it in the trash and assumed it was a gameplay issue without reading, just want to see if anyone's run into this:
The Issue:
At a fairly early part of the game (within first hour of play), you unlock the rewind magic. Right after, as you walk, you will fall, and trigger an in-game cutscene, where you are taught how to use rewind.
What happened:
When rewind happened, the game and system became unresponsive, for over half a minute, you can still hear sound, and pressing the XBox guide brought up the sound too. Then it got weird. I then suddenly unlocked "Ding! Level Up!" (For purchasing an item), followed by "Not how it Happened" (use rewind 20 times). Well, this was interesting. The game, by this point, has locked up, and wasn't going anywhere, so time for me to restart.
The next time (and every time since then if I get this far), the game resumes with the previous checkpoint, plays cutscenes, and either a) locks up right away or b) insta-kill me as if the rewind didn't count.
This is what it looks like when it locks up (99%) of the time, it's right after he finishes talking and the game is about to resume.
The Test Cases:
So, at this point, the possible causes are:
a) Hardware/System issues
b) Disk
c) Save Data
d) Game Bug
So, to test the easy things first, I did the following:
1) Test the game on a different 360 (nope)
2) Test the game without using HDD install data (nope)
3) Test the game with my profile and save data in different locations (HDD, USB, MU) (nope)
4) Test the game with bout title update and no-update (nope)
5) Recovered my gamertag from MS.
This pretty much ruled out Hardware issues (and the fact that it still play other games kinda proves it)
Next worry is the disk being scratched/damaged. However, since I have no way of getting a second disk, I had to assume it's not the disk, and try something else to get to that part. The idea is, if a different save data gets me past there, then it's not a disk issue right?
Since I didn't want to delete my current save, I got a new profile, and a new save data, and ran the game. Played for almost an hour and got to the offending point, and...
...it got past it.
Well, this removes the whole disk damaged theory. So, let's delete my save game on my profile, and start over (it's only an hour, right).
Wrong.
In starting a new game using my profile and no saved game, the game crashed at the first loading screen.
Well, this is bad.
Interestingly, my intuition suggested to try a cleaver trick: Load a new profile and start a new game; while the game is running, sign in to my own profile, and see if it works. (Why I did this? Pure intuition. Signing in/out seems to be one of those edge cases that programmers should test for, right?)...
... and it did work. And I managed to start a new game on my own profile, only to be halted back at the same point again. One interesting thing to note, at this point, was that I was still earning new "cumulative achievements", such as break 100 pots. This tipped me off to something...
I started looking around for things that are saved other than game progress, and guess what, it seems that options aren't tied to saves either. I had disabled tutorial one time, removed the save data, and started again, tutorial stayed disabled. Most troubling find, was this screen and how I stumbled upon it:
This screen was accessed at the start of new game with no save data on my profile, it's the upgrade menu. This menu confirmed by a friend on another 360, isn't accessible via back button at the start of the game. So a) why can I access this, and b) why is it filled with stuff? Testing with my new profile and new save, this screen becomes unlocked after where my old game has crashed, and is an empty grid.
And this is where my search ends, and most likely me playing this game.
The Theory
In my mind, given all the facts and what I know about how the save system works, I have a few ideas of what the issue is.
1) The "unearned achievements" is a simple one to explain: when the game was unresponsive, it was incrementing something internal, and blew up some data storage/variables as it was looping. This would explain how I got "Not how it happened (rewind 20 times" even though I've done 1 rewind.
2) If that was being incremented, and as the magic screen as indicated along with the achievement, who knows what other values that were stored blew up. (Since these save data is suppose to be small, it's entirely possible that the game wasn't careful and saved it as a NaN, a large negative number, or other corrupted data.
3) Deleting the save file and starting new causing the game to lock up at the start screen, combined with loading the game with that magic screen, points to three things:
a) The game is saving achievements and other data within the profile, and is retrieving them for use. (This can be verified with other games, some games don't even have a save data, and it's saved within the profile) It's the only explaination for how the magic window is still open.
b) When game does a check at the start of the new game and , it checks for this data in the profile (since my profile already has some of the potentially bad data saved in, it fails a check, crashes)
c) My fun cleaver trick to bypass it and starting a new game on my profile? Someone was lazy, and didn't check for profile data if I sign in in-between the game. I think this would have been a pretty major bug.
How would this be fixed? Well, at this point, I don't know if Ubisoft would be willing to issue a patch for a game this old, the patch would be pretty simple: it's entirely around the whole magic system being unlocked, and when unlocking it, set to 0. All the issues seems to point to values not be checked for out of bounds cases.
The other, probably easier one, is letting me removed PoP from my profile (and in theory, remove all internal data stored with that game in the profile), which would let me start anew and hope not to run into the same bug.
The Fixes:
Throughout today I've been in contact with XBox Support on twitter and Ubisoft Technical Support. The XBox team was pretty helpful, and actually went through pretty much all the test cases I went for. In the end, they've said to contact the publisher's side as it seems to be a game thing. I've asked whether it's possible to delete game titles off the profile (which they did allow a few years ago with 0 achievement games), but they've stopped short of suggesting that.
Ubisoft's side, as of this writing, was less than hopeful. I had written a brief summary of the issue (noting the crash, where it happened, etc.), and their generic reply was that it was a gameplay issues, and I should look up a guide to get past that section of the game.
Any help in solving this would be greatly appreciated.
The Issue:
At a fairly early part of the game (within first hour of play), you unlock the rewind magic. Right after, as you walk, you will fall, and trigger an in-game cutscene, where you are taught how to use rewind.
What happened:
When rewind happened, the game and system became unresponsive, for over half a minute, you can still hear sound, and pressing the XBox guide brought up the sound too. Then it got weird. I then suddenly unlocked "Ding! Level Up!" (For purchasing an item), followed by "Not how it Happened" (use rewind 20 times). Well, this was interesting. The game, by this point, has locked up, and wasn't going anywhere, so time for me to restart.
The next time (and every time since then if I get this far), the game resumes with the previous checkpoint, plays cutscenes, and either a) locks up right away or b) insta-kill me as if the rewind didn't count.
This is what it looks like when it locks up (99%) of the time, it's right after he finishes talking and the game is about to resume.
The Test Cases:
So, at this point, the possible causes are:
a) Hardware/System issues
b) Disk
c) Save Data
d) Game Bug
So, to test the easy things first, I did the following:
1) Test the game on a different 360 (nope)
2) Test the game without using HDD install data (nope)
3) Test the game with my profile and save data in different locations (HDD, USB, MU) (nope)
4) Test the game with bout title update and no-update (nope)
5) Recovered my gamertag from MS.
This pretty much ruled out Hardware issues (and the fact that it still play other games kinda proves it)
Next worry is the disk being scratched/damaged. However, since I have no way of getting a second disk, I had to assume it's not the disk, and try something else to get to that part. The idea is, if a different save data gets me past there, then it's not a disk issue right?
Since I didn't want to delete my current save, I got a new profile, and a new save data, and ran the game. Played for almost an hour and got to the offending point, and...
...it got past it.
Well, this removes the whole disk damaged theory. So, let's delete my save game on my profile, and start over (it's only an hour, right).
Wrong.
In starting a new game using my profile and no saved game, the game crashed at the first loading screen.
Well, this is bad.
Interestingly, my intuition suggested to try a cleaver trick: Load a new profile and start a new game; while the game is running, sign in to my own profile, and see if it works. (Why I did this? Pure intuition. Signing in/out seems to be one of those edge cases that programmers should test for, right?)...
... and it did work. And I managed to start a new game on my own profile, only to be halted back at the same point again. One interesting thing to note, at this point, was that I was still earning new "cumulative achievements", such as break 100 pots. This tipped me off to something...
I started looking around for things that are saved other than game progress, and guess what, it seems that options aren't tied to saves either. I had disabled tutorial one time, removed the save data, and started again, tutorial stayed disabled. Most troubling find, was this screen and how I stumbled upon it:
This screen was accessed at the start of new game with no save data on my profile, it's the upgrade menu. This menu confirmed by a friend on another 360, isn't accessible via back button at the start of the game. So a) why can I access this, and b) why is it filled with stuff? Testing with my new profile and new save, this screen becomes unlocked after where my old game has crashed, and is an empty grid.
And this is where my search ends, and most likely me playing this game.
The Theory
In my mind, given all the facts and what I know about how the save system works, I have a few ideas of what the issue is.
1) The "unearned achievements" is a simple one to explain: when the game was unresponsive, it was incrementing something internal, and blew up some data storage/variables as it was looping. This would explain how I got "Not how it happened (rewind 20 times" even though I've done 1 rewind.
2) If that was being incremented, and as the magic screen as indicated along with the achievement, who knows what other values that were stored blew up. (Since these save data is suppose to be small, it's entirely possible that the game wasn't careful and saved it as a NaN, a large negative number, or other corrupted data.
3) Deleting the save file and starting new causing the game to lock up at the start screen, combined with loading the game with that magic screen, points to three things:
a) The game is saving achievements and other data within the profile, and is retrieving them for use. (This can be verified with other games, some games don't even have a save data, and it's saved within the profile) It's the only explaination for how the magic window is still open.
b) When game does a check at the start of the new game and , it checks for this data in the profile (since my profile already has some of the potentially bad data saved in, it fails a check, crashes)
c) My fun cleaver trick to bypass it and starting a new game on my profile? Someone was lazy, and didn't check for profile data if I sign in in-between the game. I think this would have been a pretty major bug.
How would this be fixed? Well, at this point, I don't know if Ubisoft would be willing to issue a patch for a game this old, the patch would be pretty simple: it's entirely around the whole magic system being unlocked, and when unlocking it, set to 0. All the issues seems to point to values not be checked for out of bounds cases.
The other, probably easier one, is letting me removed PoP from my profile (and in theory, remove all internal data stored with that game in the profile), which would let me start anew and hope not to run into the same bug.
The Fixes:
Throughout today I've been in contact with XBox Support on twitter and Ubisoft Technical Support. The XBox team was pretty helpful, and actually went through pretty much all the test cases I went for. In the end, they've said to contact the publisher's side as it seems to be a game thing. I've asked whether it's possible to delete game titles off the profile (which they did allow a few years ago with 0 achievement games), but they've stopped short of suggesting that.
Ubisoft's side, as of this writing, was less than hopeful. I had written a brief summary of the issue (noting the crash, where it happened, etc.), and their generic reply was that it was a gameplay issues, and I should look up a guide to get past that section of the game.
Any help in solving this would be greatly appreciated.
The Hermit
Member
Whoa, I've never realized that the Wii version was actually good... might pick it up someday now.
sweetvar26
Member
Alright, this game is on sale for 320 points on Xbox Live, would that be a steal?
If you enjoy platformers, yes. But remember that this is the game's only saving grace.
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