Up late talking games & writing? You're...

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Games: 2008 was a pretty strange year. Most of the “big” titles ended up being overblown duds, and the string of high-profile failures continues as I continue to work my way through my to-play list… cases in point:
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Mercenaries 2: World in Flames - 360
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I realized that the first Mercenaries was a game that had its head in the wrong place when I got to a particular mission where I needed to get inside a compound walled-off by a chain-link fence, and the tank I was driving couldn’t break through.
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I realized that the second Mercenaries game was not for me when I discovered that the developers used magical huts that respawn enemies with rocket launchers as a way of preventing players from steamrolling through every mission.
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I like open-world games and every time I look at a Mercenaries title, it seems like it should be something I would get into… but they're just not.
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Prince of Persia - 360
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What the hell happened here? I finally got a copy from GameFly today and put a few hours into it, and to be perfectly honest, I have no desire to pick it back up.
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The level design is an abstract, empty mess, and jumping chasms and scaling walls doesn't feel anywhere near as engaging or as exciting as it did in the previous trilogy. Collecting light seeds after you defeat a boss is pointless busy work, and the combat feels completely disconnected from the inputs I’m performing on the controller. It's almost like I'm watching a long cutscene instead of doing any real fighting.
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I actually don't mind the new female companion's auto-rescue feature since it's basically like an automatic time-rewind and it saves me the hassle of reloading a previously saved game, but the game overall just feels loose, and messy, and aimless… it must've gotten infected with the Assassin’s Creed virus that seems to be plaguing the Ubisoft offices.
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The PS2's Prince of Persia: Warrior Within may have gotten on some players’ bad side with its S&M leanings and incessant rock music, but even as the weakest of the past trilogy, it was ten times the game this new Prince is.
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Next!
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