The First HD(ish) Game

Although we actually have a few games capable of being displayed at the lowest possible settings for High Definition (that being 480p) none of those games are actually HERE, since they were packed away along the The Rest Of The Stuff on the boat from Singapore to North America. At this point, we still don’t even know if that boat has actually touched down on Canadian shores.

But in the meantime, thanks to the miracle of Ebay, we now have a PS2 version of an oldie, but a goodie, the sublime–and severely underrated–Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The part that kills me is that we actually only paid a total of $10 for it, and $7 of that was shipping and handling. But it’s a very, VERY fun game to play for people with some capable manual dexterity (the acrobatics involved in navigation and combat can be quite demanding) and a good sense of spatial relationships. A “reimagining” of the classic side-scrolling platformer put out by Jordan Mechner back in the 80′s when the Atari, Commodre 64 and Apple II computers ruled the PC front, this new version has some striking (for a last generation console anyway) graphics, and some of the most fun, and fiendishly clever “puzzle solving” seen in a console game. Like Ico, the majority of the problem solving here comes from being in large, complexly constructed rooms and buildings, and trying to figure out how to get from Point A to Point B when there are cliffs, gaps, columns, pillars, booby traps and other assorted obstacles making a straightforward walk impossible. This is another one of those games I would highly reccomend for two or more people as observers can often have just as much fun as the player, and often, the observers will notice or see opportunities that the player–usually too focused on gameplay–may miss. It’s an old game, very difficult to find in stores, but there are still copies floating around online and I highly reccommend acquiring it. I used to own a copy, but that was on the Xbox, and since I don’t have that ugly black clunker sitting around anymore, this PS2 version serves just as well, and gives me an excuse to play it again.

Now if only Guitar Hero 2, God of War, SSX 3 and Shadow of the Colossus would arrive so that I can finally see what those suckers look like in 480 progressive widescreen…