Back in the day, I could play PoP1 upside down, with everything blacked out except for the swords, and a small area right around where prince is, at the fastest possible time, though not quite as fast as the speed runs abusing bugs that you can find on youtube. Other than the fighting which doesn’t really change, it’s like playing blindfolded. Boy, that was a great game.

If you want to try it, “prince megahit”, then hit SHIFT+I, then SHIFT+B.

The weird thing is, after basically getting screwed by broderbund’s crappy marketing, especially on the game he did after PoP2, Jordan Mechner moved on to his first love, screenwriting, but other than the script for this movie, which has existed in some form or other pretty much since the release of the Sands of Time game (2003!) he’s never produced anything of note. Makes you think he perhaps should have stuck to games. Still, he did do most of the writing for The Sands of Time (the first one of the playstation 2 games), as you mention which had way better story than the other 2, which he DIDNT write (he’s credited, but only because he’s the father of the franchise) so I’m excited to go see this movie.

Some highlights from the trailer:

It looks good. It looks right. It also looks like he’s taken quite a bit of inspiration from the 3rd game in the ps2 series – I saw that blades-glued-to-a-whip like weapon that the dark prince wields from that game fly by, and the visuals look more like the 3rd game’s than the first. Also saw Ben Kingsley. Ugh. Guy can’t act, is a total sellout, and he always plays arabian people. Not a very inspired acting choice. The story line, as far as I could tell from the trailer, seems nothing like Sands of Time (the game) or the other 2 games in the sands of time series. The dagger of time, the prince, and a princess, are really all that I recognized. I’m also somewhat annoyed that Farah seems more like the third game (cliché witty, empowered, hollywood-esque damsel in not-so-much distress), and not like the first (the actual Sands of Time), where Farah was a lot more nuanced.

The fighting scenes looked pretty good. Seems logical; Mechner pretty much invented realistic fighting scenes for games. I wonder if the story line has enough meat on the bones to carry us through the probably awesome visuals and fighting scenes. I’m guessing there will be – you don’t need that much story if you’ve got lots of action scenes and you can still have a great movie. I’m also guessing that the Pirates of the Carribean vibe you’re getting is intentional, what with the crazy amount of dough that movie raked in.

If they pull another stunt where this movie gets released months after it is released in the UK, I might just have to beg you guys to plan a convenient barcamp