preGAME 15: Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands & Super Mario Galaxy 2

^B00:00:10 >> On 3 >> Yep. >> 3, 2 ^M00:00:15 [ Music ] ^M00:00:20 [ Background music ] >> Alright its preGAME ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the big show. This is the weirdest clapping I've ever heard. But that's fine we have an unbelievable episode of PreGAME for you. I'm Jeff Backalar. >> I'm Mark Licea. We got a little surprise. >> A few surprises indeed. >> A few surprises so you need to stick around. >> Out of this world. surprises. We're gonna be demoing 2 games the first one The Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sins. We have a guest who we'll be calling the lead animation director, gonna be on the phone with us while we play a demo of the Forgotten Sands. Alright that's going to be very exciting, not to be mistaken for the movie. >> No relation what so ever. >> Totally different. >> Just keep that in mind when you watch us play. >> Absolutely. >> There's no Jigjill [assumed spelling] and all in this one. Thank God. >> First thing we do each week on PreGAME we run down the latest news and headlines. This section of the show is sort of turning more into trailer corps >> Which I think is good. >> Which I really love because it gives everyone. >> That's the whole point of a video podcast. People want to see what we're talking about. >> Exactly! >> Otherwise if people tune in and don't know what we're talking about it just kind of comes off as lame. >> You read all the news you want without a trailer you're nothing. That's my motto in life. >> Exactly so we have 2 trailers that we're going to watch back to back. I've played one of these games already and we can talk about. That's going to be exciting. So Wilson let's run Spider Man first we're talking Spider Man Shattered Dimensions coming out pretty soon >> In September. >> Right September yep pretty soon. Let's check out the trailer and then we can just discuss right after check this out. ^M00:01:51 [ music ] ^M00:02:02 [ Background music ] >> The monsters are always with us but there will always be heroes to fight them. Every night I'm going to be out here, leaving the mark of the spider. Somehow I know I'm not the only one. ^M00:02:39 [ music ] ^M00:03:35 >> Alright so that's the new Spider Man game. >> Spider Man Shattered Dimensions. >> There's going to be a lot more moves, some first person action, >> Absolutely. >> Some new costumes. >> I like where they're going with the you know they're sort of keeping that cell shaded style spider man in check. I like that. >> It looks like the environments aren't as open cause I think in some of the older Spider Man games the environment was you could pretty much just web around the entire city and it was very >> more linear this time around. You know obviously there's that big dichotomy. You know there's gonna be sort of 2 sides to this game. You know I don't know it's tough to really judge you know how many spider man games have there been lately. I feel like a new one comes out every year and nothing ever blows anyone away. >> I feel like Batman Arkham Asylum kind of raised the bar for super hero games >> To a new level. >> I wonder how this will compare? >> Yeah it'll be interesting. I mean it looks fun you know all these Spider Man games are fun, they just sort of don't always do anything differently. This one seems sort of so far off the regular map of what people you know think spider Man to be so it'll be interesting. Spider Man Shadow Dimensions you said September. >> September this year. >> Aright we'll have more on that when we hear it. Next, let's take a look at the latest adventure for Lara Croft. It's not what you think this is a downloadable Xbox live arcade game. >> I think it's also for the >> And the PSN as well. So let's see the trailer for this and we can talk about it right after. ^M00:05:06 [ Music ] ^M00:06:36 >> Well that was certainly unexpected ^M00:06:37 [ music ] ^M00:06:49 [ Background music ] >> Really cool. Not the Tomb Raider I think everyone's used to. >> Not at all. >> Which is maybe why they omitted the Tomb Raider from the title. >> Yeah. Totally dropped the name altogether. This is just Lara Croft Guardian of Light. >> Does the camera not look very similar to Diablo 2? >> It is it's that same sort >> It's almost exactly. >> I think they call it like isometric. I'm not sure exactly the technical terminology for it but that's what we're dealing with. Completely new. I've played this game. >> You've played it in its entirety? Or just kind of demoed in it. >> No I play for like a half hour or so. >> Looks like there's gonna be a lot more puzzle. >> Yeah the cool thing about it is co-op puzzle. You know there's a very good balance between the sort of combat that you're seeing here and the sort of puzzle solving you know dynamic. You can play it alone also. The game changes to allow for that but you're much better off playing it with a friend. When I played it was just a brand new Lara Croft experience. You know the puzzlers still there. There's an exploration angle to the whole thing but there's also now this new sort of arcadey action combat thing so I mean. >> And the camera angle is always from that same perspective. >> Always yeah except for these cut scenes where it takes the form of a normal you know regular game but you know its unbelievable that the production value here this is a downloadable game, unbelievable. PlayStation network, Xbox Live Arcade and Steam is going to be on it as well so make sure you check that out. >> There's no release date for this? >> I believe summer. >> Ok. >> is like the vague release date so more on that but I really want to share that with everyone because it's a band new Lara Croft game, really cool. So everyone hope you enjoyed that. Let's get to the final story of the week. On Monday Nintendo announced a very >> Strange. >> Interesting, strange, bizarre partnership with the American Heart Association. >> It makes sense when you think about it. >> It does. >> When you think of the Wii you think of moving around. You think of the WiiFit. >> Is that what you think of? >> That's what I think of. >> Yeah alright. Well what I think of is a good way for Nintendo to >> To milk their sales is what's possible. >> Exactly. You know it's a definitely a very ambitious attempt at entering the gaming market with a new angle right? >> But I feel like it's already there. >> Its already there. >> But now it has the official branding. >> Right this heart is going to be stamped on every box, on every Wii-Fit so to me it's just a very you know I don't want to say strange but you know Microsoft has Natal and PlayStation has Move. Everyone says well Nintendo what are they gonna do? Is this what they're doing? >> Maybe that's it >> is this their heart their health thing. >> They're like we're just going to do this cause instead of playing video games like this, now you play like this >> There you go! >> And like this and you balance and you do all this other stuff. >> It's getting your butt off the couch though. >> That's true. >> I will say that. >> Although if they based video games off of how people like my mom play they would probably endorse every system cause my mom does a lot of this >> So there's movement already. >> physical motion when it's not necessary. >> Ok I endorse that. PreGAME endorses that. >> So do I. >> So I don't know when this will exactly start but you also gotta think this is going to parlay itself into vitality sensor. Remember that heart beat monitor we saw? >> Oh the finger clip. >> Yeah one year ago >> Which we haven't heard anything about >> Nothing >> but we'll probably hear a follow-up >> At E3 yeah that'll be interesting so let us know what you think about that. Really wacky I don't know about wacky but definitely out of left field. I don't think everyone really saw this coming. >> I don't know. I wonder if kids will be like Mom the American Heart Association approves. >> Yeah so did Cheerios. >> She's like Ok. We'll get it. >> We'll get it now cause its good for your heart. That's gonna do it for this week's headlines everyone. We've got 2 games as you know to demo today. Let's jump right into the first one. We're playing live on PreGAME right now Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sins. We're gonna boot that up right now. [ Booting up game ] Getting ready to boot up Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sins. Mark you're pretty excited about that. >> I'm ready. >> We are very lucky. On the phone is Jan Erik Sjovall. He is the animations director for Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sins. What's going on Jan how are you? >> I'm good how are you? >> Not bad thank you so much for taking the time and joining us on PreGAME. You're gonna talk with us a little while we demo some of the Forgotten Sins huh? >> Awesome. >> Great ok lets jump right into the game and I guess Jan if you want to just sort of give us a little background. Obviously this is not and we repeat not the movie version of the game. This is a totally separate sort of entity. It does take place between the original Sands of Time and the Warrior within correct? >> Correct. It's the game to the game and the movie is the movie to the game so we're quoting ourself and the movie quotes us so that's pretty awesome I would say. >> Absolutely. >> The what we try to do is like get back to the Sands of Time feeling. We wanted to bring the trilogy back to the next gen and so what we try to do is like tell the story of the Prince a little further in between Sands of Time and Warrior Within. There was in Warrior Within that was set 7 years past so we're telling a little bit of the story we're elaborating on the story of the prince a little more in this game. >> Yeah the game definitely has that feel of what the sands of time was able to capture. It's my personal favorite game in the series and it's definitely refreshing to sort of see that happening here again. >> Absolutely and for us it's the same way. Sands of Time is the bar and so we try to at least you know bring the feeling of Sands of Time what we weren't able to achieve in terms of narrative and terms of graphics and visuals to the next you know using next gen capacities of the consoles and bring that to the player. >> So now there seems to be sort of new things going on with the fighting system here. Can you explain how that has changed at all? >> Yeah we wanted to bring the acrobatics and the fighting back together because it was important that you have that you're being immersed in the world and not being thrown out like you do in the acrobatics, then you land somewhere and you have a complete different controls. Everything needed to be together and so the acrobatic of course is still like the main focus of the game but because that is the main thing of Prince of Persia of course, but the fighting is supposed to break these acrobatic sequences up and but it was important for us to make it so that you would land let's say after like a tough sequence, then you get to fight a couple of enemies, you do some acrobatics again and then you do maybe a puzzle, some fighting and then some acrobatics again. So it is a full package that doesn't pull you out but leaves you in the game and leaves you playing in one sequence from beginning to end. >> Yeah it's definitely a delicate balance for sure and we're seeing a part here now where you know the big sort of mission in the scheme is these two sides of this medallion almost and you know the struggle to put them back together and have the princes sort of faced with you know deciding how he's going to exactly go about doing so. >> Yeah and what's also different is of course like in the original Sands of Time we were not able to bring more than five guys on the screen at the same time, now we bring up to 50 dudes on the screen at the same time that you can fight with different types of techniques. There are guys with shields that you have to break their defenses first before you can attack them, there are guys who you can jump on you can do acrobatic attacks, you can jump on the walls and back onto a guy, or you can go down a curtain, jump off of the curtain onto a guy. There's all these systems are not separate from each other but they're working together, and all of them together it's like gives a complete different feeling. There's a more action type of feeling, more it's important for you to move around, not block, not stand around but to move around, do the same thing literally that you would do for the fighting or for the acrobatics while moving on the walls but also move on the ground, move around you know manage your space around you and take the guys out that are around you without dying or having to rewind. >> Yeah it definitely feels like you know blocking was sort of replaced with the ability or to keep the fight going without having to block. Making the moves of jumping over enemies and stuff like that. >> Correct. >> What we're watching right now is the cut scene where the prince is meeting our female partner here and we're I believe this is the first time we're introduced to one of the elemental sort of powers that you have in the Forgotten Sands. >> Exactly you're in the course of the game different types of elemental powers are being opened up to you in for acrobatics but also for fighting and the first one you're getting right now from Razia will be the ability to solidify water or to freeze water, therefore you are able to get to new areas that you weren't able to get before, but it also is a new challenge one of the new challenges for the player to make the acrobatic game playing more challenging, more interesting. So it's every single map acts like a new challenge to this and right now it's the solidifying of water, later it will be you will have dashing powers and others will be added as well so its and you can upgrade also the fighting powers which keeps it interesting within the game and to take out enemies is very satisfying in the end. >> Absolutely and there is a sort of we can demo sort of this upgrade system here, you know you sort of own these objective based sort of you know based on your experience points you can choose which sort of powers you would like to upgrade and what you would like to do. >> Exactly it's not necessary for you to finish up the game to upgrade every power so you could also if you wanted to there are some fights that you can avoid, so you could either take out every enemy and then get sort of experience points for every enemy that you then can apply to these upgrade these powers but you could also not but it asks for the experience. I personally prefer to take off, it's very gratifying to take off a lot of enemies with a tornado rather than just blasting them away and sort of a shield sort of push back >> Right absolutely. So right now we're faced with you know the sort of I guess [inaudible] position we have running water here and now we've learned that we have the ability to freeze water which is cool, totally changing any sort of Prince of Persia game play we've seen before and as you can see you could just freeze that water and use it as you would a pole in the normal sort of acrobatic sense. >> Correct it's the it's we call it the ingredients like there are some solid ingredients and there are some moving ingredients. I forgot what the level designers called that it was just like dynamic ingredients, it was so that the solid ones are easy to do because it's just a pole that hangs out of that is there in the wall or that is a column or a wall so you can see what you can do and you can also see where you need to go, but sometimes you have to press a button or do something, solve a puzzle, then some water comes in or something else and you can with that power then open up this new area which so first you have to again do this old level design from Sands of Time which is deciphering the path, you have to figure out where you need to go. Michael McIntyre is the Level Design Director from Forgotten Sands called it look before you leap design. Basically, you have to first see where you need to go before you actually can go because otherwise you're gonna die. >> Yeah for sure. >> And later on its also right now in the beginning when you're learning how to do the water powers everything is at the same they turn on and off at the same time so you're learning and so that's the easy way but later on they will be in a different rhythm so one will turn off, another one will turn on, so you have to have a different rhythm. It's becoming more challenging later on so it's for me personally it was a very very interesting challenge and a very interesting game play. >> Absolutely well the game looks great. It's a lot of fun. I've played a lot of them. I'm having a blast with it. Jan Eric Shovo the Animations Director on Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands thank you so much, explaining some of the game, chatting with us while we do our live demo. Can't thank you enough. It was great having you here on PreGAME. >> Hey thank you so much for having me. That was awesome. >> Alright thanks again Jan. >> Thank you. >> Alright take care. Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sins is available on pretty much every gaming platform there is. We should note the 360. >> It comes out today. >> The 360 PS3 and the PC version are one game and then there's a separate sort of story version of the game for the DS, PSP and the Wii. Jan worked on the 360 PS3 and PC versions of the game but yeah a lot of fun as you can see. Totally brand new. >> I think one of the features that what the gamers appreciate too is just the fact that you don't die in these games like in the previous Prince of Persia you had Elika so she would save you every time you fell and in this game you can just manipulate time. >> Right. >> So for the production value I think is appreciated. >> Absolutely. >> Nice time saver. >> For sure so Forgotten Sins go check it out today. It's out! We got some time. You want to do something crazy right now? >> I think we should do it. Should we not even preface it? Should we just do it? >> Yeah let's play another game. Mark you want to play another game right now? >> Yeah let's play another game. >> Alright let's play another game. >> Alright here we go >> Let's pop it in we don't do this a lot. What do you say we play this and we're gonna get to this right now. >> As you said before is out of this world. >> It's out of this world so stick around we've got one more game demo coming for you right now. Let's check out what other games we have up our sleeve today. Wilson lets fire it up and see what's going on here. [ Background music ] Oh alright. Super Mario Galaxy 2 ladies and gentlemen. >> Here we go. >> Mark Licea fire this bad boy up and let's see what's going on here. You didn't think we were gonna do that did you? >> I didn't. I had no clue. >> You had no idea. >> You surprised me. >> Yeah you did. >> Saddle up with Yoshi. >> So this is very early on. Let's preface this very early on in Super Mario Galaxy 2. We're just demoing one level or whatever we can play of this level here. >> I guess if you played Mario Galaxy 1 you know that the whole Super Mario Galaxy franchise is very different from what you're used to with the older games and the game play on this game is pretty similar >> Yeah. >> but there's a special new feature in this stage that hopefully I can show you guys >> Yeah let's hope we get to that. >> before we sign off. >> We've seen a lot of Super Mario Galaxy 2. Obviously these you know early levels are similar to what we've seen before but we've been assured that 90% of the game is brand new which is really impressive. So you know we're super psyched about that. Obviously, there's just there was so apparently so much content in the first Super Mario Galaxy game that they said you know what let's just make another one and it looks like that's what's going on now. So now we're trying to >> I assume I need to down this. >> I think you have to get him. There you go. You gotta maybe get another coin from these bloomers to get some health back. There you go. Alright Mark's gonna rock this guy. There he is there's one. >> Yeah! >> Alright >> We're all experiencing this together because I have not played this yet so I'm very excited right now. >> Let's see what happens. And there he is Yoshi is in Super Mario Galaxy 2. Who does not love? He's so cute. >> Yoshi. >> There he is not in the first game they're bringing him back for the sequel. >> Alright here we go I'm pretty damn exciting. >> And there you go wow! Awesome! ^M00:23:42 [ game sounds ] ^M00:23:48 >> The infamous double jump. Very cool. See now you can sort of do a triggering system with Yoshi so I believe you can spit out aiming yeah there you go and you can aim and eat whatever he's pointing at there so pretty cool. You hit B I think right? >> I think I'm hitting B. >> Well maybe he has too much in his belly. >> You have to be a certain proximity. Alright let's see. >> So how does it feel playing as Yoshi here? Same sort of feeling? Is it >> A little bit different >> Yeah. >> I'm gonna give it a little bit more of a go. >> Oh I think you lost him. Oh no you didn't. There you go wow. On that same thing he will run away if he gets hit and you jump right back on him and there you go. Oh so definitely you need to use the pointer a lot. >> Yeah now that's interesting cause the first time around not so much but in Galaxy 2 it looks like you have to use the pointer a lot more. >> Alright. >> Sort of like little bonus stage I like that. >> And I assume Yoshi gets different power ups. >> Yeah there's a lot of power ups. Most we can't really talk about but yeah there's a brand new power up this time around. And you know the early reports are out and apparently this game is also a lot more difficult than the first time around which is pretty cool. So you gotta grab that and then there you go. >> Alright. >> Those sort of launching stars are still back again. >> Wow that doesn't look safe at all. >> Very cool. >> Very cute >> Adorable. Alright! >> Excellent. Thank you so much for showing us a little bit of Super Mario Galaxy. >> No problem. >> You're excited. You can't wait to play this game. I can tell. I can tell. >> Going to be my weekend playing. >> Absolutely. Do you want to shoot along again see where we go. >> Let's do one more. Why not? >> One more. >> Oh cool. >> And you know the most amazing thing about Mario Galaxy is definitely the level design. Some of the best ever in games in my opinion and obviously it looks like that's gonna continue in the sequel here. It's always playing with gravity and you're always sort of finding new ways to think about platform gaming. Its can't really say enough good stuff about it. We're all really psyched and we're super psyched that we're able to show you guys an early taste of the game on PreGAME. Alright before Mark you wind up finishing the entire game which I know you'll wind up doing here ^M00:26:30 [ music ] ^M00:26:39 >> So I'm a little distracted. Can we just sign off with me playing? >> Maybe. I want to talk about our new releases. >> Oh that's true. Alright. >> Alright. >> Alright I'm gonna put it down. >> You get the idea. I promise you can play when you get home. >> Comes out the 23rd. >> The 23rd May 23rd is when Super Mario Galaxy hits stores. >> I'm sure it'll be pretty popular. >> Make sure you check it out. >> I have a feeling. >> I assume everyone that watches this show will probably be somewhat excited. >> I would imagine. If they're watching the show they're super psyched for it anyway right? >> That's why we hyped it up for our secret surprise. >> For sure I'm so glad we could share that with you guys. Finally on PreGAME lets go through this is a very important week of notable releases [game sounds]. Alright notable releases for the week of May 17th. Obviously last week we got to see Alan Wake. Everyone can check Alan Wake out. It is available today. So make sure you check that out. We love that game. Can't say enough good stuff about it. >> Scary. >> Also this week Red Dead Redemption. This game have you seen the reviews out on this game? Unbelievable. >> Joey from the lab keeps talking about this game. He is obsessed. >> He it's like the second coming ton. 360 PS3 out today. Also really interesting game I got to play awhile ago, Split Second. It is a racing game set in a TV reality, a reality TV environment. You get to like blow up some of the environment and use it against the racers that you're playing against. Really cool. Split second is out on PC 360 and PS3 today as well. Also remember Trauma Center? Were you a fan of Trauma Center on the Wii? But you know what I'm talking about the surgery game. >> Oh ok yeah, yeah. >> That surgery game where you like repair people's faces and stuff and suture wounds and stuff. Trauma team the third game on the Wii is out today as well. If you have enough money go for it. >> If you have an interest in becoming a surgeon maybe this is your time to practice. >> I hope you can afford it cause there are a lot of games that you should be playing this week. Also obviously the Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sins releases today as well. That's gonna do it for us on PreGAME. Thanks so much for watching live and for watching on demand we really appreciate it. PreGAME@cnet.com is how you get in touch with the show. That's gonna do it for us man. Next week we're gonna have a lot of racing games. ModNation Racers and we're gonna try and work in a few depending on if we can line up some guests for that but definitely ModNation racers is next week and hopefully a few others will accompany it. That's gonna do it for us. We're out of time I'm Jeff Backalar. >> I'm Mark LIcea thanks for watching. >> It's PreGAME we will see you guys next time. Everyone have a great week. >> Later! [ Music ]