I was excited to start this game. As a huge fan of Star Trek, I did enjoy the first title even if it was a very clunky shooter, not reinventing anything but with a strong ST vibe and the lovely Voyager crew. After an intro mission, this second entry in the series brings you on Enterprise and among Picard's crew, which felt like an amazing followup. The story also seemed like a good ST drama, with two alien species both claiming their descendants owned planets and cultural artifacts in the sector. Some strong points: using the tricorder with multiple modes to find gas leaks, traps or secrets is very interesting and participates in giving the game world a multi-dimensional feel. I'm not a secret hunter, but I was happy to find at least a couple of them. Level design is also interesting, letting you dive in a well-crafted Star Trek universe. Starfleet HQ, ancient ruins, the Enterprise, all levels convey the universe pretty well. Then the bad: first, encounters are repetitive and cheap, enemies spawning in your back or jumping at you when you open doors.. almost like the designers didn't know how to create good challenge apart from cheating on their own rules. And there's the bikini doctor... really, guys? Next, some level design is outright atrocious. About two thirds into the game, there's a horrible, horrible level taking place on the Enterprise hull. First part is vaguely disgusting, but the true horror comes when you control a turret and shoot at enemy ships. Your turret only moves from left to right, no up-down movement, and enemies/torpedoes fly over and above your range! You need to destroy 3 sub-systems on a capital ship (not destroy it!) with this useless turret while they bombard you to pieces in less than a minute. I've rarely seen such a bad design, and I've played almost a thousand games! Wasting time on extreme challenge brought by deeply flawed design is not fun and if you don't care about Star Trek, you will probably hate this game.
Really good, I enjoyed almost every minute of it! Hilarious characters, crazy action scenes, surprising storyline. Gameplay is ok but who plays Telltale games for the gameplay anyway? One thing though: don't bother with the Telltale account, it's broken and useless. I was curious, as the game states it will show "more cool stats" if you log in. Even if I created the account directly from the game, it showed nothing more and I had to go on the TTG website, which didn't recognize my game... 2nd (worst) problem: I finally managed to link the game to my account, but then it didn't show me any "cool stats" from the episodes I played. Instead, it showed me stats from the next episode (which I haven't played yet) and by doing so, revealed crucial plot points I knew nothing about, thus ruining the experience. I know, it's not REALLY important and that's why the game still gets 4 stars, as it is a lot of fun. But as a game designer, I think this kind of clumsy mistake should not happen, especially in a story-driven adventure game, and even more so when it's published by a professionnal studio like TTG.
I'm always baffled when I see a badly designed game get a high score just because it's Star Wars. Dark Forces II has one of the worst level design I've ever seen. Long, tedious, uninspired levels rivalize with a host of bugs to create a less than satisfying experience. If you like exploring old classics, this game may be interesting, but if you're just looking for a good time, I highly suggest you try something else. Just a few examples of the atrocious design: at some point, you'll be running around endlessly in a gigantic, undetailed Empire... fortress, or whatever, trying to find the exit door among thousands of identical walls. Somewhere else, you'll try to navigate mazes of identical corridors with unclear objectives, not even knowing what you're looking for. Sometimes, you'll die on the spot when a random scenery explosion will occur in the environment without warning (yeah, looking at you, Falling Ship level). Other times, huge holes in the ground will be impossible to fall through, being in fact solid rock despite their clear appearence. Other times yet, you'll die riding down an elevator, because an Imperial officer is stuck under it, and for some reason your character also get crushed. Another instance of this "vomit level" level-design, and quite possibly the worse, is that ending some levels will require you to jump in a pit.... BUT depending on the angle of your jump, you may finish the level or simply die. I've been killed 2 times trying to finish level 18, then spent a whole hour looking for the exit, as this pit was clearly not it... Then read a walkthrough and realized this place I've been falling and dying IS the exit... then died 3 more times trying, then finally finished the level. So f***ing ridiculous. This list of design turds could go on and on. Really, people, I don't even understand how you could give this game more than 3 stars. And that's IF you're a die-hard fan of Star Wars. A neutral, unbiased score would be closer to 2/5 stars. Life is too short to play bad games.
If you enjoyed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, do yourself a favor and don't play any other game in the series. Keep the magic alive and keep the Prince away! Jokes aside, if you're looking for a satisfying platformer, I highly recommend all Tomb Raider entries from Crystal Dynamics. They are much, much better. As for the Prince and his Two Thrones, it deserves no more than two thumbs up and here's why : gameplay is bland and predictable, story and characters are just ridiculous, and every single thing is scripted. The whole game feels like a long, linear and cheesy student project, except for the graphics which are actually impressive. Oh, and enemies continue to attack you during unavoidable cutscenes. Yeah, they do. Bland and predictable gameplay is actually a benchmark of Ubisoft games. I could line up dozens of examples, but let's just say this: by looking at the environment ahead of you, you'll know exactly when the Prince turns into the Dark Prince, and vice versa. As for story and character development, every single cliché you could imagine is packed here. I actually laughed through the whole game. My favorite would be when the Prince asks his dark counterpart "But... who are you?" and the Dark Prince answers: "Don't you know? I'm your untapped potential." Really, I feel like I'm reading some uneducated teenager's poetry. At least they had the decency to avoid close-ups on women's butts, as we've seen in the previous PoP title. Last but not least, every single thing in the game is scripted. Everything. This means that at some points you'll die when falling from some height, and five minutes later you'll drop from higher and survive, as it was scripted that way. It also means that perfectly possible jumps are sometimes deadly, while in most parts of the game the Prince will jump significantly higher or farther to reach the scripted place you need to reach. Your character will actually "slide" on-screen to lock on a faraway platform. It's THAT bad.
+ Excellent atmosphere and storytelling + Emotional and surprising plot + Casual gameplay and great humor - Somewhat clunky controls 9.5/10 Shnapennhausen's Choice 2012
