Author Topic: PoP: Sands of Time is Complete and Utter CRAP (Read 5412 times)

Artimus · « **on:** July 29, 2006, 10:29:30 AM »

I am sorry, but any game that has parts where you can actually ruin your ability to play anymore does not deserve 9s and 10s. One of the absolute key rules of dveloping is never allow the play to be perminantly stuck!

So, presented with the option of replaying the 3:25 I've put into this game or smashing it with a sledgehammer, I believe I'll do the latter.

Piece. Of. Crap.

And people wonder why Nintendo fans almost always stick with first party games? THIS IS WHY. Crap. Crap. Crap.

ShyGuy · « **Reply #1 on:** July 29, 2006, 10:38:13 AM »

That reminds of the one time I quick saved in the PC game Blood right before a Gargoyle attacked me. I must have tried for an hour to get past that.

vudu · « **Reply #2 on:** July 29, 2006, 11:07:56 AM »

That is one of the few weak points with Sands of Time. If you're not careful about when you save, you can screw yourself.

Rule #1: Never save when you have little health. Find a pool first.
Rule #2: For God's sake, have a backup save file.

If it makes you feel any better, they fixed that for the sequels. When you save you automatically regain health. Unfortunately, they broke other things (namely the atmosphere) in the sequels.

Artimus · « **Reply #3 on:** July 29, 2006, 12:24:43 PM »

Eh, I'm trying to replay it. The combat is more annoying the second time. Thankfully it's a shortish game so I might actually go through with it.

But this WAS overpraised. Enjoyable but very heavily flawed.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #4 on:** July 30, 2006, 03:33:01 AM »

I always keep at least two savegames in any game.

ShyGuy: I once quicksaved in Max Payne when an m79 grenade was about 2 metres away from me. That was during the final battle sequence. Fortunately I could still escape by immediately diving to the right.

Flames_of_chaos · « **Reply #5 on:** July 30, 2006, 05:47:00 AM »

Yes having multisaves is very important you will learn that when you play Oblivion.

mantidor · « **Reply #6 on:** July 30, 2006, 08:33:44 AM »

The dangers of the quicksave, I learned it the bad way with more than one game, now I only use it when the situation is completly safe.

ThePerm · « **Reply #7 on:** July 30, 2006, 09:03:22 AM »

i do the same as kdr...iv beaten sands of time like 20 times...itgs actually like my fave for this generation

Artimus · « **Reply #8 on:** July 30, 2006, 10:51:57 AM »

It's an ok game, but the combat is SO boring. I wish there was none.

Caliban · « **Reply #9 on:** July 30, 2006, 03:28:17 PM »

Is Sands of time the first 3D PoP? If it is then I might as well say that I loved the game just for the puzzles, combat was meh not that good. About quick saving, lol, if it's a PC game then it usual has automatic savepoints, so I don't see why you have to lose 3h:25m of play-time, unless PoPSoT didn't have automatic save points but I beg to differ on that.

Oh wait, this is in the GC forum, ummm..I still think the console version might have automatic savepoints, if that's the case you don't need to replay 3h:25m.

If I'm wrong, don't shoot me.

Artimus · « **Reply #10 on:** July 30, 2006, 05:46:15 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Caliban
Is Sands of time the first 3D PoP? If it is then I might as well say that I loved the game just for the puzzles, combat was meh not that good. About quick saving, lol, if it's a PC game then it usual has automatic savepoints, so I don't see why you have to lose 3h:25m of play-time, unless PoPSoT didn't have automatic save points but I beg to differ on that.

Oh wait, this is in the GC forum, ummm..I still think the console version might have automatic savepoints, if that's the case you don't need to replay 3h:25m.

If I'm wrong, don't shoot me.

You are. I saved by apparantly useless-sidekick was being attack, and because the sound is not even slightly normalized (TERRIBLE work, nice actual sounds but HORRIBLY presented, volume goes up and down and some stuff is too loud and some stuff is too soft) I never got told she was in danger, no calls or anything. So I saved not knowing this. Load the save then BAM she dies ten seconds later.

Being a platform game that received huge praise I never once considered it necessary to make two saves. But now I do!

KDR_11k · « **Reply #11 on:** July 30, 2006, 08:37:28 PM »

Is Sands of time the first 3D PoP?

Nope, that "honour" goes to PoP 3D which was badly received and AFAIK pretty crappy. I guess I should dig it out and play it some time (I've got it from a compilation).

18 Days · « **Reply #12 on:** July 30, 2006, 08:56:31 PM »

You should proabbly try being good at the game. But how could you even save while Farah was being attacked? Generally the Sand wouldn't appear until all the enemies were cleared.

wandering · « **Reply #13 on:** July 30, 2006, 09:16:13 PM »

This is why, imho, you should be able to start a new game and, without saving, be able to play all the way through, no matter what happens. You die? You get placed at the begining of the level or whatever.

...but I suppose that would be stepping on 20 years of adventure game tradition.

Caliban · « **Reply #14 on:** July 31, 2006, 05:52:04 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Is Sands of time the first 3D PoP?

Nope, that "honour" goes to PoP 3D which was badly received and AFAIK pretty crappy. I guess I should dig it out and play it some time (I've got it from a compilation).

Oh. I should have said something in the order of "is SoT the first of the Sands trilogy?", that would have been more appropriate.

I can't believe the console version doesn't have automatic savepoints, it is essential for games that have a quicksave feature just incase the player does such a mistake as Artimus had done.

Pale · « **Reply #15 on:** July 31, 2006, 07:17:39 AM »

If you think PoP is bad about saving yourself into a hole, I dare you to play X-Men legends.

ShyGuy · « **Reply #16 on:** July 31, 2006, 10:29:14 AM »

Heh, me and my friend got ourselves stuck in Xmen Legends and had to restart. The timed lower levels of the ship.

IceCold · « **Reply #17 on:** July 31, 2006, 09:50:36 PM »

Quote
The timed lower levels of the ship.

Yeah, that's exactly where we got stuck too..

couchmonkey · « **Reply #18 on:** August 01, 2006, 05:41:41 AM »

Tsk tsk! Bad game designers, bad! Personally, I wouldn't call a game utter crap just for this, but it definitely sucks.

Of course, I'm still stuck in the olden days of gaming, where you never trusted the game not to trap you somewhere. In any difficult game, I keep a couple of saves and try not to save unless I'm in a seemingly safe spot.

Sir_Stabbalot · « **Reply #19 on:** August 01, 2006, 07:25:42 AM »

I had three saves per character in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind plus the autosave and quicksave. I had a procedure that when I saved, I'd never save over the file I loaded from. Heck, I even backed up the entire data folder once a month to be safe. I put way too many hours into my character (around 200+) to risk losing him. Though, the threat was mostly from saves getting corrupted, any times I got stuck I just booted up the console and entered a command to fix the problem.

trip1eX · « **Reply #20 on:** August 06, 2006, 12:39:45 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: couchmonkey

Of course, I'm still stuck in the olden days of gaming, where you never trusted the game not to trap you somewhere.

hehe. me too.

TrueNerd · « **Reply #21 on:** August 20, 2006, 10:15:17 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Artimus
It's an ok game, but the combat is SO boring. I wish there was none.

This is a good point. Adventure games like this, ICO (fun with a two by four), and even God of War which has very visceral action, all have combat that gets stale eventually. I tolerate the combat because the puzzles those games present are so delicious. In fact, Zelda is the only adventure game that has decent combat. The combat itself is pretty simplistic, but it's mentally engaging in that different items and weapons have different effects on enemies, some enemies only being vulnerable to certain things. It stays in theme with the rest of the game, something that the previously mentioned games do not. The Two Thrones did a good job with combat too, (Dark Prince segments excluded) in that it allowed you to skip combat. A lot of the game allowed you to platform to certain spots and then you could speed kill bad guys, which was basically hitting a single button and watch Prince brutally kill people.

I myself never ran into any save problem that you did, and I loved Sands of Time. 2nd best game of 2003, behind Wind Waker.

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Author Topic: PoP: Sands of Time is Complete and Utter CRAP (Read 5412 times)