A little while ago, a fellow made an interesting video, and declared the new PoP the most innovative game of 2008.  Slashdot then ran it under a story regarding the new PoP and Avoiding Wasted Time.  The whole thing smacks of a ludology seminar, which makes it exactly the kind of thing I like to wax philosophical about.

The articles centre around the concept of Penalty Free Learning; something the PoP franchise isn't a market leader in. Travellers Tales has had no-lose gameplay in the entire Lego series; Braid too.  Mr Young's point however is that PoP isn't cutesy.  It's both approachable and respectable as a game that non-gaming grownups can play.  It doesn't have a checkpoint system, so you never have to retrace your steps to progress. (Okay, let's ignore the game's whole mechanic of collecting orbs for this argument, eh?  I can't wade through that kind of irony... ;-)

My concern with this philosophy of game design, is that PC games have long had a god-mode as well, but I'd say that's universally regarded as cheating.  

Back in 1990 I wrote a letter to Nintendo Power, saying it would be great if all games had invincibility on the Easy difficulty, because a superhero like Batman never dies in the movies.  I'm so glad somebody finally listened! ;-)  Now I can trade-in my Game Genie.

Sorry, I can't see a line of distinction between the developer or the player "switching off" death.  I'm not convinced that it's "innovative" for the new PoP to become an extremely patient hand-eye-coordination trainer.  I'm pretty sure I'd learn faster playing Gradius.  Sands of Time and GRID have excellent limited-rewind features.  Part of your skill set becomes forecasting your severe mistakes to get the maximum chance for correction.  In Braid your mistakes become irrelevant, all results come from your success, and that made it the most satisfying puzzle game I played all year.

The notion of people wanting to "save time" in modern games is utterly foolish, as the current zeitgeist encourages completionist players.  Cases in point: WoW grinding; achievements; item collection metagames; multiple difficulties; time trials...  how many DAYS does it take to master completing an average 5-minute stage in less than 90 seconds?

Sure, sure, it's nice to hand the controller to my mother-in-law or grandfather or neice and watch them enjoy playing.  Yes, Rock Band 2 has a no-fail mode for a good reason.  But do you, a serious gamer, really want to keep paying $60 for a game that takes you 5 hours to finish in one sitting?  Wasn't Heavenly Sword ridiculed for that?  I'd say it was 5 hours of entertainment well spent, but it cost me $6 to rent.  I am very happy to value my entertainment time at $2 per hour.

With many console game developers trying to draw more casual players, and present a short cinematic experience, rather than a long narrative... I wonder is it possible that they're deliberately attempting to shift the industry to pay-per-play or digital rentals?  I don't want to play Boom Blox by myself, but I would absolutely pay $4 to activate it every time I set up the Wii with some friends.  The rumblings about disc-less consoles coming into the future generation would support this theory.  If casual gamers are where new profits are being found, that will inescapably result in making "hardcore" game properties more accessible to more players.

Grab a towel to wrap your console in, things are about to get watered down.

What bothers me the most is about  Devil May cry franchise ,  Dante or Nero can get killed in the game even though they are actually invulnerable devils  .
 I should  also say that playing POP was a fresh experience for me though the game was not a completely Penalty Free one . there are moments in POP when losing a fight or failing to reach a surface is quite costly .

 there are moments in POP when losing a fight or failing to reach a surface is quite costly ."

"daniel_beck_90 said:

 there are moments in POP when losing a fight or failing to reach a surface is quite costly ."

Yeah, especially in those platforming sections before the final bossfights and healings, especially near the very end of the game. I don't see PoP as a game without "death", I think of it as a quick reload without the annoying-and sometimes discouraging-GAME OVER screen. Because nothing says "you fail and can't play our game properly" more than having a game over screen."

I don't know if I buy that it's being intentionally done to shift the industry more towards digital rentals. Though episodic content has been trying to make a rise, however I don't think it has had much success outside of Half-Life 2. Personally, I'm a little on the other side of the spectrum where I think games are too long these days. I'm not saying that I think they should all be 5 hours long or anything, but the average game these days is probably going to take you between 15-30 hours to complete, and that's not even considering the fact that just about every game has online multiplayer these days. Plus if you really want to get some good use out of online multiplayer, you're gonna need to spend some time with it, learning new techniques and levels and weapon spawn placement and all sorts of other stuff. That requires quite an investment from the players. Then, like you said, you got achievements and such encouraging players to do speedruns or replay through entire campaigns. That adds up to being quite a lot. I totally have more games than I have time to play these days, and I think it's quite disappointing because no doubt I'm gonna miss out on even having the opportunity to play many of the great recent games that have come out.

As for Prince of Persia, I really enjoyed the game. Heh, on it's difficulty... I think the hardest part for me was adjusting to the way you kind of have to let the game do most of the work for you. I'd keep trying to do more myself and would end up jumping to my death and such. I did get used to it, though, and you know, I can't really rip it all that much. I think it ends up working well, probably making the game more accessible to anyone, while still being entertaining. At times, I did find the fact that you couldn't die to be a bit annoying, but I never had that big of a problem with it. I did find it kind of amusing that you could kind of cheat with many orbs by just jumping out to your death to reach them, which the game allows in many instances. And hey, why wouldn't anyone do it? You just get warped right back up to where you were before the jump. Regardless, it still ended up being one of my favorite games of the year, despite the fact that I had barely any interest in it prior to it's release.

Let me just say this right off the bat dude- The new PoP, everything about it, it was making it clear it was going for a super easymode game. If you're holding that against it, that doesn't make much sense. It's doing what it aimed to do from the start, even I am  not one to like super easy games really, but I wouldn't complain about one that made that clear from the start that it was going for that type of experience. It was made so clear in what it was going for, its like complaining that Half Life is being played through a first person perspective, its pointless because its doing what they intended.

Ease of difficulty regarding the rest of the game or not, the only difference between falling off of a ledge in Prince of Persia and falling off of a ledge or dying in Mario or something is that you don't have to load to some retarded black screen offering you a chance to give up every time you want to continue. It just nicely lets Elika save you and sets you on your merry way. It's the exact same mechanic you've seen in many other games for over 30 years, it just got streamlined and made much less aggravating. I could see how it might annoy someone that they never get a "real" penalty for falling off a ledge (lose a life star, or something), but otherwise, incessant whining about that being a bastion of the game's "too easy"-image is ridiculous.

"Ease of difficulty regarding the rest of the game or not, the only difference between falling off of a ledge in Prince of Persia and falling off of a ledge or dying in Mario or something is that you don't have to load to some retarded black screen offering you a change to give up every time you want to continue. It just nicely lets Elika save you and sets you on your merry way. It's the exact same mechanic you've seen in many other games for over 30 years, it just got streamlined and made much less aggravating. I could see how it might annoy someone that they never get a "real" penalty for falling off a ledge (lose a life star, or something), but otherwise, incessant whining about that being a bastion of the game's "too easy"-image is ridiculous."

I agree with all the commenters that the upshot of these no-death mechanics for us as players is reduced frustration.  It absolutely cuts out the middleman of saving and loading... but that's a modern thing.  The way technology and commerce have evolved is a big factor.  Arcade games needed to end abruptly for profit.   Imagine if arcades never existed, or if 1 quarter was all it took?  Is there an incentive in playing Pac-Man if you can't lose and don't care about score?  What makes it fun?  What makes your heart-rate go up?  The risk and inevitability of being eaten.  The fear and excitement of that is primal.

Jayge: It's the exact same mechanic you've seen in many other games for over 30 years, it just got streamlined and made much less aggravating.

So let's get back to the original question.  if a game is designed from the ground up to be approachable and minimize frustration, while also giving you an entertaining experience, does that make it innovative? 

Or...does that make it an interactive movie?

I played the PC version. Consoles have typically been more limited in saving ability for various reasons, but that's changing too, especially because consoles are now using hard drives and therefore can have the same amount of non-volatile memory as your desktop computer. But as a PC gamer, I'm used to excessive saving and quick-saving. This is basically doing what I'd do anyway - hit the quicksave before a puzzle, then quickload about the time I realize I fucked up. Basically it's automatically hitting quicksave for me at every major platform, and Elika's little fly-in-and-save-my-ass routine is the quickload.

"The notion of people wanting to "save time" in modern games is utterly foolish, as the current zeitgeist encourages completionist players.  Cases in point: WoW grinding; achievements; item collection metagames; multiple difficulties; time trials...  how many DAYS does it take to master completing an average 5-minute stage in less than 90 seconds?"

Prince of Persia perfected the instant reload. It's quick and painless, and integrated directly into the story.

All that PoP 08 did was cut that intermediary situation where you reload your latest save game. Honestly, everyone does that. When you die, you reload the last save game. I don't see how people can complain about it (some, believe it or not, do) and I don't see how it can be highly praised.

I supposed cutting out the middle man while making the move from dead to alive is technically an innovation, but it's not a deal-maker innovation.

Something being made from the ground up to be approachable, minimize frustration, and still provide a (generally) entertaining experience isn't really an innovation. I really don't think developers start a project with the mindset of "we're gonna make something difficult to pick up, absolutely tedious, and probably not that fun".

It's all about what the game does differently in terms of mechanics that makes it really innovative or not. Of course it's preferable that the title succeeds in executing that mechanic, otherwise it's just a nice thought.

Video games can essentially be interactive movies but to varying degrees. I think that's just a matter of genre instead of the intentions of a designer being to make something accessible and not annoying and just plain old fun. I really don't see how a developer doing just that has to be considered either innovative or an interactive movie.

"Brackynews said:

"The notion of people wanting to "save time" in modern games is utterly foolish, as the current zeitgeist encourages completionist players.  Cases in point: WoW grinding; achievements; item collection metagames; multiple difficulties; time trials...  how many DAYS does it take to master completing an average 5-minute stage in less than 90 seconds?"

I don't buy that argument at all. That stuff is in there for the hardcore, for the completionists. The average person doesn't care for points that much, and certainly a newcomer wouldn't. Stuff like that does nothing to rope in new players."

"But even so, I still found the boss fights to be sufficiently challenging for the simple reason that I didn't want Elika to need Elika to save my ass.."