IGN Love

It was very hard to concentrate yesterday because IGN US and UK went live with their POP reviews of 9.3 and 9.4 respectively. It is hard to contain my excitement.

This quote from Hilary Goldstein (the US reviewer) almost made me cry:

In every console generation there are one or two games that, regardless of any flaws, hold tight in my memory even years later. I can still picture scenes from Chrono Trigger on the Super Nintendo System as if I just played it the other day. Despite a flurry of great games released in the past year, I still get the itch from time to time to play Jet Set Radio Future on the Dreamcast. Your beloved games may be different, but I’m certain most long-time gamers have a few titles they treasure – the games they can never trade in. Ubisoft’s relaunch of Prince of Persia may just be such a game for me from this generation.

It’s not the best game ever released on PC, PS3 or Xbox 360; it’s not even the best game released this year. And yet Prince of Persia is that rare game that has managed to tap into that part of me that would die defending Chrono Trigger or JSRF. It has its shortcomings, but I already sense that Prince of Persia will be one of the few games from this generation that I carry with me for the next decade.

He just got our game so fundamentally. Yes we made mistakes, yes there are parts that are weaker then others, but when you sit back and let the experience wash over you while you play, there is magic there. I still get caught up in it when I play - three years in.

Passionate response from reviewers is so incredibly rewarding. After giving this game my all - my life - for the last three years, to see people talk about it in ways I only dreamed about when we first started development is incredible.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3...

*ahem* is this thing on?

wow - its been a long time. Amazing how much time finishing a project and having a brand new baby girl can take. :)

POP is _done_. Our PS3 and 360 versions are submitted and should receive GM status by the end of the week.

For the last month I've been focused almost entirely on promotions. I went to Tokyo for the TGS, Australia for some interviews etc, Paris for the Micromania show as well as some more interviews, and this week I head to San Francisco for some more demos/interviews with ign, gamespot, etc.

In the coming days I plan to write a big long post about the previews POP has been receiving so far and the areas I think journalists are getting right (and wrong) and how I expect the reviews to differ.

For today, though, as a baby step back into this whole blogging thing, I want to post an interview I did with a french gaming site called Gamersyde. I really liked this interview because they asked some tough questions and seemed to come out of the interview with a much more positive attitude towards the game then coming in.

And yes, I am aware of the level of narcissism in posting a link to an interview with my big mug taking up the screen, but I think the points brought up are important enough to warrant it. I hate the way I sound, I hate how much I use my hands to articulate my points, but hey - I'm passionate about my game and have a lot to say.