For Christmas I was given the new Prince of Persia game, the Lost Crown, and (despite this diary’s protestations) I have played a fair bit of it. It’s a very stylish exploratory platformer, similar to Metroid Fusion in many ways including themed areas and dynamic paths, but with much more flair over the combat and traversal. The systems and collectables are a little overwhelming at times, and the need to find save positions doesn’t work from the way I want to play it. Still, a good game which I will write about and play more in the future.

It has reminded me, however, that I have never really put much time into the original game. I believe I had it for an old PC that my dad brough home from work, but that also came with Lemmings and that’s where most of my time went. Prince of Persia seemed to be a bit too difficult for young me.

Young me had better reflexes but less experience. Let’s see what matters here.

I tried a number of ways to play the game, including via GOG, Ubisoft, Steam – it’s seemingly not for sale anywhere – and then onto emulators for the SNES, Mega Drive, Master System, and even the Game Boy Colour. None were particularly satisfying, with updated graphics taking away the feel of the original, or some slight input lag impacting on the way it played. In the end I found the website https://princejs.com/ which allows the entire original game to be played via Javascript, with an added bonus of an easy way to adjust the time.

Prince of Persia was designed around a deadline; you have 60 minutes to complete all levels and rescue the princess. You have unlimited lives, but you have to complete a full level each time and the timer doesn’t reset if you die, so eventually you would just run out of time. This makes the game very stressful, and was obviously put in place to add replayability value; you need to explore the levels to know which route to take, but it’s impossible to do so while also meeting the overall time limit. Some sections of platforming require a sequence or timing which isn’t immediately evident and require trial and error; some parts have a number of switches to be activated in a certain order; there are some false floors which will drop you to your death with not enough warning the first time you walk over them. You would need to learn each level at a time and then add them to your repertoire as you progressed, in order to complete the game.

Ain’t got no time for that now.

So, instead, I am using the URL of the website to reset my time up a bit each time I complete a level. That way I can explore at my leisure, and not be tempted to rush through sections just to build up a time buffer. I’ve also increased the Prince’s health a bit, just so I don’t get frustrated with the sword fights. In most cases I am only ever losing one or two bits of health (off the four I would usually have at this point) before finding potions, but the buffer removes a great deal of stress. The game is now something I will play a level of from time to time, not getting anxious about needing to progress.

I’ve just completed the fifth level, which was very convoluted in structure. I’ve met the shadow prince as well, who stole one of my potions (not that I actually needed it), so I’m out for revenge.

Having got further than ever before in Populous the Beginning (including a couple more levels after I posted previously), I find myself strangely unwilling to finish the game. After the last level I played there was a cutscene which showed my shaman becoming a god and passing the mask on; the last level feels like it may be very different to the rest, and after so many years I don’t know if I want it to end. And so rather than play that, I went back to the original game, with my standard tactic of raising the land a few levels higher than my opponent, and then waiting until I could flood them and destroy the majority of their followers.

And it mostly worked.

I remember that on the Mega Drive I had a sheet of paper on which I wrote down level codes. One of the clever things about Populous was that, while there were 500 levels defined, you didn’t have to play them all on the way to the end. Instead, depending on how you did you would skip over several levels at a time. This also meant that two games, starting from GENESIS, would usually be different, and the tactics you needed to deploy would vary as well.

And so this time I found my standard tactics didn’t work so well on a few early levels. First, there were some mountainous levels where my opponent naturally built high themselves, so the floods didn’t destroy all their settlements. Second, there were some levels where my opponent also had the flood ability – in one case that was their only power – which again meant they were loath to settle too low (although there was one occasion when the enemy had exclusively built on the lowest level, and then used flood, almost wiping themselves out and not me). Third, there were a couple of levels where I didn’t have the flood power either, and so I had to use other abilities to overrun the enemy; mainly through the use of powerful knights.

Reacting to events makes the game interesting, including repairing settlements after swamps have been cast, building around volcanoes, and watching the random rock monster or witch generate a straight line of stones or vegetation straight through both factions. But building high is still key, except on those levels where nobody can flood or use earthquakes …

I have continued to play through this very slowly, with many, many uses of the quick save function. My hazard suit doesn’t seem to have much of a protective element, especially against soldiers and annoying big aliens with buzzy guns, so I find myself reloading having lost half my health very regularly. There are, thankfully, a large number of dead humans around who weren’t able to use the health pack they were carrying before dying, so as I make my way through the levels I can top up my health regularly. Ammo is more of a concern, especially given my ineptitude with aiming.

I have continued through waves of soldiers, and have noted over time that they are less concerned with the cleanup operation they were tasked with than they are with just getting out alive. Sure, if they see me they will fight, but in the last few levels of the game they’ve been getting fewer and fewer in number, with most of the evidence of their existence being trip mines and dead bodies. There have been a few sections set outside, including on a cliffside, where the helicopters have been buzzing around, and I’ve taken shelter from them incredibly quickly.

Instead the aliens are back, in greater numbers and variety. I have tackled a large shark-type thing swimming around in green water, using a handy crossbow that was dangling above. I have accidentally set free a big brute who I initially thought was a boss character, but who I have gone on to encounter many more times. I have run away from an even bigger brute, the same as the one I encountered in the rail cart, and then used airstrikes to take him out.

Having traversed the outside, I’m now in Lambda Core, trying to get a nuclear power plant to do something. Bits of it have been flooded and I need to clear them out. The platforming is the weakest part of this game, and unfortunately I’m having to do a fair bit of it now. I am dying a lot more as well, and saving is becoming more and more frequent, not just because of me missing platforms but because the enemies are doing so much damage.

In 2007 I said that maybe one day I’ll turn god mode on – I’m not there yet, but very close. It’s taken a long time to play through this so far, and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll enjoy it for …

I still have never completed Half-Life. I must have played through the opening levels multiple times, enjoying the scene setting and the initial escape from the headcrabs. The game is still quite spooky and panic-inducing at times, with mild jump scares and swarms of enemies appearing; the library in Halo is an obvious comparison, but Half-Life’s setting is much more varied and less monotonous than that.

I play the game quite cautiously, conserving ammunition as much as possible but shooting at the enemies from a distance. There are quite a lot of health recharge stations around (as far as I’ve got, at least), and I’m making maximum use of quick save functionality to keep my health high as I work through the levels. I get the feeling that this isn’t the way I’m supposed to play it, and maybe once I’ve completed it once I might be a little more gung-ho and run through the levels, much as I do nowadays with the first three Halo games.

For now, though, I’m enjoying it. I’ve reached the part where the soldiers first appear (in the chapter “We’ve got Hostiles”), and the scientists are overjoyed to be saved … until they aren’t. I’ve made my way up the lift and outside, only to run back into the vents as a helicopter started to attack me. They’re now using laser trip wires to set off sentry guns; I get the feeling they’re not interested in a chat over coffee.