blog @ xanatos.ca

No Credit

You know what I hate? When someone takes a chance, and the world kicks them in the teeth for it. When someone pushes the boundaries a little, they should get credit for being creative. They shouldn't get beaten down by critics who are afraid to leave their own comfort zones. Especially when those critics are dead wrong.

So what am I talking about here? A video game, actually.

It's a title that was released back in 2004, the same year that I bought and played it. It's called The Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. I'm not going to review the game here (it was very good.) Instead, I'm going to criticize all the other people who have reviewed this game.

You see, the majority of game critics who wrote about Warrior Within hated its soundtrack. They panned it for being too "metal" and "inappropriate" and even called it "thuggish", presumably because it includes a lot of heavy guitar riffs.

As far as I can tell, this was a knee-jerk response by a lot of people who either a) aren't comfortable with heavy metal music or b) aren't used to hearing it in video games. Either way, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the video game review industry was completely wrong about this.

In fact, the soundtrack for Warrior Within is absolutely top notch. It's fantastic. The middle eastern sounds mixed with heavy guitar chords blend wonderfully. And far from being inappropriate, the resulting music completely defines the tone of the game, which is of course is what it was meant to do.

In other words, Ubisoft made a very bold artistic choice with this game's soundtrack, and then the musically-challenged game reviewers of the world thoroughly punished them for it.

To demonstrate my point, I will now provide examples of critical reviewer comments that I found using google, mixed in with some samples of the game's actual music. If you want to listen to the entire game soundtrack, you can do so here.

But first, the trailer for the game, to give you some idea of what it's all about:

And now a few complaints:

...the musical score is a totally out of place hard rock thumpfest, complete with roaring guitars and drum solos. It's as though Ministry were hired to design the soundtrack of the next Super Mario Brothers; the music and the game exist in totally different worlds. (source)

Except for the cutscenes, the sound is just plain bad. And AHH! the music! Why did godsmack have to play for this game! Its just as bad as the voices! Why does it play when I am doing nothing? Or not play during a battle? When I'm walking on a beam, thats not exactly the time I want to hear crappy rock blasting in my ear. Then again, I never want to hear that. (source)

Also the soundtrack is pretty awful. It uses too much uninspired trashy metal music. There are only few traces of the last game`s beautiful persian style rock music with female vocals. (source)

Oh. My. God. Ubisoft what have you done! A heavy metal rock soundtrack to accompany a game like this?! Are you joking?! Trust me, the game's soundtrack is awful. I gave the first game a 10 for its great music and nice voice acting, this game is the opposite. (source)

Genuine creative talent should not be rewarded with such scorn.