There’s an inherent contradiction in this week’s ‘list’ of big releases. The scarcity of key titles suggests this week is as inconsequential as one in the height of the summer season, yet the two games below will give you more than enough purchase pondering to do before the year closes.

This week sees the release of Ubisoft’s most important game of the year in Prince of Persia, while Rockstar’s kingpin finally ships to the PC. UK readers should take note that Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City also hits the shelves.

Big release week or not, this is most certainly a big week for videogames. Black Friday has thrown the US into an official shopping season, while the opening of December gives us all a reason to drop hints to our loved-ones.    

This Week’s Big Releases.

Prince of Persia
Ubisoft Montreal
PS3/360/PC
US Release Nov 2 (PC Dec 9)
UK Release: Dec 5 (PC Dec 12)
 
A unique look for Ubisoft's flagship title is just as much a product of necessity as it is an artistic vision. The series' last-gen trilogy and spin-offs started to lag in appeal as soon as the Sands in Time template began sequelization, and a straightforward next-gen polygon-pushing update would only be an option if Assassin's Creed never existed. Where else could the team at Ubisoft Montreal go but somewhere new?
 
Regardless, Jean-Christophe Guyot and his team have taken the Prince somewhere quite spectacular. The game elegantly portrays both rich, ornate, sun-kissed landscapes as well as thick, oily and oppressive overcasts – all with the depth and detail as you would expect from the Anvil engine. Furthermore, the world is as open as the Prince can handle; with a freedom to pick lands to conquer while expedition between them remains tight and linear for the sake of fluidity.

Speaking of fluidity, Prince of Persia’s combat will adopt a staccato flow of traditional freeform action and QTEs. The principals behind this decision are understandable; Ubisoft Montreal wants to decorate its duels with some cinematic flair to complement its stunning looks. The system will certainly be in danger of suffocating the player through such rigid direction, though since the series isn’t exactly renowned for its fight mechanics, it’s worth a try.

There are a number of reasons to mention Ico, not least because the Prince travels, and fights, with a female companion. The difference between the two is that Ico's sheepish escort Yorda was your encumbrance yet the Prince's Elika is your saviour; not only can she carry the prince's jumps even further, and dip in and out of combat, but she also replaces the series' rewind function by continually pulling you from the jaws of death and back to safer grounds. You cannot die in Prince of Persia.

A big question looms over the difference here; if Yorda’s allure was found in her vulnerability does this mean Elika will be irritating through her superiority? Will she interfere? How empowering would a twenty-foot jump be if your hand was held along the way? Time will tell if this whole approach needs a rewind of its own.




Grand Theft Auto IV
Rockstar North/Rockstar Toronto
PC
US Release: Dec 2
UK Release: Dec 3
System Requirements

To encapsulate a certain happening this year:  Rockstar North delivered one of the greatest games of all time. The extent of the GTA IV’s universal praise was enough to make the cynics feel sick, as critics across the globe let loose their favourite adjectives to describe how admirable, how affecting, how exceptional an experience GTA IV is.

Keeping with the traditions of PC ports, the best iteration of GTA IV can now be found on a desktop. Rockstar Toronto has pushed back the draw distance, applied thorough customisation to the multiplayer games, expanded the online capacity to 32 simultaneous players, added more traffic, touched-up the lighting and given the game a perverse 2560x1600 max resolution.

While such advancements are wonderful yet expected, the real talking-point of the PC version is its video editing system. Within the game Niko will be consistently recorded for a period between 30 and 300 seconds (depending on how busy the action is), and at any point the player can rewind the action and view it from different angles and touch it up with a number of cinematic editing tools. This footage can then be saved onto your desktop or even uploaded to Rockstar’s Social Club website, opening a new avenue of exploration for machinima enthusiasts.

With all this in mind, the superiority of the PC version may not be enough to tempt those who have the console versions. On the other hand, maybe this will.