The contrast between the games is not accidental. Warrior Within set out to improve on TSOT and it tried to do so by listening to gamers. What gamers said was, ‘Make it more like other videogames! We want to unlock things! We want combos! We want collectables!’ But there’s a problem with listening to gamers and it’s this: the ones that shout the loudest are the smallest minority. And even if a developer could find a way to listen to every single gamer’s preferences individually, they’d still only be hearing from a small sector of gaming’s potential market: many more people do not play games than those who do. What TSOT, with its staunch purity, hazy beauty and un-videogameness offered was something for people who don’t like what’s already available.



The same process happened with the aesthetic. Both TSOT and WW are fantastic pieces of design. Imaginative and disciplined, they create worlds that are both consistent and consistently beautiful. But WW’s world of gloom and grit is a world we’ve visited before. TSOT was a revelation in billowing silk and creamy marble, splashed with the colours of wine and jewels. Nor is it just the world – TSOT’s sophisticated characters have been pulled back into the realm of videogame convention. The prince has lost his aristocratic flair and his gentle English accent. The moment in WW when he snarls “YOU BITCH!” is the moment he ceases to be an individual and becomes a cipher, a new skin to slip over every other identikit hero you’ve ever played. The females fare no better, losing Farah’s womanly sensuality in a quest to sex her up with a painted-on thong and breasts like grapefruit. It’s a desperately disappointing step back from the leap that TSOT took by demonstrating so emphatically that games can portray female (and male) sexuality in a way that isn’t degrading, adolescent and ugly.

This isn’t a question of aesthetic snobbery. There will be many who prefer the grittier look of WW to the matinee-idol excesses of TSOT, just as there are some who cursed and some who cheered when they heard of the involvement of Godsmack. Nor is it a criticism of the designers’ intentions. However welcome more of the same would have been, TSOT 1.5 would have been an unambitious and ultimately self-defeating project. Changing the story and evolving the prince’s personality to reflect the horrors he’s endured is a laudable way to approach a sequel. The frustration is that instead of moving the game forward, it moved it back. WW showed us a game world we already knew would work. TSOT showed us that games could do things we didn’t know they could; it expanded the horizons, offering something genuinely different.



After then, those horizons shrunk back. 3D platforming did not experience a glorious renaissance. The industry looked inwards, relying on men, guns, cars and crime to appease its core market - and it still does. Sex largely remains an unmentionable taboo, with little on offer beyond Larry’s leisurely knob gags and an endless parade of ‘enhanced’ female characters in impractical underwear. Games are becoming ever more bloated, blindly trying to satisfy the illusory demands of an audience who only finish every tenth title they buy. TSOT’s slow sales mean that, despite critical acclaim and continuing popularity, its innovations are considered a failed experiment: rewind, rewrite, start again. Had it stormed to Christmas number one, history may have been very different. As it is, the stronger retail performance of Warrior Within (and the whooping 100 per cents awarded it by certain elements of the press) reflected a more likely direction for gaming: macho, bloody and moody.

It is perhaps as it should be. There is nothing inherently wrong with men, guns, cars or crime. In the last few months alone, games of true excellence have been released which create sparkling and unexpected experiences from those simple, staple ingredients. And it means TSOT doesn’t have to suffer the indignity of a dozen clumsy clones, diluting its brilliance and fudging its simplicity. Instead, TSOT hangs suspended, a moment of gaming magic preserved in gleaming amber. And there it will stay forever, untouched and unspoiled, waiting for you to come and listen again. “Sit down,” it says to you, softly, “for I have a tale to tell, like none which you have ever heard...”

This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in E146. Like what you’ve read? Buy your copy of Edge now for £4.50 and get it delivered to your door (UK and Europe only) www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/gamesradarshop.