Tag Archives: thomas simon

Ubisoft delighted many by announcing a return to the Sands of Time storyline with its imminent Prince of Persia release The Forgotten Sands, moving back from the IP’s 2008 reboot to a time-line concluded in 2005 with The Two Thrones.

Prince of Persia’s “never die” buddy system in 2008 was roundly criticised for making the game too easy, but despite moving back to a harder core, Forgotten Sands has stepped outside of the property’s norm again with mass combat and a movie tie-in, sitting alongside the May release of Disney’s film adaptation, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

So, with Ubisoft playing real “sands of time” games with the franchise, is all well with the Prince? We chatted to lead game designer Thomas Simon to find out.

Interview by Nathan Grayson.

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Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. lead designer Thomas Simon told MTV that although the team respects Namco’s Ace Combat, they feel the gameplay is too closed and promise the H.A.W.X. will rectify that.

“What ‘Ace Combat’ did to the air combat genre is really great,” Simon said. “They [Namco Bandai] really set the basics of that [genre].

“But we felt, in general, it was a bit closed…the frame was too tight and people are getting used to that; we wanted to refresh it a bit, so we opened it via new gameplay features.”

In order to do that, Simon reckons you need to feel part of the world you’re flying around in:

“We wanted to put it in the real world, so you’re not fighting in places that have no emotion,” he explained. “If I’m fighting above Washington, it means something more to me. That was a real choice.”

Ubisoft announced today that Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. is to be released for PC, 360 and PS3 in March.

By Mike Bowden