6. PRINCE OF PERSIA (2008) (XBOX 360, PS3, PC)
2008’s Prince of Persia reboot is perhaps a game that will be judged more unfairly by history than it should be. The game was a beautiful, moving peace of art, telling an involving story with well defined and well developed characters, and relying on gameplay that challenged that convention.
This included, of course, QTEs in what was largely a platforming based game. The decision might seem to be baffling somewhat, since the main purpose of a QTE in addition to its cinematic value is to add to the sense of urgency that the game makes the player feel, but in Prince of Persia, you cannot die. Nonetheless, QTEs remained an extremely effective gameplay mechanism in this game, and certainly helped it stand out from the swarm of increasingly undifferentiated games that continue to crowd the market.
5. KINGDOM HEARTS II (PS2)
The Kingdom Hearts series today stands for increasingly inane, meaningless, mundane and cynical handheld ports and spin offs, but at a time when it was still incredibly relevant, Kingdom Hearts 2 redefined the action RPG genre.With its excellent battle system, and its top of the line story, Kingdom Hearts II perhaps represents the zenith of the series to this date.
Its inclusion of pseudo QTEs was perhaps its biggest asset, as it actually wrested in the player the illusion of a choice; coupled with the cinematic flair with which it was accompanied as well as the general solidness of the game all round, it made for a game that will go down in history books as an undisputed classic.
4. HEAVY RAIN (PS3)
Following in the footsteps of Fahrenheit is what is arguably David Cage;s biggest, most ambitious game yet. With Heavy Rain telling a truly engaging story, the game chooses to go about its gameplay in an incredibly round about, counter intuitive and flawed way. Funnily enough though, these very same attributes of Heavy Rain’s gameplay, which might have broken any other game, are exactly what lend it all so much authenticity and depth.
David Cage is a visionary. His games have truly been at the forefront of providing a QTE based game experience that works, and that people will care about. With Heavy Rain, he has probably come as close to realizing his ambition as he ever will be.
