Obviously, Ubi Montreal went with the wider timing, and I couldn’t be happier. However, apparently gamers need to lose, or at least have the real threat of failure, before a victory has any value. For many of the reviewers I’ve read, just realizing that victory comes easily robs it of any enjoyment. I’m not sure why this is – are gamers’ egos so weak that they can’t bear to enjoy a victory unless they feel they have ripped it from the jaws of defeat? I can understand cautioning against the game to players that want a good challenge, but calling the game bad simply because it’s easy doesn’t compute at all.

The other half of the argument is more poignant; that the wide window on the controls breaks the illusion that the player is actually in control. To me, this smacks of players that blame a game for having any kind if cheat available, because that means they just have to use them. Just because the timing window is really wide doesn’t mean the player has to use it. Even cognizant of the wide window, I pressed the buttons the instant the Prince reached the ledge / pole / ring / whatever while playing. Even though the game didn’t require me to be so precise, being precise anyway created the illusion of control.

One might say that fooling one’s self in this way is cheap and shouldn’t be required. However, thanks to the aforementioned translating process of videogame actions, all controls are based on illusion. Until we get full-body sensory immersion VR suits, this will be true of any videogame. Besides, by the time we get full VR suits we’ll be living in a dystopian future where renegade AI cyborgs will be running around trying to kill us, so we’ll have bigger fish to fry. Plus there will be flying cars then, and once I get one of those I probably won’t need a videogame for a while.

Flying car or Madden 2019… easy choice.

PoP has removed several of the behind-the-scenes conventions that gamers are used to; chief among those being the potential for failure. Even so, why should that ruin the fun? These reviewers are the guys that can’t wait to tell you that space shouldn’t have sound when you talk about Star Wars, or just can’t get why Romeo and Juliet didn’t book it out of Verona the moment they got married. Try to have fun with a game before you look for all the ways you can’t.