Prince of Persia and Gameplay Art

I am really fond of the aesthetics of »Ōkami«. I was therefore excited to read about the »Ōkami Art Book« over at The Brainy Gamer which seems to be an exhilarating collection of concept art from the game. I was equally excited to watch the gameplay walkthrough of the coming »Prince of Persia« game, posted on Kotaku and seen here above (sorry about the embarrassing cropping of the splash screen, WordPress is not my friend today).

My excitement lies not in the actual mechanics of the gameplay, even though these also look pretty interesting, but rather in how well gameplay mechanics and visual aesthetics seemed to balance each other. It was my experience playing »Ōkami« (though I haven’t played the latest Wii version) that the aesthetics from time to time almost worked against the gameplay rather than using the aesthetic limitations of the game to more thoroughly model the gameplay. »Prince of Persia« however, with it’s lovely rotoscope design, has a somewhat less ambitious aesthetics but in return seems to use it’s great visuals in favor of the gameplay (revealing places to grip, annunciating surroundings and foes etc.) and thereby creating a game that at least made my interest rocket from early nonchalance to high hopes of a new aesthetics in platforming.