Stolen my time?
The problem with Stolen is that it’s so obviously cribbed from the successful titles that you expect it to be up to those standards but it isn’t. You find yourself fighting the controls as much as anything else. And those controls have been dumbed down so heavily that there’s no sense of satisfaction in completing a tricky jump or legging it up a wall and flipping across to catch a ledge. Prince of Persia had it just right with a fair amount of skill needed to pull of some of the moves. Stolen just requires you to hold the right button down when you start the move and it does the rest.
This wouldn’t be so bad if the environments you were in were mildly interesting, but graphically Stolen does nothing to promote the PS2’s graphic abilities. Dark, repetitive areas give way to more dark, repetitive areas and there are only four different levels. Imaginations have obviously run riot here with the standard museum and prison sections and what has to be one of the hardest opening levels in history. Yes, it has the very much needed training level as all the button of the pad are put to use in one way or the other, but then it starts trying to teach you stuff in the middle of when you’re being chased… you leg it by and miss what was being said as you’ll die otherwise… and then you have to start all over from the last save… not a prospect that I looked forward to.
