Most of the video game reviewers complain that the new Prince of Persia is too easy. The prince cannot die since Elika, his new sidekick, will always save you. If you jump to the wrong place or pit, Elika with her magic power will grab and save you from falling down to the bottomless pit. The fighting mechanism is very simple that some people can do it with their eye closed.

I am quite surprise that the game gets a bad review for these features. Because for me, this game is a bless.

As a grown up with a full time job, I am juggling between work, family, gaming, exercise, sketching, facebooking, friends, and my personal game projects. Game which requires long time to master or finish cannot fits to my schedule anymore.

Some people might have said to me, why don’t you buy or play casual or easier game? Well, I am not a casual gamer. I’ve played Prince of Persia since it was on PC. I played all the Sand of Time trilogy. I enjoy frustrating platformers like Megaman series, Yoshi Island, or Super Mario Bros. I am hungry for more hardcore game titles!

I am a hardcore gamer (so does my wife) but I realize that I cannot finish games like Final Fantasy XII anymore despite I like it very much. It’s too long and takes a lot of dedication.

I already schedule every weekend for Final Fantasy Tactics A2 on my DS. So I have only 30 minute (or 1 hour if I am lucky) on workday evenings.

This prince of Persia fits me. I feel that I can achieve something in this tiny amount of time, and the game is very forgiving. You actually can die on Prince of Persia but instead showing the traditional game-over-continue screen, you get a short animation of Elika saving you from falling. This gives you the feeling of ‘hey, I don’t die. Let’s do it again’ feeling.

I’ve tried the demo of Mirror’s Edge. After 30 minutes playing (with a lot of fallings/dying), I was frustrated and I stop playing it. I am not saying the game is bad, it’s just not for me.

Some gamers said the more forgiving games are not challenging. For me it is. Allocating time for following and playing good games is already challenging enough for me. I wish that more and more games are friendly to people like us, older and used to be hardcore gamers.

Beside, don’t those game designers also getting older and have family too?