Lately it’s hard for me to finish video games, books, or TV shows that aren’t directly related to my job. I’ve owned Prince of Persia PS3 for months now, but until last week I’d been stuck halfway through the game. I checked my saves and the previous save time was in early March.

It’s not because I didn’t enjoy the game — far from it. I’d say this is the first 3D POP that pays true homage to the original two 2D games while still being something new, fun, and beautiful. Yesterday I realized I had enough time to sit down and plow through the last little bit — about two and a half hours of gameplay — and I did. Straight through until the last boss fight, the game is incredible. If it had ended after the last boss fight, as the Prince is walking down that corridor carrying something I won’t spoil while credits scroll to his left, then I would probably have placed the game somewhere high in my all-time best games pantheon.

But that’s not where it ends. Instead, the developers decided that the ending you’d just witnessed wasn’t right, and allow you to undo it. It makes absolutely no sense. The whole game the Prince is an incorrigible vagabond with a sharp tongue, but he does manage to learn and grow as a character over the course of the game’s events. Later on, he even starts looking to Eleka before checking to see if he himself is injured. The hint of romance that’s there in the beginning of the game, when the two protagonists meet for the first time, is well-played and develops believably through to the end. And yet, all of that falls to the sword-stroke of whomever wrote that little epilogue in order to give Ubisoft an easy out for sequel creation.

I mean, I can’t imagine they did what they did for any other reason than, “If you end it how it ends there, we can’t make an exciting sequel!” I know they’re planning on a trilogy of games. But that doesn’t excuse taking 15 or so hours of good writing and very good voice acting and ruining them through one set of bad choices that don’t make sense when looking at the characters.

It just doesn’t make sense that a team that got everything else right in this game could make such a horrific mistake after they’d already won. I may not get the second and third games, I’m so annoyed.

At least my iPhone and DSi aren’t as disappointing. The kinds of games I can fit in are the kinds I can boot up and play through a level or two of on the train. Lately Rolando has become a minor obsession, and I’m looking forward to Rolando 2 when it hits end of June. On the DSi I took the plunge and did a download of Mighty Flip Champs. It’s a really neat game that utilizes the two screens to make an interesting puzzler that’s fun, quick, easy to pick up, and full of great art and fun sprites. Had I know it was a WayForward game before I’d bought it I’d have been less hesitant. These are, after all, the guys who made Shantae, one of the best platformers on any platform and probably my favorite GBC game ever. I wonder when the DS version will hit? They did a tonne of work on the GBA version and it never saw the light of day.

So yeah… Developers, if you’re trying to tell a good story, also try not to jump a shark in the last five minutes. Me, I’ll be exchanging both Street Figher IV and Prince of Persia when I have a chance.