Prince of Thieves rides again (Prince of Persia (PS3))

Member Name: jaeger138

Product:	Prince of Persia (PS3)
Date:	06/09/09 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Doesn't punish players for mistakes and looks absolutely beautiful

Disadvantages: Tedious and repetitive

The Prince is back! But he's not the same man. The original trilogy has ended, and the persian royalty has changed faces, but is the new Prince as good as the old one?

This game sees us controlling the Prince once again; early in the game the Prince will meet Elika, his partner for the remainder of this episode. She has magical powers and is forced to join sides with the Prince in order to save her dying kingdom. An ancient evil has been released and it is the job of Elika and the Prince to seal this evil back where it came from by unleashing Elika's powers to return her ancient land to it's green and vibrant glory.

The Prince is, like his predecessor, well versed in the art of Parkour (or free running) making him able to wall run and make death defying leaps without even a thought. The Prince has a new weapon, and it's a claw. This hand attachment is not only for attacking, but also for slowing the decent down a vertical surface, otherwise known as walls. The added bonus of this game is Elika, oh Elika. She really is, unlike many videogame companions, an asset. If there is a jump that's too far or too high, if you make a mistake and jump the wrong way off a ledge, Elika is here to help. She will magically appear at the press of a button, throwing you further to reach your destination. On the other hand, if you're too late to press the button, or the mistake is too bad to rectify, She will appear anyway, transporting you with her back to the ledge from whence you jumped.

So what does that all mean? You can't die! That's right, while technically it counts as a death, it's not really. There's no starting from the last checkpoint, no reloading your last save and wasting 30 minutes of gameplay, just appeqring where you were before you made the mistake! Elika truly is an asset. Admittedly, you won't get the trophy for completing the game without being saved, but it's a step forward!

This truly is a revolutionary step forward, and I'll post a link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw_upFVDIkQ&fe ature=channel) to tell you why. This guy has hot the nail on the head of why this is such a great game for beginners to gaming and vets at the same time, and I'd hate to steal his words, but I shall type a summary of them for those who don't feel like watching:

Games shouldn't punish the player for mistakes. How many games have you been put off by because you got to a hard section and were forced to do it upwards of 20 times? Ok, it makes it a satisfying feeling when you finally finish it, but why should the game punish you when it made something hard? Prince of Persia eliminates this by allowing you to try each section again, not from 20 minutes back in the game, nt from checkpoits or savepoints, but from where you screwed up. ew players don't get frustrated and it's perfectly acceptable to more experienced players too!

Anyway, on to other points. The stylised look of this game is really quite attractive. The characters are highlighted with black outlines, giving them a comic book type look, but the scenery is vast, detailed and gorgeous to take in. There are various different environments ranging from snowy wasteland to ancient tower, and each one is as beautiful as the last. The land is vast though, and travelling times can be long. Thankfully, if you've visited somewhere already you are given the option of quick travelling there, which is helpful, but it can still be a bother at times. Luckily, the scenery is so gorgeous it should keep you entertained enough the first couple of times you have a long way to go.

The problems with this game come in the form of something Ubisoft doesn't seem to quite have understood, repetition. In a couple of their titles they have tasked the player with repeating the same task over and over in order to progress. This isn't what I want in a game, but that;s what PoP provides. The task is, visit an area, collect some orbs to build up power, fight something and then use Elika's magic fit to return the land to what it was. You'll have to repeat that formula a lot in this game, and it does get frustrating. The first trilogy saw us solving puzzles in the environment, turning things, pushing things, climbing things to find a way. Here, most of that is done away with for the same repetitive task. Not good Ubisoft, when will you learn?

The battle system is terrible too, you can either hit them with your weapon, use your claw or, in a very manly and non-qowardly way, chuck your girlfriend at them. There are no more life bars, killing enemies means using a particular move or shoving them off a cliff. Boss fights are uninspired and dull for the most part and I long for the days when I was freely smashing up enemies and jumping on bosses backs to stab them in the head.

The voice acting isn't great in this one, and the script feels a little mish mash. One minute Elika is as hard as a rock, her personality impenitrable, the next minute she's flirting with the Prince like mad. The Prince himself is a little confusing as well, not much about him is revealed and we are left wondering why, if he's a prince, he is found at the start with a donkey, looking around for treasure to steal. This may be something that's expanded on in later games but for now we are left in the dark. The Prince can seem rather childish at times, but it becomes part of his personality very quickly and you learn to accept it, but he is much too naive, like many macho characters in games today.

The ending leaves something to be desired, to say the least, but there is an expansion for this which adds 3 extra hours of play to the end, but as with many expansions of this type, I find myself asking why it wasn't in the game to begin with. 3 hours isn't much for the price you have to pay but there's no use in arguing, what's done is done.

All in all, this is a great game to play for anyone and everyone. It's a fun adventure, if a little tedious at times, and it's very user friendly. It combines some of the old with some of the new, and it's not all perfect, but it does the job fairly well for the most part. A worthwhile purchase and a fun experience for those with the patience to or devotion to the title.

Summary: You won't regret your foray into the world of the Prince