Prince of Persia did many things for the action-platform scene. When the remake first came out in stunning 3d, I truly wondered if Ubisoft Montreal could pull off a remake that did justice to the original. They did so successfully, hailing in one of the best 3d platformers to hit both the console and the PC. That said, a sequel long in production usually has to surpass the expectations built upon from its first (ahem* Half Life 2). Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (PoP:WW) does live up to expectations, but while innovating also some how manages to introduce some more nuisances that the first PoP did not have.

I usually start off my game review with the pros, but for this review in particular I’ll go backward. The cons, if you will:

Introducing one of the most frustrating games known to humankind

This game is ridiculously frustrating. There were times when I told the little prince to jump right, but instead he randomly decides to hop off in the other direction into a spiked pit happily like some ignorant fool. There is dying due to poor playing skills and there is dying due to camera angles and awkward controls. PoP:WW is unfortunately haunted by some poor camera angles that are tilted slightly so that up and left are ambiguous directions (and sometimes diagonals are used but also ambiguous). With time the gamer gets better at repositioning the camera to reduce this problem, but until you get used to adjusting the camera as a part of gameplay, the leading cause of death for the prince is probably going to be his random impulse to jump the direction you do not tell him to. This results in a lot of Game Over screens and reloading which can be extremely irritating.

We obviously listened to our player feedback and decided to emphasize the weakest part of the first PoP, the fighting

The problem with the first PoP was partly the fighting. PoP:WW tries to innovate by introducing more moves for a fluid battle system where you can chain together a bunch of moves. The cool idea was also to toss in two-handed fighting skills where the prince has one hand wielding the sword and in the other hand can pick up other weapons and toss them at opponents or use them for an extra blade. It’s cool that they tried to innovate the gameplay, but it is still extremely redundant especially since the two-handed slashes are the most dominant moves, moves that can be used repeatedly to kill nearly every enemy in the game. There are also some problems with the new battle moves. With one move, the prince jumps over a person and finding himself in contact with a wall, rather than stabbing the guy from the back, decides to launch himself like a missile toward an enemy (not necessarily the enemy you were focusing on though). This sometimes results in prince launching himself haphazardly into a spiked pit, and can also result to extreme frustration.

To add to the already redundant gameplay, the designers decided, more was better. This means where in the first if you fought like 4 guys for a fair battle, in PoP:WW you will fight 8 minions and possibly 10-14 later on, dragging out battles with hordes of more identical bad guys. They should have stuck to lesser and focused on making more puzzles instead of tweaking the battle system.

The Prince is one pretty boy, but the other characters are kind of bland and chunky

This is a graphical complaint in terms of character design, because I have no idea why but the prince is made extraordinarily well as a character model with extremely sharp textures and detail to his face, but then if there’s anyone else on the screen, they look low-polygon, with minimal textures and lack of detail. This is probably more of a complaint due to the fact hi-polygon PC games like Doom 3 and Half Life 2 existing. PoP:WW is designed to be a console game, so they naturally focused more of the graphical power into the main character. Still I can’t help but notice this every time I play, even despite my Radeon 9800 Pro doing some magnificent rendering to attempt to make up for the lack of detail, and it irritates me.

The game gets easier and less exciting as you near the end

For some odd reason this game seems to defy the normal game design standards where the game progressively gets harder and the game seems to build up to a climax. PoP:WW instead seems to get easier (since your character gains more and more control of time, more life and better weapons) and then not only that, the plot after a nice build up to the middle, seems to go the other way and slow down, finishing on a fairly abrupt anti-climatic battle. If you do get the alternate ending, the ending is more satisfying but it requires a lot more effort.

A common dilemma: not enough bad guys

I can name the game’s bosses in what barely makes up a line of text.

Golem, crow-guy, Dahaka, empress, big bird, empress’ helper.

The bad guys fit about two lines of text:

Crow, variations of sand swordman, ninja girl & invisible variations, knife throwing sludge men, explosive dogs, wolves.

That is a sad, sad display of just how limited the bad guys are, despite having great environments for them. More bosses would have been better, especially ones that don’t die after so few hits and have ridiculously predictable fighting patterns. Why doesn’t anyone take a hint and throw in some truly large scary bosses like in Devil May Cry? The bosses in PoP:WW are a cinch especially near the end when you can slow time back to back and just repeatedly whack at them. Add that to a near infinite life meter, and you have a game that is much easier than its predecessor.

What the-? The game crashed?

Finally this is probably the biggest gripe that has been reported by console gamers and PC gamers. It is also recorded in the FAQs on the internet, showing that this problem isn’t just my pc, it’s a problem with the program. Through the time it took me to beat the game twice to get both endings, the game crashed 3 times and one time the Prince eerily disappeared and then reappeared after I reversed time. Ubisoft in general makes very quality games and I don’t recall the first PoP having such problems, but unfortunately PoP:WW does seem like a rushed release in time for Xmas and is therefore not nearly as finely-tested a product as it should have been. Hopefully a patch will be released to ensure stability, but for those who bought the console version, this obviously isn’t possible.

The irritations aside, the pros:

An environment worthy of a prince

The graphics cannot be emphasized any more. The use of lighting effects that make chambers glow with dazzling gleam, caves filled with volumetric fog, and the high quality textures that fill each room all really come together to make this game alive. In addition there are a huge range of environments, from the ship to the beachfront, to caves, mechanical towers, the throne room and perilous cliff sides. Nothing beats hanging over a cliff side and seeing the vast sky, the ocean below and the hazy outline of towers off in the distance.

The controls that Tomb Raider should have had

When Tomb Raider came out, I must have jumped off a ledge about 300 times by accident due to the terribly irresponsive controls that don’t seem to initiate jumps when they should. PoP:WW solves this like the first by having sticky controls in the sense that if you press the button at the right place and point to the right direction, you will end up where you should be. Most of the jumps can be reduced to simple, point and hit button, and there is a minimal of tricky diagonal jumps. The problem as emphasized before was the ambiguity of some of these camera angles, but as soon as the player gets used to it, control becomes so fluid that the game becomes like watching a series of coordinated circus moves. My second time playing the game over I was surprised at how I could run through this game without stopping much, the result of extremely well-tuned controls.

The attitude, and the girls

In most of the interviewers with the artistic designer, they mentioned that the sequel would introduce a darker prince. And that said, he is darker, literally. He has a raggedy hairdo, chain mail and a bunch of tattoos. To emphasize his badness, the game also uses heavy metal during action sequences. The presence of scantily clad women as the game’s enemies (the empress and her thong-toting helper) also symbolize the game’s targeted audience of young adults and teenagers. All in all, it works out well, I liked the attitude adjustment, and it did nothing to detract from the sequel.

The plot, simple as it may be is also fitting. The Prince’s fate for having used the sands of time is inevitable death. So, as any good hero would, he selfishly decides to change his fate by going to destroy the maker of the sands of time, the Empress. It is your standard video-game plot with a minimal of talk and more emphasis on gameplay, but it does the trick for me.

Extra artwork, secret weapons and an alternate ending

A platform game needs to have some replayability and PoP:WW smartly adds in some hidden unlockable art and an alternate ending requiring that you collect all the hidden life upgrades to get. Both are worth getting in some sense as they add more depth to the game’s overly simply objectives of getting to point A to B and help keep the gamer’s eyes peeled for secrets. A straight run through this game will take about 10-12 hours, and a more in-depth one where you cover every secret weapon and artwork and go for the extended ending will use up about 13-15 hours. All of it well worth the time, the illustrations are extremely cool and the alternate ending is a most get (as the regular ending sucks).

Regarding the Mature rating

Finally for the parents, PoP:WW is rated Mature, and why? Scantily clad women, decapitations of enemies with blood, and the game suggests sex in the alternate ending though it does not show it. All in all, it isn’t all that bad, about the equivalent of watching WWF Smackdown minus the foul language, so I’d say it is appropriate for ages 13+ though obviously targeted maybe more at the 16+ audience.

Conclusion:

Loved it, but it wasn’t the ultimate sequel. In some sense, after a while it felt like the same old PoP but with a new look, better graphics, and a somewhat improved combat system, although with unfortunately added redundancy and more awkward suicidal moments. PoP:WW does not fully eliminate the camera angle problems the first had; in fact I felt I died more in the sequel than in the original due to awkward camera angles.

They could have done more. Montreal Ubisoft could have made more Zelda like puzzles that require a little more thinking and introduced some more enemies with better AI to boot. The lack of good fighting despite the improved fighting system is a bit disappointing. The occasional lockup during gameplay was also a drag. But still, the faults are minimal, PoP:WW despite some shortcomings, is a solid action platformer and worth renting for a solid week’s worth of entertainment.

Recommended: Yes