Prince of Persia (Sony Playstation 3, 2008)

Forget what you know about the Prince of Persia series. Let go the Sands of Time. Release your Warrior Within. Ubisoft Montreal has created a new Prince, in a new world, with a new female companion and a very different design philosophy. The longer you hold on to the style of last generation's Prince of Persia, the harder it will be to master the new one. Embrace the change and you're likely to fall in love with the new Prince (or at least his lovely companion).
This time around, the eponymous star is tossed into a conflict between light and dark as the evil god Ahriman is released from his prison beneath the Tree of Life. His touch has corrupted a nearby kingdom; alongside the mysterious princess Elika, it's your job to cleanse the world of gooey blackness and put the bad guy back in the ethereal hoosegow.

Mostly, that involves jumping, sliding, gripping and slipping through over twenty levels worth of platforming mania. It's billed as an open-world experience, and in a sense, it is: based on which magical powers you choose to unlock, you will tackle the world in a different order. It's a nice change of pace from the linear approach typical of most adventure games.

It's just not as open-ended as you might think. Telltale signs point you towards certain run-able walls, which will in turn send you tumbling directly towards the right pole, which is handily placed right in front of that useful column, and onward. Simple controls make the whole thing easier than past Prince of Persia games -- you never have to press loads of buttons or get fancy with the analog stick -- but more seasoned gamers might find it plays more like a guided tour than a truly free-roaming experience.

OVERALL
9/10

THIS IS A MUST BUY AND WILL MAKE A GREAT GIFT!

I love the Graphics, but that's about it. Not really an action game, more a platformer. The game is primarily jumping, climbing, and wall-running to collect "light-seeds", with a handful of battles in every board. You cannot die in this game (Since Elika will save you every time), which saved some of the frustration on the jumping/climbing sections...but also took away way too much of the challenge, and makes fighting kind of lame. I thought the controls were okay, and the fight-combos can be fun (Especially the use of 2-people (you and Elika) and long chain combos)...just not really much need, since fighting is rare.

PROS:
1. Stunning "water color" stryle graphics.
2. Cool Combo System and the "Elika" moves and chain-combos are cool to master(Triangle triggers her moves, X is acrobatic attack, O is throw and Square is normal sword attack), and combos can be used that end in another combo type, and chained together...i.e - you cna start an Elika combo that ends in a throw and than begin a throw combo that ends in an Acrobatic combo, into a throw combo, etc... and if done right, some of the combos can be 10+ hits by chaining together 3 or 4 combos.
3. Cool wall-running and climbing to get evrywhere. If you fall you are caught by Elika and placed on the last "solid" surface you were on. This is nice since falling isn't automatic death and restart level...that would have been brutally frustrating.

CONS:
1. Not enough fighting. Only a hand-full of single enemies and a boss each level. Non very difficult.
2. Cannot die in fighting. Very odd, it seems impossible to lose, as Elika steps in whenever you are about to die.
3. Awkward controls. In a game all about moving around the board, but the controls are a little clunky.
4. Not really any depth whatsoever to the gameplay. Find a boss, kill it, and than run around that area and collect light-seeds to open up a new area. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat...you get the point!!

As a fan of the Prince of Persia from all the way back in the 1991 four-color PC days, I was geeked that the seventh game in the series was coming out last year, and preordered it, took it home, tore it open, and laid into it immediately. I followed the game's development from first announcement until then, and God, I wish I could give this game a better review, because it looks like a lot of work into it.

The game's principle problem is what everyone else says it is: it gets very tedious and repetitive. The Prince is quite the acrobat and moves through the game with impressive grace and skill, but he's hogging all the fun. You just press the jump button occasionally, and sometimes the hand button. Once in a great while, you'll have to aim him in a direction, or make him shimmy up or down a pole, but apart from that the game makes it childishly simple to achieve any success at all. I very strongly got the impression that the game was an exuberant child that was begging my permission once every five seconds for permission to go up the playground slide and come down again, and that pressing X was the same as saying 'Yes, go on.'

The combat is something of a unique experience, and not the good kind of unique. The designers tried to innovate, and they kind of did, but all their good decisions were mired in the peat bog of keeping the game easy and choking on the fetid gasses of trying to appeal to manga/anime fans. I expect the Prince to defy a little gravity in a fight, but if he can fling an enemy fifty feet in the air, then leap up there to slash them, why can't he just use his prodigious skills to skip the tediously long wall-running-with-rings sequences with a mighty vault? To make matters worse, the Prince can only take two hits in a fight, and you WILL get hit, as the only way to defend against the enemy is to deflect their attacks, since blocking is usually a one-way ticket to death, as the enemy will slowly shove you to the edge of the arena and use the wall / cliff / black goo to mutilate you.

There's no character advancement to speak of, as the only unlockable bits are extra powers for the Prince's companion, which are generally just passkeys to get into new areas, as they don't make the combat any different, and don't add much to the travel, except to change which button you must press to placate the exuberant child.

That being said, this game does have positive aspects, and that's the usually in the art. The game is absolutely gorgeous, and I find myself frequently pissed that there's no camera function in this game like there was in Little Big Planet, because I would adore the chance to snap pictures of many scenes and festoon my room with them. If the designers set out to make a storybook-looking game, then they succeeded. Everything, despite being in motion and apparently three dimensional, looks like a well-illustrated storybook.

I am also quite pleased with the story, which actually draws the 'Persia' part of 'Prince of Persia' in. The foundation for the story is based on the traditions of Zoroastrianism, the state religion of Iran (Persia, according to the Greeks) for centuries. The seven prominent players in the story almost all have a third dimension, and you can choose how much chatter you want to hear from the characters, though frustratingly you must come to a complete stop to see the Prince and his sidekick trade dialogue. I would have appreciated some chatter to break up the platforming.

I waited a long time for this game to come out. I was very excited when it was finally released. I loved the Prince of Persia series on the PS2 and was hoping for something like that...I didn't get it. I have to say that I was let down by the new Prince of Persia. Yeah, it looks good visually but looks can only take you so far. The gameplay is very repeatative and boring. You're free to roam around but theres nothing to do. You can only use your weapon when enemies are around. The combat is one on one, all the time. I can tell you how each stage is in the game...do some acrobatics, fight the boss, do more acrobatics while collecting light seeds. That's it. EVERY SINGLE STAGE IS LIKE THAT. About half way through this game, I just gave up because it was so boring. Same thing over and over and over. No surprises, no real combat, no tricky puzzles. Am I being pessimistic? I don't think so. This is a renter at best. Game of the year? Not even close!

ok so the prine is back and is looking better than ever. the graphics are top notch and the level design is great. you should know however that this game dosent have anything to do wit the original triology and is the begining of a new one for the current gen of consoles. the game supposrts 1080p and for a good reason!, it looks great, is very fluid in terms of animation, and is very colorful!(we havent been seeing alot of that these days as everything is mostly black and grey). when i say colorful i mean there are great and vibrant colors everywhere, which really broaden up my collection of dark toned games. now for the draw back........the game is way tooooo easyyy!!. wheres the challenge?? you cant die? dam. i guess they were trying to get some of the pus...i mean more laid back gamers to try their game this time around. this is the only thing stopping me from giving it a 5 rating. thanks!