Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

The Good
Warrior Within, the sequel to the groundbreaking and excellent action-platformer Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, sees the franchise returning with a much darker, mature, moodier and harder edge episode - this time the prince is out to save himself, no matter the cost.

Starting with the biggest change, we'll start on the visual appearance of the Prince, obviously designed to 'sex him up' a bit. I like this new version of the prince compared to the wet and foppish younger Prince from the Sands of Time, you'll see this Prince brooding and 'tough guy' strutting his way through multiple levels of heart pounding action utilising all the leaps and acrobatics of the first game, plus featuring a vastly expanded 'free-form' combat system. In the combat system, combos can be performed using not one but two hand weapons allowing a sophisticated and very satisfying slash n' cut 'em experience. You'll awe in amazement as you slice your enemy in two, complete with a nice shade a red blood. :D The sands power is present, allowing a couple of special powers (rewind time, slow down time etc) that can be VERY handy.

Graphics are excellent all round, similar to Sands of Time but with a darker, sombre tone to it. Cut scenes look brilliant, will faces on the characters showing the right facial expressions. Note also that pretty much all the female characters have very revealing attire!

Music and sound are top notch, as you spar with your enemies, the Prince and enemies will utter tough guy quips - some can be unintentionally humorous ("Can you hear it? .. My blade calls for you..") and this is what makes the game a keeper for me. Great hard rockin' tunes from Godsmack complete the experience. I like the musical direction taken in this game compared to The sands of Time, at least it certainly appealed to my headbanging instincts!

The Bad
To be honest I can't really find a fault with this game. Everything blends into a seamless, easy to play action game. The difficulty in spots can be frustrating and I try to not swear in fury at these moments, but this could be construed as a positive for this game.

The Bottom Line
With this game being part of a fantastic trilogy of PoP games to revive the legendary Prince of Persia franchise, this is a must for any fan of action games. Its more violent, grittier, no-nonsense incarnation of a Prince is a great character as well.

The Good
I was fond of the old 2D Prince of Persia games, so was quite happy to see the series get the full 3D treatment. The Sands of Time is one of my favorite games and I believe holds up as one the best 2D --> 3D adaptations.

The sequel delivers largely more of the same with its elaborate jumping and platforming puzzles, which isn't a bad thing at all. There are several new kinds of traps, and best of all, the new chase sequences where you have to complete a section very quickly as a monstrous beast called The Dahaka is on your tail.

My main complaint about The Sands of Time was the combat. It was quite simplistic and the final boss fight was the easiest I've ever seen in a game. I beat it on my first try and only got hit once. In Warrior Within, the combat system has been completely revamped to have a great deal more depth. Rather than simply blocking until the enemy quits attacking, then attacking until they start blocking, you now have a wide variety of combos that grows and you progress.

Be warned though, this is only for ordinary combat. After the first couple bosses, you shouldn't be fighting bosses the regular way anymore. Don't waste time trying to figure out how to counter their attacks like I did. Bosses are fought almost entirely with sand powers. The game is insanely difficult if you don't realize this.

Everything about the presentation is masterfully done from the acting to the small graphical details that make the world come alive. I do have some issues with the creative direction though.

The Bad
The prince is now a complete stone-cold bad-ass, which frankly has been done to death. In The Sands of Time, he was a humble man forced into greatness by his circumstances. Here, his face seems to usually be stuck in a sneer and he taunts enemies with lines like "You should be honored to die by my blade," or "Death! Death, to to those who stand in my way!" Honestly, he was far more likable before. The game in general suffers from a lack of likable characters. There are, in essence, only three characters, all of whom seem only interested in saving their own hides. This doesn't work particularly well in the Prince of Persia IP.

That is a relatively minor complaint, though. My big problem with this game is glitch, glitch glitch. I beat the game once after finding about half the life upgrades. I then read online about a different ending you can get if you find all the life upgrades, so I restored from an early save and went searching. I was only two upgrades away from a whole set when I got stuck in the upper sacrificial chamber/past-southern passage (present) area by a glitch that makes it impossible to grab a certain ledge and therefore impossible to leave this section.

I restarted and played through again to get the other ending. I ran into another game ending bug toward the end of the game that stuck me in the mechanical tower with no way out. Luckily, this time I had learned to create multiple saves and only lost about an hour's time instead of the whole thing.

I also encountered several lesser bugs, such as doors I could walk through without opening them in several places and a cutscene that played when it wasn't supposed to. Reading around online makes it clear to me that my experience is far from rare. This game contains numerous bugs, several of which are fatal and will force you to scrap your saved game and start from scratch.

The Bottom Line
Prince of Persia: Warrior within is essentially an unusual combination of platformer, 3D weapon-based beat-em-up and heavy metal. This unfortunately narrows its appeal somewhat from its predecessor, but it still an excellent game if you are prepared to possibly have to use a walkthrough to avoid game-ending bugs.

The Good
In Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within you once again play as the prince this time much darker being hunted by a time creature called the Dahaka for his actions in the original game goes to the island of time in hopes to destroy the sands of time before they were created and his ship on the way to the island is attacked by Shadee the bodyguard of the empress the creator of the sands of time.

The combat is much approved from that of the first one with a whole roster of moves at the princes use fight are much easier in the one against the lumbering hulk you have to fight throughout the game.

There are new parts in the game in which you are chased by the Dahaka and must run and evade him which changes the pacing a little and truly gives you the feel you are playing a different game than the first one for better or for worse.

The game has too endings getting the best requires you to get all the life upgrades and defeat a different final boss who is harder.

The Bad
The game has many bugs some Gamestopping and too much back tracking through past and present and because of this you fight the giant boss like eight times throughout the game and makes it that you see the same areas.

The darker look and feel of the feel makes it hard to believe that this is a sequel to Sands Of Time and some even hate this new direction but the third game the Two Thrones brings back the lighter theme.

The Bottom Line
If the new dark feel doesn’t bother you and you enjoyed the Sands Of Time or didn’t because of the combat since the game fixes that you should get this.