Having finished playing Prince of Persia : Warrior Within (hereby referred to as PoP2, because I am runnning late) I can say that I’m glad I waited to buy this game.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of the both the first and this second installment of PoP; I just think this is one of those games that would have left me on the fence if it was worth the full price.

As I stated before, this game has an “edgey-er” feel that translates to a more complex story and character develpment, and made me get into the game fairly quickly.

Robert Smith was was actually the model for the cover shoot….

The gameplay is what you would expect from an action adventure - that is, plenty of combos & incremental upgrades to combat moves - with the occaisional finishing move added as a bonus for in-game progression. I found the two weapon fighting scheme was a mixed bag. On one hand, it allows you access to some of the most spectacular moves. On the other hand, there’s a large ly superficial emphasis in the game differences between secondary weapons. It’s a fairly moot point due to the fact that they degrade rapidly and have to be disposed often. Overall, though, the added depth in moves is a worthwhile addition to game.

One sword, two swords, swing on a pole….either way it ends the same for these damned souls

The mechanics are smoother, there are less situations where twitchy or finicky controls causing you to die accidentally (usually at the end of completeing a difficult set muiltiple maneuvers). This is a fucntion of ’softening’ the sensitivity of the timing between acrobatic moves, and designing levels that stay both challenging AND enjoyable.

The boss battles are where I found something that Grinds My Gears. Because the story centers around your time travelling adventures as you chase a mysterious enemy (a chick who looks like she came from the S&M after hours club for those of you who like big pixels) - you are bound to repeat encounters with 2 adversaries. First: there is the Shadow of Death - the giant faceless thing chasing you in the picture below. He’s hard but substantially enjoyable to tangle with.

He’s big, and invincible….so don’t feel too bad if you have to ‘reload’ a few times

Then there’s “The Bitch” - as I call her. Yes she serves as the central catalyst to the tale…yes shes got a cool sword…but she sucks. As she appears more times than i can count in the game - I’m not giving her the satisfaction of being shown again here, it would just encourage her. It’s probably my profound lack of patience with women that caused me to bounce the controller off the wal la few times….but she really is annoying to contend with in the early stages. See, you have to fight her a few times before you get to the level where you can take more than a laughable amount of damage off her. Thus, every so often in the opening hours of the game you are treated to a drawn out, ’stab twice, flip around & backwards once’ ballet. Not fun. I have to stress the good point here - load times are very reasonable, and all cut-scenes (and there are many to move the story along) can be skipped after the first time they play. So there’s that too.

But maybe the designers were onto something. Because it makes the rest of the game even more enjoyable by comparison. And it teaches you something about life - mainly: no matter what you do, theres no hiding from a woman because now or later she’ll get you. (that last part was contributed by my fiancee - aj) Or more aptly, a bitch never lets go of the past (and in this game she might even chase you back there) .

Enough of my home life - I’d give you my heartfelt reccomendation to rent/buy this game. I woulnd’t give it a solid “Buy” because thers little replay value - but I enojyed the change of pace. There were no guns, no Elves, no shifty italian plumbers…just some time travelling with sexy Persian women, a big monster and tons of slice & dice.