The ‘Fresh’ Prince
Anyone who has played the other games from Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia series will know how freaking awesome ‘Sands of Time’ was and then how it all went thoroughly tits up thereafter.
But now along comes the Prince of Persia of the new generation; and now it’s its own entirely new game with very little link to its predecessors besides allowing you to run along walls, ceilings and other various pieces of fantastic looking masonry like a hyperactive twelve year old trying Red Bull for the first time. We are treated with new characters and a stunning new cell shaded graphical style as well as getting the shiny light hearted tone of the ‘Sands of Time’ back. Which is a relief as the Gothic presentation of ‘The Warrior Within’ and ‘Two Thrones’ was getting a bit outdated and downright dull.
The story begins with our new ‘Prince’ looking for his donkey load of stolen goods in a mystical sandstorm that transports him to another land, where he runs into Elika, a beautiful princess and descendent of the clan of warriors whose job it is to guard the prison of Ahriman, God of Darkness. Unfortunately their meeting could not have happened at a worse time, as just minutes later they bear witness to Ahriman’s release from his prison consuming 4 areas of the world in Corruption. Funnily enough it falls down to the Prince and Elika working together to heal these infected lands and re-imprison Ahriman through the use of the ever inevitable collectable orbs.
As you’ve probably guessed this is another game where you are provided with an AI character that allegedly helps you out in some way, but get this. Elika is actually useful! Forget Dom’s 
useless attempts at hitting anything smaller than a Barn door in Gears of War, forget that useless runt of a pup you are provided with in Fable 2 that insists on barking like mad to tell you he’s found a hat while you’re fighting off a horde of zombies; believe it or not you will actually grow to like Elika.
Her many uses range from providing you with double jumps to clear larger gaps and magical attacks to use to start or link combos together right down to a friendly conversation at the click of a trigger. But Elika’s most useful ability is to save you from any and all accidental screw-ups that would otherwise kill you. You might say this makes the game far too easy, but that is not the case. This ability simply acts as a check point by taking you back to the last spot
some of the dialogue is pretty cheesy, especially some of what the Prince comes out with
that you had both your feet firmly on the floor, although it adds much more flow to the game by providing a reason to why you just survived that 900 foot drop as well removing any annoying loading screens that you might see in other games every time you ‘die’.
I found myself getting quite attached to the mismatched pair as I played through the game and even the optional conversation sequences between them were mildly entertaining and provided a lot of background to the characters for those who are interested; although some of the dialogue is pretty cheesy, especially some of what the Prince comes out with. But you still can’t help but like him. The animations while travelling also build a sense of friendship between the pair as the Prince will catch Elika as she jumps from vines and he will help her up to ledges you hang from creating a nice partnership.
The controls are also pretty damn smooth and the free-running aspect of the game is, to be honest something special. You get a real sense of rhythm as you jump from one wall to the next before swinging round a pole and launching yourself to another wall covered in handy vines to climb. You feel more like you’re playing a dance game than a platformer as you press relevant buttons in time with what you want to do. ‘A’ jumps and performs acrobatic manoeuvres such as jumping and running on walls and ceilings, ‘B’ grabs very 
conveniently placed rings and objects that can be used to propel yourself extra distances and ‘Y’ is used to get Elika to work her magic performing double jumps and allowing use of magical ‘plates’ that start gravity defying special actions such as flying and running at super speed along walls and ceilings. Although I did find that the camera angle was often confusing to the point I was ready to plant my controller into the face of next door’s cat. It often changes unexpectedly in mid-acrobatics causing you to jump towards a platform that you were sure was there a second ago, only to find that Elika has grabbed your arm and dragged you about 500 yards, and at least a million obstacles back to your feet, this is especially true when jumping from poles as it provides a fixed angle but keeps the movement controls the same as they would be if you were viewing from behind your character causing you to often try to jump in one direction only to realize you’ve dived into a puddle of primordial ooze.
Combat follows more or less the same concept as free-running and revolves a lot around blocking and countering to set up combos which are performed by single button pushes. You can use Grabbing attacks to throw enemies around, sword attacks, acrobatic attacks and Elika’s magic attacks to create jaw dropping attack sequences, each one having a flowing cut-scene depending on order of attack. Although one problem I did have with the games combat is that there really isn’t much of it. On your way to each objective you can expect to see about two enemies of which you never have to fight more than one of at the same time, and then one of four boss fights once you get there, and once you’ve beaten a boss once you’ve beaten it every other time you encounter it because it always follows the same concept and tactic. Another annoyance for me was the messages that pop up telling you when to block and avoid attacks. I’m pretty sure I could have worked this out for myself and it takes away from the challenge of a fight that is already pretty easy, even my eleven year old brother was getting pissed off with it after about three boss fights so I’m not sure it’s necessarily needed, even for younger players.
The visuals however cannot be faltered; the entire free-roaming world looks beautiful. The infected areas of the map are dark and grey with a black rimmed ‘Fish Eye’ camera view, giving a definite sense of evil and corruption while your character always stands out in perfect light and colour, allowing for easier recognition of positioning when taking on harder obstacles. After healing corrupted areas that area of the map becomes a paradise of plants, flowers, butterflies and rainbows, removing various obstacles caused by the infection and allowing for more exploration and orb collection.
In conclusion I’d say that Prince of Persia is a bloody good game, it’s challenging enough to last you a while, especially working towards some of the harder Xbox achievements. And it holds your hand enough for younger and casual gamers to get to grips with it pretty quickly and easily. It’s certainly not the best game you’ll buy this year but it should certainly be one of them.
The Bad: – Camera can cause problems at times.; – Not enough variation
in objectives.; – Amount of combat is lacking.
Silver Y Award