Prince of Persia (Xbox 360)

Prince of persia is one of the longer running franchises in the video games industry, and after a rather successful comeback on the previous generation of consoles (the playstation 2 and gamecube et.c.) it has been re-invented yet again for the current generation. Although the main character's title remains the same he is a different prince to the previous set of games (The sands of time games) so players are unaware of this prince's past actions.
...the story starts with the prince wandering lost through the desert in a storm, when he suddenly falls down a cliff. After regaining his composure a woman lands in his arms and then runs off being chased by armed men. You then get to chase after her for a bit to try to find out what is going on and end up involved in the pursuit, as the armed men think you are helping the woman. Eventually the armed men catch up to you and a fight ensues giving you ... more

Prince of persia is one of the longer running franchises in the video games industry, and after a rather successful comeback on the previous generation of consoles (the playstation 2 and gamecube et.c.) it has been re-invented yet again for the current generation. Although the main character's title remains the same he is a different prince to the previous set of games (The sands of time games) so players are unaware of this prince's past actions.

Storyline

5/10

I may be being a bit harsh on this score but unfortunately I can't help it. I got to the end of the game only half understanding what exactly had gone on, due to some seemingly bizzare plot turns that made no sense and were never explained. Anyway, the story starts with the prince wandering lost through the desert in a storm, when he suddenly falls down a cliff. After regaining his composure a woman lands in his arms and then runs off being chased by armed men. You then get to chase after her for a bit to try to find out what is going on and end up involved in the pursuit, as the armed men think you are helping the woman. Eventually the armed men catch up to you and a fight ensues giving you chance to learn the basics of the combat system in the game. After the fight you travel with the woman, whose name is Elika, to take her back to her city. This section gives you an introduction to the platforming element of the game.
On returning to the city area, which is basically a bit of desert, you have to go to the temple, which has been built in a giant tree, although i don't remember really being told why i needed to go there, except for the fact that the woman wants you to take her there. Anyway on returning the woman home to the tree her dad shows up and it is explained to you that there are two gods: Ormazd, the good god, and Ahriman the evil god. You are told that Ormazd managed to imprison Ahriman in the temple with the tree of life after Ahriman tried to take over the land.
Well, ive tried to put that section of the story into as much detail as i can because from here onwards i lost it. It confused me so much at this point that i have forgotten exactly what was going on, but anyway either the king wanted Elika to leave, which she seemed to be trying to do at the start of the game, hence her being in the middle of the desert, so why send guards after her, or he wanted her to stay, which isn't a problem either, because you've just brought her back, but according to the king the only think that he can possibly do now is to cut down the tree of life and free the evil god. This struck me as somewhat odd. You also occasionally see visions during the game of Elika being dead. This wasn't explained, so i assumed they were visions of the future if Ahriman is free, which, in itself, doesn't seem an unreasonable suggestion. So I played through the entire game trying to understand why the king had randomly freed an evil god because he was a bit miffed at his daughter.
It was only after looking it up that I found out that they were visions into the past and they were actually of Elika having "already" been dead and that her father had made a deal with Ahriman to bring her back to life if he were to set him free. Knowing this now makes sense of everything but there seemed, in my opinion to be some convoluted storytelling involved that ended up confusing things needlessly.
That's why it scored so low.

The actual plot of the game is that Ahriman is in the process of escaping from his prison, and with him has come the "corruption"; a black ooze which allows Ahriman to control any being it engulfs like his puppet. In order to trap Ahriman and get rid of the corruption you must escort Elika to various "Healing Grounds" throughout the land, and, using powers granted to her from Ormazd the good god, Elika is able to drive back the corruption from the area and re-strengthen the prison that holds Ahriman. Unfortunately Ahriman has followers who have escaped from the prison and now plan on helping Ahriman get free. This, of course, involves stopping you from re-imprisoning him so the enemies attempt to stop you from healing the lands at the healing grounds.

Graphics

10/10

What can I say really. I think the graphics are the high point of the game and the main selling point. In essense it is cel-shaded, but summing up the style in only two words like that is doing it a massive injustice. It looks like a cartoon drawn out meticulously in oil paints at times. Textures have vibrance and the entire spectrum of color is used without inhibition to make this a truly stunning game to look at. It has been partly used to indicate that the franchise is going off in a different direction from the combat heavy game to a more platform-based adventure set in some of the best surroundings i've seen in a game. My only problem, and i mean only, with the graphical style is that i think it sometimes causes the 3D environments to lack perspective. I found that often ledges or walls looked closer than they turned out to actually be, resulting in me plummeting downwards at a pace I wasn't entirely comfortable with. But that is the one and only flaw that I found with this otherwise beautiful graphical style.

Sound

7/10

I often judge a game's sound quality on whether i can actually remember it at all. I am quite musical anyway so to me, if the sound is good, whether it is the voice acting, the background music or the dynamic sound, it will stick in my head in some form. Prince of Persia requires me to think quite hard to recall any of it. Of note is probably the voice acting, which is good, but it is limited by the lack of characters in the game. Most of it occurs during totally optional chats you can have with Elika during the game, which are activated by pulling the left trigger or pushing the left bumper.
I do remember finding some of the background music quite annoying, because it would be quite quiet so i would turn up the volume only for it to start throwing in the occasional really loud noise, making me turn it down, and then of course it goes quiet again.

Gameplay

8/10

The gameplay in Prince of Persia was always set to be the other defining feature of the game along with the graphics, and, although it delivered what it promised, it let down in other areas which i'd hoped they would have ironed out. First of all was their promise of relaxed controls, where you could just tap a button and the action would occur and you didn't have to worry. No more holding the button down for an entire wall-run and then letting go to jump, or having to hammer the attack button repeatedly to keep a combo going. In this essence they deliver: You press A and he wallruns as far as he can, you press A again and he jumps off the wall. It suffered in other areas though as it did in the past. You can either wallrun up a wall to get to a ledge or switch by running towards the wall and pressing A, or you can horizontally wallrun to cross gaps by running along the wall and jumping towards it at an angle. Unfortunately I saw quite a few occasions where the only way to go was up and he somehow managed to assume that, rather than climbing the wall like I wanted, he would rather wallrun along to certain death. Other problems include a kind of response lag from the character: you would want to climb a wall and you were in a bit of a hurry, so you press A to jump at the wall, but nothing happens so you press A again. The game then decides that it actually already knew you'd pressed A so now thinks you want to jump twice. This leads to the Prince starting to climb the wall and then jump away from it into a pit.
The game also seems to incorporate some sort of rough estimate system, where if you want to wallrun along you simply need to jump towards a wall and once you're close enough it starts the wallrun. Unfortunately the walls of canyons are rarely perfectly flat, and a gap which may merely require a double jump to cross may go horribly wrong if your character brushes too close past a little wiggly outcrop in one of the walls, as the "rough estimate system" thinks "he's near a wall, therefore he wants to wallrun!" so the prince commences wallrunning at a wierd angle perpendicular to the way you wanted to go, which ends abruptly when the wiggle of rock wiggles off in another direction, leaving you falling, yet again, to your death.
Now that a few of my pet hates in this game are out in the open i'd better explain the system.

Prince of Persia combines fighting sequences with acrobatic platforming. The prince is equipped with a claw, which allows him to cling tightly to things and to slide slowly down walls. Anything to do with the claw is handled with the B button both in battles and out. Outside of battles it is used to grab onto metal rings attached to walls or ceilings. You can wallrun to a ring and press B and the prince will grab the ring and use it to hurl himself onwards, extending the length of your wallrun. All acrobatics are controlled with A, whether it be jumping or swinging off poles. The Y button controls Elika's actions. Elika has magical powers given to her by Ormazd. These include sort of flying and teleporting. If you jump across a gap but realise you're not going to make it you can press Y in mid air and Elika will teleport to you and fling you forwards so you can make the jump.

The combat is the other element of the game and although i get the impression that some love it, i have to whole-heartedly disagree. I played assassin's creed and fell in love with the battle system, which made you percieve enemy attacks and hit counterattack right at the last minute in order for it to work, which i loved. In Prince of Persia the combat looks the same but doesn't work the same. In order to deflect an enemy attack you still had to time it right as they attack to break their combo, but in this the prince seems so sluggish that you have to press the defend button an age before the attack actually comes into contact with anything for it to work. He just can't move fast enough. If you press it at the last minute he's barely moved as he takes so long to actually get his sword into the deflect position. It's not so bad that you need the power of foresight rather than fast reaction times, but i wanted to do quick, subtle little moves and this technique just ended up getting the Prince hit. A lot! In essence the controls are the same in the combat as in the acrobatic bits. The A button gives you acrobatic movements, which allow you to either jump to an enemy in the air in a combo, or to quickly switch places with an enemy like if you are near a cliff edge. B is grab and throw, X is for sword attacks and Y is for Elika's attack. All of these can be built up into combos as long as 14 hits. The right trigger or right bumper allows you to defend and deflect attacks. During fights the movement is restricted to facing the enemy and strafing so you don't lose sight of the enemy, and the camera pans out so you can see what's going on. Unfortunately in my opinion the combat also has a huge emphasis on quick time events (a graphical cue prompting you to press the required button within a short time limit). The Yahtzee quote "Press X to not Die" sums it up accurately. Quick time events are usually hated by gamers as most games require them to work hard to keep their character alive and with as much health as possible, but to introduce an element which is able to kill you in one go due to a delayed press of one button removes the point in working hard to ensure that you character endures as little harm as possible.
Luckily for Prince of Persia this is totally cancelled out by one specific aspect of the game, and that is this: It is impossible to die.
If you miss a jump and are falling to your death Elika teleports you to safety. If you accidentally get sucked into the corruption Elika teleports you to safety, and if you're about to get squashed to death by a 10 foot tall rock monster, you guessed it, Elika teleports you to safety. It is basically an enhanced checkpoint system. If you've gone on a really long acrobatic section and then fall off she puts you back on the last bit of flat ground you stood on. Having to be saved by her during a fight allows the enemy to regain some HP. I was skeptical at first, but having played it it is still designed so that you know it's a failor on your part, it's just that the game doesn't penalise you so badly for making mistakes. It encourages you to give it another go rather than getting annoyed that you died, which is really a good thing.

As far as story progression goes this game is tedious. In essence it is this: Travel to a healing ground, fight an enemy, heal the land, repeat. The game gives you an acrobatic section then a fight, and then another acrobatic section then another fight. It follows this routine for the entire game, with no mid game plot twists or subquests. There is a tiny amount of character progression in Elika. Once you heal an area 45 light seeds appear within the healed area. Collecting these allows Elika to learn one of four abilities, allowing her to travel to new areas. In the course of the game you have to collect 540 light seeds to get all the abilities, but seeing as there are 1001 in the game this will mostly be done by simply travelling through the areas during the story progression.
Elika's abilities are also surprisingly samey and mundane. Each one allows you to activate the power by standing on a certain coloured pad. One ability propels you through the air from pad to pad. Another propels you through the air from pad to pad using a different visual effect. Another propels you through the air from pad to pad, but allows you a tiny bit of control over your characters so you can avoid obstacles and pick up light seeds as you go. Another propels you along SURFACES!!!, yes surfaces, from pad to pad, allowing you some movement freedom to avoid obstacles. All in all thoroughly mundane.
Another thing to factor in is the difficulty curve. As I said there are 4 subdivided areas in the game. As you travel through each section of an area there is a slight increase in difficulty, mostly in the last section of each area, but then, as soon as you go to a new area the difficulty resets. This is due to Elika's abilities. Each section requires a certain skill to get to the healing ground, but as you can pick which order you learn the skills yourself there can be no increase in difficulty throughout the game, otherwise you could accidentally stumble into the hardest area of the game right at the start.

Overall

7/10

Wow, that was a long gameplay section and i apologise for that! But there were quite a few elements involved which were all either important or flawed and therefore i felt i needed to mention them all.

Overall, surprisingly i liked Prince of Persia. Not hugely, but i liked it. It has failed to live up to the hype, but in a rather strange way. It delivered what it said it would deliver, but it was other things that let it down. Sluggish combat that often felt like it was taking an age, samey acrobatic sections, and an overall short game with at most 20 hours of gameplay if you collect all the light seeds and take your time. There is also an element of a relatively small game world trying to make itself look much bigger than it actually is involved.

As i said earlier this is a beautiful looking game, but the prince is bit of a pillock and, although the more interesting of the two, Elika is annoying and whiney in combat. It ends up being a bit of a letdown. Over the years i've maintained that, although good graphics are awesome, if the rest of the game making process has been put on the backburner in order to make the graphics great, then the important bits suffer. The gameplay, the replayability and the enjoyment factor all take a dive downwards if they are rushed to make time for graphics, and i think that maybe that was the case here. Watching the credits roll by I noticed that by far the majority seemed to be artists or graphics designers and that there was only a handful of level designers involved. And it definately shows through.

Prince of Persia currently retails for around £30 and is PEGI rated 12+

Happy Gaming!!! 

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