Skip to main content

Prince of Persia (Xbox 360)

Prince of Persia is Ubisoft Montreal's 2008 action adventure platformer.

You play as a man only referred to as The Prince who at the beginning of the game is lost in the desert searching for his donkey who is apparently carrying a fortune in treasures. He comes across a damsel in distress, a princess as it would be, and together the two work together in trying to stop the evil king from unleashing an evil-er entity.

Prince of Persia is a game that focuses more on the platforming and interacting with the environment. You'll be spending 90% of your time leaping across canyons, running up walls and flying through the air. If you want a game that's combat heavy, then Prince might not be what you're looking for.

The game is designed in a non-linear fashion. There are 24 different territories that you will have to travel through and complete, but the order in which you complete them is in your hands. In addition, every time you complete or "heal" a land, you essentially have to re-run it and explore other unlocked areas in order to find spheres of light (called light seeds) that empower Elika. So look forward to lots of running back and forth.

The overall difficulty of the game is too easy, but after playing Dead Rising I more than welcomed this relaxing playthrough. Part of what makes it so easy is that you can never lose. Thanks to Elika's magic powers, anytime you take too much damage from enemies or make a wrong jump into a pit, she will save you before you meet your end where you can try again. This does take a lot of the challenge away.

Prince of Persia is definitely ambitious in design with quite high production values. The cel-shading graphic style is definitely pleasing to the eye balanced by backgrounds that are fully rendered in the 3D with lush colours.

The score for the game is beautifully done often giving it a really majestic and Arabian feel. As you're running up walls or jumping across chasms, the music makes it truly feel like you're in some grand adventure like in Lawrence of Arabia or something.

Besides the difficulty of the game, the only other thing to complain of is the the voice work. The voice of the Prince sounds like that of a modern day American man and kind of ruins the feel of being in a mystical place and time. However, on the plus side, the witty banter and dialogue between Elika and the Prince is charming and funny, definitely something to look forward to. It's also amusing to see their attitudes change as the game progresses; they are more attracted to each other, and it plays out in the dialogue. They even throw humourous sexual innuendos in there, which I thought was hilarious.

For example, after a boss fight where the monstrous beast is sent flailing into a pit:

Prince: "You know what they say, the bigger they are..."
Elika: "...The more they boast about it."

Awesome.

The replayability of the game leaves more to be desired, given that the game's difficulty is low and that the achievements were too easy to complete (in one playthrough, I was able to unlock 48 of the 50 achievements, definitely too easy). For this reason alone, I can't recommend buying the game brand new, but perhaps wait until you can find a used copy for around $30.

Check it out if you'd like, if anything, just to see the beautiful graphics as well as to hear the witty dialogue. That's it for now, later geeks!



Comments

Beka said…
Haha! That quote made me laugh :)
Michelle said…
Lovely review, I particulary liked the way you've dicussed the dynamic between the two characters.

One of my biggest gaming regrets is the fact that I never got around to playing Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, (I know its not too late) but I've heard good things about this PoP iteration too, so I should really not let this one slip through my fingers as well...
The Lam said…
Thanks for the comments.

I didn't get a chance to finishing Sands of Time either, started it, but never got into it enough. I might revisit all the old ones.

Anyhow, thanks for your patronage.

Popular posts from this blog

REVIEW HAIKUS!!!! (#3)

It's time for another edition of Review Haikus; a feature I like to write when I'm too lazy to write out full reviews~!!! The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 Tony Scott schlockfest~! All his movies seem the same. A needless remake. Denzel's a bad-ass. Given up on Travolta. 1 of 2 ain't bad. Public Enemies Well? Disappointed. I expected more from Mann. The pacing felt off. Acting was good though. Man-crush on Depp and Bale. 5 more syllables! Saw VI Yes, another Saw. Harder to tell them apart. Blood, guts, bad story. Why more Saw movies? Each movie makes less and less. End this series now. ====== Later geeks!

Lt. Aldo Raine wants his scalps!!!!!!!!!!!!

I missed The Inglorious Basterds during its theatrical run and it's a shame too because I'm a fool for Tarantino movies. But I finally got to see it this weekend and I'm happy to say that I mostly enjoyed it. I don't think it's his best movie, but it was damned entertaining. The Inglorious Basterds takes place during World War II and tells its story by following three different groups of characters: from Lt. Aldo Raine and his squad of soldiers infamously known as the Basterds, Col. Hans Landa, a Nazi colonel better known as "The Jew Hunter", and from a young Jewish girl named Shosanna, who had her family murdered by Col. Landa. We follow the Basterds in their Nazi killing business (and business is good) as they lay out a plan to take out several high ranking officials all at once. We follow Shosanna as she operates her theater and lays down her own plans in exacting revenge on the Nazis. And of course, the "Jew Hunter" is hot on their trail

Sam Raimi's Dragging Someone To Hell!!!

It's great to see Sam Raimi back in his form with his latest entry Drag Me To Hell . Simply glorious, it is a horror geek's dream. This is the Sam we all know and love from Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness , before he got all caught up in the comic book geek universe of Spider-Man . After 10 years (from the first time I watched Evil Dead 2 ), he has remained my favourite film director... although he did try my patience with Spider-Man 3 . I know this euphoria that I'm feeling now will be short lived, as even as I type this review, Raimi is already at work on the pre-production of Spider-Man 4 (yay?). So what is there to say about Drag Me To Hell ? This is the way a summer movie should be, touching on all those senses that make movie going an actual experience. There were thrills, chills, laughs and cheers; the way things should be! Drag Me To Hell tells a story of a young loan officer named Christine, who in an effort to advance her own career, has to turn down an