Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

"This game should not have been allowed on shelves"

About a year ago, one of my friends had a free trial of GameFly. This was the game that he decided to rent. I hadn't really heard much about this game and what I had heard did not excite me. I kept hearing that Ubisoft ruined the prince. He used to be such a noble, kind, man who had been tricked. That all changes in Warrior Within. The prince now has a much darker side, which could be a nice change but the way it was changed was not good. Anyway, he came over to my house one day and we played a little of the game. It was decent, but a little on the hard side. He decided that I could borrow the game for an extra day or two. I was actually having fun with it, even though through most of the game you will be traveling back to the same areas. Now let's get down to the core game.

The Prince : The prince now swears, taunts, and only thinks of himself, which is the complete opposite of the first game. Some of the enemies will also yell out insults, many are quite dumb. When in a room filled with enemies, one will feel the need to yell, "Attack him at the same time." Hmm... Let's think about this for a minute. There are ten of you against the one of me, so your strength obviously lies in your number. What would be the best strategy? I mean, seriously, is that line necessary? Another horribly cheesy line yelled out by the toughest enemies is "Soften him up for me," implying that they, the strongest of the bunch can't take you on and that they need help from the weaker enemies. Despite the new, poorly done, darker tone of the prince he is actually quite fun to play as. This is an action/adventure/platformer, and the prince has many skills. You can wall run, jump from ledge to ledge, swing on ropes, slide down curtains, and thanks to his trusty dagger, he can control time. You can reverse time if you fall to your death putting yourself on solid ground again, slow down time, allowing you to dodge enemy attacks with ease and get in your share of blows as well, and even make yourself super fast, by going into a rage. The rage is my favorite. The screen turns red and all you have to do is press the button of the attack that you want done and it will be done super fast, allowing you to clear a room of enemies in just a matter of seconds. This brings me to my next point.

Gameplay : Quite fun. Being able to control time is very fun and unique, and helps to make this game less frustrating. There are tons of combos that you can do single handedly, or by dual wielding. You will always have one blade that you can use as much as you want, and you can pick up an enemy's blade that you can use, but sparingly because if you use it too much it will break. Blade about to break? No problem, throw it an enemy to decapitate them and then go take their weapon. But fighting is only half of this game. The other half you will be wall-running, swinging on ropes, dodging traps such as spikes, and finding switches to open doors. This is also quite fun and is what gives this game its individuality. The only problem is the back-tracking. In general, I don't mind back-tracking at all. The problem in this game though is that you will go back to the same areas several times, and the traps that surround that area will not seem difficult to avoid the fourth time around. All in all, this is still a very fun game to play.

Sound : If you have heard anything about this game then you have heard complaints about the sound. Instead of the nice, sweet music, that I have been told was in the first game, you get to play to rock music performed by Godsmack. Many Prince of Persia fans hated the new music, but being a rock fan I enjoyed it. It's awesome to be in a big battle and have a guitar and drums playing behind you. I do have a complaint with the sound, however. The music hardly ever plays. Generally you have to get into a huge battle in this game for the music to start; when it does I get excited. Then I kill the last enemy and poof, the music is gone like magic. If it would have played more often, the music in this game would have been great.

Graphics : The graphics in Warrior Within are also quite good, especially considering it was released a year and a half ago. There isn't really much to say about the look of this game except for it has a darker tone than the first one, but with beautifully done environments. The character models are also quite good, and the cut scenes are still great even by today's standards. This is a very good game to look at.

Glitches : There should never be enough glitches in a game to receive their own section in one of my reviews. This is the reason I gave this game a 4, because if it wasn't for the glitches I would give it an 8. Here's something that happens all too often: you walk into a room, there are a bunch of enemies. You move quickly to dispose them, and you are having a blast. One left..."Die," you scream as run at them. You're about to kill them and then you have to reset the game because it is frozen. This happened to me four times on my first play through. That never should have happened to me because the disc is scratch free, I have a new PS2 (the slim kind), and all of my other games work. So my advice to you is to save often, making this the least of your problems, making it only slightly annoying. This will be the least of your problems if you get to the end of the game just like I did. There is a game ending glitch that will sometimes occur at the end of the game. When I say at the end of the game, I mean the last boss fight. When I say game ending, I mean you can't fight the last boss, you can't beat this game. At the end of the game you are supposed to be able to travel forward in time to fight the final boss. The game may not let travel ahead in timed and suddenly you are trapped in small room with no way out. Game Over. What makes this worse, is that this glitch is said to be triggered by saving at a save point at the end of the game. Therefore, once it has glitched, there is nothing you can do. This is just one of the game ending glitches; it is the worst simply because it takes place at the end of the game. Others may include, but are not limited too; after a boss battle, you are supposed to be chased away by The Dahaka, a huge beast that will try to catch you from time to time, and The Dahaka won't come out. Game Over. You go into a room and there is no ladder where there is supposed to be and now the door you came in is shut. Game Over. I have heard many other stories but I am not going to list them right now. The point I'm trying to make here is, don't play this game. You will spend about 15-20 hours playing only to have it all taken away when you are seconds away from victory. If you can show me a glitch-free copy, give it to me, I'll play it and love it. However it is highly unlikely you will be lucky enough to receive such a copy. Ubisoft should have spent more time perfecting the game, actually making it fully playable, and spent less time trying to rush a highly anticipated sequel. Ubisoft has just lost a fan, and it will take a stellar game for them to regain my trust. Game Over, Ubisoft.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/01/06