Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

"Prepare yourself for this one! Its nothing like you'd ever have expected!"

The original Prince of Persia was a truly terrific title that came out for the Ps2 that inspired many hardcore fans who would soon await a title. The original Prince of Persia for the Playstation 2 was a title that was dreamlike, and storybook like in setting and tone. The violence was little and the characters (however few) were quite easy to understand and get hooked on. Without saying to much, the Prince was your stereotypical Disney Prince. No cursing, no dramatics, just pure and simple got the job done...with a joke put in whenever possible. Although when you might first have put this title in your Ps2 you may have thought this a game more set out for kids under 15! But as the story went on it became a bit more intriguing, and the puzzles got more and more upsetting when it comes to difficulty! Either way, Prince did his thing in the first one, and without spoiling to much, lets just say what happens in Prince 2 is something that you would never have expected to happen after finishing the original for PS2.

Now...on to this title. The Prince in Prince of Persia 2 is...well, one damn good warrior :P! Unlike the original Prince (and he is indeed the same one), he is actually extremely skilled with a blade, and it seems like he's been taking a few more gymnastics courses as well. The original Prince of Persia was focused more on puzzle solving and acrobatic mastery, the scenery in that game was fantastic, and the sense of scale excellent as Prince was able to do an astounding amount of acrobatic feats, such as running up a wall, running across a wall, bounding from wall to wall and lunging from pole to pole. Well, things haven't changed one bit in POP:WW, as the Prince is able to do all these things and more, other things include catching a panel of cloth with your sword to ease your fall, using objects around you to aid you in battle, etc. The true difference gameplay wise this time around is that the combat is way improved! Don't listen to any other people that say that they'd rather have the original Prince of Persia combat, it was slow, unimaginative, and you seemed to be doing nothing but running up your opponents face and countering his attacks in order to even hit an opponent. In this title, dual wielding is handeled much better than in POP:SOT, as your able to do a variety of swift and deadly combos, and even throw your secondary weapon into your opponent! Did I also mention that you can wield pretty much ANY weapon that your enemies drop? Yep...the only downside is that after slamming that well earned blade into your enemies skull more than a few times the thing seems to dull and can no longer be used. But no matter, secondary blades are easy to come by in this game. In POP :SOT there was little blood and gore involved...but this time around there is TONS of it. Your opponent can be sliced in almost anyway you can think of, in half horizontaly, verticaly, decapitated, etc. The prince is also capable of kicking and grappling opponents off of ledges and down for a mighty plunge. Yes! The prince is able to go back in time again at the click of a button in order to prevent himself from inheriting that nasty fate called death, but be careful, when all sand tanks are empty you'll be starting at a gameover screen quicker than it takes your mind to register your actually out of time! There are also some extra sandpowerups that you'll learn of later in the game, none that I thought were really that interesting though. The gameplay is quite decent, and the puzzles are amazing. Wouldn't reccomend this to novice players however.

Gameplay : 8/8

The tone of the game is much darker than POP:SOT, as the Prince is much darker himself. This is one addition I loved about the story, because it adds so much attitude to him that you wished you could have seen in the original. Unlike the wonderful clean atmosphere you encountered in the first one, you'll frequently find yourself in the dirtiest, dankest, darkest, foggiest places that you could ever dream would be possible in a grand temple, while at other times you'll be standing in the middle of a virtual paradise. The graphics are also some of the best you'll see on the Ps2! The scenery is great, as once again you'll be going through a variety of greatly placed camera angles, and genious architecture. Not much can be said in offense to the graphics of this game, as the animations are extremely smooth and everything runs like water down a river compared to syrup down the bottle.

Graphics : 9/9

The storyline for this game is that...due to something that happened in POP:SOT,
the Prince is hunted by a creature entitled the Dahaka, an invincible creature that was created by the sands of time. And is just hunting the hell out of Prince night and day, giving him little rest but to run from the damn thing. Aside from this interesting initation, the story brings little more to the table. Although it starts a bit slow, towards the end things start to unravel and you'll be kicking yourself in the face when you understand things much better now that certain things were revealed. POP:SOT's story wasn't legendary, and this one wasn't either, but they are both very decent tales.

Story : 7/7

When you see trailers of this game the first thing that will come to mind is...I wonder how the HELL that game controls? Well it all controls quite simply actually, R1 to do acrobatic feats such as climb walls, run up walls, etc, triangle to use secondary weapon, circle to pick up a weapon and throw it, X to jump, evade, etc, square to attack, L2 for camera angle changes, L1 for powers, etc.
Aside from some glitches here and there, the controls are actually quite responsive. At times you'll miss critical jumps and such and curse the game for making you die, but then you quickly realize that it was your own fault as you review exactly what you did wrong in your mind :P.

Controls : 9/9

Last but certainly not least...the Camera. With a game that requires so much in terms of acrobatics, scale, and fighting...how could the camera possibly work well? Well the thing is perfect! Don't let anyone tell you that it isnt'! Aside from a few glitches here and there you can use the main character which is good enough for combat, general movement, etc, you can also use the landscape camera (L2 button anywhere), which will quickly make anything that you probably cant see easily visible, not to mention you can zoom in with this angle. You can also move in almost any direction around Prince in order to see better..so how could you miss anything? Of course things will be hard to find out...such as how to get to this platform and etc. But this cannot be blamed on the camera, but more on your own wisdom and thought process on how the heck to get from point a to point b! You can also enter first person view at any time (not during combat folks, and you cant move while in first person, only look...though in any direction).

Camera : 10/10

The music really sucks in this game...horribly so. Unlike some of the awe inspiring themes (however cheap in budget) that were in the original (imo at least), the soundtrack for this game is filled with cheap rock music that comes on almost every battle you fight, which almost IMMEDIATELY gets old. There are only a few songs that I even like in this game...and well not even like...that are just acceptable. Any middle eastern type of music/arabian knights blah blah kind of atmospheric music would have been perfect...just like what was put into the last one. Except this time it just really sucked. Was really dissapointing. The sound effects were decent, sword clashes sound like clashes...etc, no problem effects wise. In battle Prince says a variety of things...such as "Few can match blades with me!" in his angry warrior like tone, and other cocky things that really make you want to tear up the enemies even more. Sadly the enemies say the same crap as well, cocky as all hell :). Though you merely laugh at them 80% of the time since you kill them, when you have little health and no sand, they can become quite menacing. Also fans of the original will be glad to hear that Prince is once again played by the same voice actor as before =)

Sound : 7/7

Pretty good grades all across the board huh? So why an 8? Well for one I said its 8 quality, but its just something that I felt wasn't quite to Prince.They seemed to really try to fix all that was wrong with the first one, yet left out the key elements, the dream like fantasy feel and the storybook like quality. Although it may seem very minor, those are the things that made this game score an 8. Sorry for all those that agree with me...its an awesome game and I love the direction they took, but just fell short in that overall "feel" ya know? Hopefully in the third one (if there is one at least I dont know) a merge of both these games can be made which would make the game near perfect.

Hope you thought this review was helpful.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/04