Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

"Your fate has been decided.... You WILL buy this game"

OK, lets start with the most important,

Gameplay-

The gameplay is very smooth, but it does take a while to grow on you, if you are used to SoT. If not it will take a while to get used to the battle system. My only real problem with the Prince's movements are how SLOW everything is, especially if you have play Ninja Gaiden recently..... But eventually you will see how the slow speed allows time for more strategy, and gives the player a better sense of atmosphere while playing the game. I'll get back to that later, so basically the gameplay is excellent, just may take time to get used to. I say, if you like action games, namely SoT, then after a few hours, you will love this. OK, now the platforming; it is basically like SoT, yet i actually prefer the Warrior Within through most of it in this area. I think it has something to do with the music, and how you feel you are doing crazy skillful acrobatic moves, whereas in SoT I really didn't notice the extremes he was going too, maybe because of the light hearted cartoony story book style of it all.....

Anyway, Overall, I would give this, in gameplay, a

10/10!

Now, the apparently worst part of the game;

Sound-

This is really complete preference. I love the rock tune it plays, and it stands out so much that you think thats the only music it plays, since when it is not playing, I do not realise that any music was playing at all. So I say good, but not brilliant, I'll give it a

7/10

Time to talk about the;

Graphics-

The graphics are basically a more mature version of SoT, which cannot be a bad thing. The environments are greatly improved, a much more darker environment, that absorbs the player into the game, far more than what SoT achieved. The character movements I found are very fluid, but no real improvement over SoT, but why fix something that is not broken? The character design has also been improved, they have turned the prince into a much darker character, which makes sense due to the story line. The enemy designs have been greatly improved in my opinion, I found all the enemies in SoT to look basic and stupid, which they could get away with then, due to light heartedness of the game, but in Warrior Within, they had to make a change, and thank god, they didn't just change it, they made them much more unique and interesting, but still not best I have ever seen, but compared to SoT they are. So in conclusion I would give the graphics

9/10

Moving on to the;

Story-

Here's the gist, the Prince is being chased by this dark monster called the Dahaka, since whoever opened the sands has to be killed, and well.... the Dahaka is the one who has to kill him..... its a dirty job, but someone has to do it, right? The Prince has not been able to sleep or eat, so he is pretty ****** off, hence his dark character. Sounds interesting, yeah? I will not go into it anymore, I'll let you watch it unfold. Basically, it is OK, but not quite as good as SoT. So i will give it a

8/10

Conclusion-

Warrior Within is a definite improvement over SoT in the major aspects, yet, despite this, I am still uncertain which I prefer most out of the two. Either way, I cannot see any real great loss by buying this game.

9/10

Buy Or Rent?

I say, if you meet any of these specifications:-

-Like SoT
-Like Action Games
-Like Platformers
-Like me

Then you should BUY the game, though if not, yet you still like the look of the game, you should rent first.... then buy.

Note: There have been many reports of glitches found in this game, I did not come across any, but i recommend you are aware of what they are before purchasing.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/23/05