| Prince of Persia: Revelations review |
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“You bitch!”
It’s been four hours and Shahdee, the Empress of Time’s leather-clad minion, is still trouncing the Prince on board his burning ship, making the above nugget of dialogue most apt. I’ve had to endure the tutorial level of Ubisoft’s latest Prince of Persia title around twenty times (as I knew I would) and am seriously thinking about stomping on the UMD out of sheer frustration. There are only so many times I can watch that butt shot, I think even male gamers would tire of it.
From unassuming beginnings as an 8-bit platformer played out in real time, to a rebirth in 2003 as a 3-D adventure with a time-travelling twist, Prince of Persia is one of those rare games that has not only transcended formats but also generations. Ubisoft recently concluded the PS2 trilogy and rumors began circulating about a PSP title called Revelations. However, this was not a new title but a port of the least accomplished of the three, Warrior Within.
Warrior Within followed the Prince on a desperate journey to escape his fate. Ordained to die for meddling with the timeline, he has spent the years since Sands of Time being chased by a terrifying beast known as the Dahaka. Now heading for the Island of Time, home of the mysterious Empress, the Prince seeks to prevent the sands themselves from being created. As with Sands of Time, the Prince has numerous skills he can rely on from running across walls, gymnastics on bars as well as new additions like sliding down curtains. The time-travelling aspect also makes a return due to the amulet given to the Prince by his beloved Farah at the end of Sands of Time. However such abilities are not available all at once and must be earned as the Prince progresses through the game.
With the Dagger of Time locked in the Maharajah’s vault, the Prince is free to fight with two hands, a welcome addition to the game, using various weapons gained from fallen corpses. He can also pull off a vast number of combos which wreak devastation on hordes of the Empress’ mutated minions, an important aspect in a game dominated by fighting rather than puzzle-solving.
If games were rated on storylines alone, both Revelations and Warrior Within would score highly. However, the PS2 release had various problems that Ubisoft has still not addressed in Revelations.
Warrior Within’s hard-rock soundtrack makes an unwelcome return, as does the star-studded but wooden voice acting. The problem is, as you move around the levels or even alter the camera angle, the sound will cut out in a manner that is both sudden and irritating.
While the graphics are visually stunning, it's much more evident on the PSP that there are some issues with the frame-rate as if Sony’s smallest console can’t quite handle the Prince’s speed. However, the cut-scenes are not as impressive and are heralded by the game-play freezing. Added to this, the game also chooses the most awkward moments to load the next section of the level, particularly when the Prince is jumping across chasms or running along walls.
One major complaint is the spiking difficulty level. Take the first boss, Shahdee; you fight here barely five minutes into the game after making your way through the bowels of the enemy ship, murdering monstrous swordsmen as you go. There are no save points (which take the form of ornately carved fountains) prior to the battle and should you die, it’s back to the bowels of the ship.
Once you eventually beat this, the Island of Time has a plentiful number of save fountains. However the method of travelling from point A to B in the present then back to Z in the past does get confusing and if a game is saved mid-journey it becomes rather difficult to pick up and figure out where to head next. The introduction of boss battles also makes the game excruciatingly hard and then becomes a frustrating attempt at surviving various traps to get to the next time portal.
The game does feel rushed and the cutscenes - while direct transfers from Warrior Within - don't look as amazing as they do on the big screen. The size of the life bar is also tiny which often makes it hard to tell how many sand tanks you have left.
These negative points and the various faults clearly present in the code combine to make Revelations a game for die-hard fans of the series only. People wanting a game to get their teeth into will certainly find it a challenge although many will also be tearing their hair out by the handful. The one question on many people’s lips is why port Warrior Within, of all the games in the Prince of Persia trilogy? Why not simply begin with Sands of Time and start at the beginning. We can only hope that Ubisoft might come to their senses and decide to port Sands of Time in the future.
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System: Sony PlayStation Portable
Genre: Action
Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
Players: 1
Version: European
Reviewed: Feb 2006
Writer: Lesley Smith
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Pros:
- It’s Prince of Persia!
- And portable
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Cons:
- Sound cuts out unexpectedly
- The game loads during jumps or battles
- Extremely hard boss battles even on easy
- It’s Warrior Within renamed
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