Point Review: Prince of Persia (360, PS3, PC/Mac)

April 3rd, 2012 by

Developer: Ubisoft Montréal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Genre: Adventure/Platformer
Players: 1
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC/Mac
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)
Hours Played: Less than 12
Game Progress: Finished main storyline

Ubisoft Montréal, famous for hit titles like Assassin’s Creed, Tom Clancy?s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and many more came out with a blockbuster title yet again with 2008’s chapter of the Prince of Persia saga. Prince of Persia includes many of the timed attacks and wall running that the series is known for with the addition of new and exciting battle techniques, a fresh graphic style, and an epic story-line with excellent voice acting. Is the new Prince of Persia an instant classic that will entertain you for hours on end or a classic Ubisoft money-grab to play off gamers’ affections for an older series?  Read on to find out.

  • The game is focused on a number of boss/mini boss battles, collecting glowing orbs, solving puzzles and navigating through a number of levels. You are accompanied by a woman named Elika who acts as a long range weapon and fail safe when platforming.
  • There is a lot of dialogue in this game which I personally enjoy, but some people might find a drag.
  • There are numerous ways to play the game with many paths to choose not only within levels, but when selecting them, so you are almost certain to play it differently than your friends.
  • The story is kept fresh with a couple of clever plot twists, so it avoids stagnancy in most cases.

  • The graphics in Prince of Persia are of the cel-shaded persuasion. I know some people are not fans of this style, but they are handled quite well in this case. There are epic landscapes and lots of shiny things aplenty for those who are fans of high definition graphics.
  • There are not an extreme amount of cut scenes, but you can have little chats with Elika which are kind of nice and make the player care more about the characters.
  • Cloth movements, from the Prince?s scarfs, to Elika?s shirt, I found the movement of the clothes to be distracting and annoying.

  • The musical soundtrack is very fitting for the game with beautiful Arabian music.
  • The overall supply of songs is quite limited limited.  The same songs playing over and over again like a broken record can quickly become tiresome.
  • Nolan North’s iconic voice brings The Prince to life, even though he sounds basically the same as any of the other dozens of video game characters with the same Nolan-y voice.

  • This game, like its predecessors, is based a great deal on quick-time events or being able to quickly push certain sequences of buttons in the correct order.
  • The controls are not hard to learn if you’ve played a three-dimensional platformer before and they are certainly not easy to forget.
  • Some could say that the controls are too simple.  It may be an oxymoron, but the controls may seem too easy for hardcore gamers and lack the depth that would be afforded by a more involved system of control.

  • I found this game fun overall, but there is little motivation to play the game again once you have completed it.
  • There is an achievement/trophy for beating the game in less then 12 hours, so for achievement hounds there is a bit of pressure to keep the game short.
  • Those who are not extremely keen on collecting all of the achievements or trophies can expect a decently long game with a bonus DLC Epilogue that meaningfully extends gameplay.

My 11+ hours with Prince of Persia, while short, were very enjoyable.  The more masochistic of hardcore gamers may scoff at this game’s no-fail policy that more-or-less saves you from most of both platforming and battle errors, but anyone willing to spend a good day or two playing this game will realize that the excitement that can be derived from platformers such as this comes not just from the fear of failure, but also the rush of exploring and experiencing new characters, worlds, and mythologies.  This game really is an instant-classic, and now that it already has a predecessor out it can picked up for cheap if you can find it at your favourite video game store.

 

Rated 9.0