Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Score: 86% ESRB: Mature Publisher: Ubisoft Entertainment Developer: Ubisoft Entertainment Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Action/ Adventure/ Platformer
Graphics & Sound: The environments of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within are outstanding in not only graphical content, but also in design. Since the Prince travels between two different time periods in this second game in the newly revived series, the environments actually undergo heavy change, and it looks amazing. The only problem with this is that it leaves a craving to see more areas, but you end up revisiting the same ones over and over again. Warrior Within also does a fine job of voice-acting to help drive the story, and offers a variety of sound fx that help the player feel a part of the game when interacting with the environment or enemies within those environments.
Gameplay: The Prince is back, but for how long is up to you. Ever since the Prince managed to escape death, death has been hunting him down. In Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, you control the Prince’s fate by solving numerous environmental puzzles, while slashing baddies along the way. Warrior Within’s twist is that the environment isn’t the same every time you enter an area. The Prince will have to travel back and forth from the Present to the Past in order to solve puzzles and work his way through these ever-changing levels. While everything will have a familiar look no matter what the time frame, the team at Ubisoft did an outstanding job of making the player figure out completely different paths around obstacles. While the structures in the Past may be complete, they are broken down with many seemingly impossible gaps to cross in the Present. Of course, the Prince is still one of the most agile gamer characters ever created. He will have to swing from ropes and poles, jump across gaps from a variety of ledges, and use his wall-running ability to reach tons of out of reach places. In the mean-time, the Prince will also have to figure out many puzzles that will help shape the environments around him, allowing him access to even more areas. But keep a close eye on your surroundings or you’ll be sure to miss some of the many upgrades and unlockables in Warrior Within. In fact, while the environments look and play outstanding, it is sometimes hard to know not only where to find goodies, but also what the Prince’s next step should be in general. Since the areas of the game are seen in both the Past and the Present, it is easy to miss a branch in the pathway, so to speak. At this point, you can easily wander aimlessly looking for the next step, but maybe in the wrong area of the game, or quite possibly in the right area, but the wrong time. Throughout the Prince’s adventures, he will again combat a variety of baddies looking to fulfill the Prince’s death warrant. Each type of enemy actually has a very distinct weakness. Once you find this, defeating them really will not be that hard. Unfortunately, I’ve found that the combat system is little more than a button-masher with a few twists of moving the direction on the analog stick. The Prince actually has a ton of different moves under his belt, but they pretty much involve pressing one or more buttons repeatedly, then sitting back and watching the animation if you press them too much.
Difficulty: There are two forms of difficulty in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. The first is within the enemies. As mentioned above, there are a variety of baddies, but once you figure out their weaknesses, taking them out becomes second nature. This is also true of boss battles. The bad part is that these enemies are scripted, so they will actually pop back to life when you leave and return to an area. The second, and more prominent, difficulty in Warrior Within lies in the environments. Not only will the Prince have puzzles to solve, but he (and you) will have to figure out where to go next. Many times this is pretty straightforward, and is helped by a changing camera angle. However, there are times when the right path may not be so obvious. In addition, some very important power-ups (like Life Upgrades) are very well-hidden, and are very easily overlooked. In fact, I found myself peeking at a walkthrough numerous times throughout this game, not only for power-ups, but also because I kept getting lost in time.
Game Mechanics: The controls of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within are spot-on when it comes to interacting with the environment. I’m usually not a fan of games that offer a single button to perform very different actions (like performing a somersault and a jump, as well as evading enemies), but Warrior Within handles this very well, performing the intended action nearly every time. What I did have a problem with, however, was that I would sometimes jump off walls, when not trying to, during the middle of combat. This would sometimes result in the Prince jumping off an edge to his death or forcing the use of his Sands of Time to rewind and redo time. Warrior Within actually seems to be a bit on the buggy side as well. There were numerous times where taking a slightly different route than the developers intended would cause certain enemies to reappear after they had already been defeated, especially with the Crow Master. At other times, flipping switches or passing through time warps multiple times caused unexpected results. In any case, saving often to not only ensure stability, but also to keep from backtracking unintentionally too far, may be your saving grace. Despite some of the little things that need to be tweaked, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is a solid and very addicting game. Anyone that enjoys puzzle-solving and environments that keep you thinking should definitely check this title out. The combat may not be as great as it could be, but it is still fun to hack and slash through the variety of enemies that Warrior Within throws at you. In all, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within will please fans and newcomers alike.
-Woody, GameVortex Communications AKA Shane Wodele
King Arthur Dogs of War