Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (PS2)
Developed and Published by: Ubisoft

Before you start this game, there are a few things to get used to. The prince we knew is dead.

No longer the witty, charming and arrogant character, several years on the run from an unstoppable black demon have turned our man into a twisted rogue assassin with a heart of stone. It’s quite a shock, and also quite sad, which adds to the darkness of the game overall.It’s like watching Roger Moore as the light hearted dandy 007 turn into Logan/Wolverine from X-Men.He also seems to have picked up a passion for wearing belts.

The game plays much the same, except now (in a hilarious joke by the game developers, I have no doubt) the button that used to just put your weapon away now causes you toss it across the room, never to be recovered. Haha. Funny.In Sands it was easy to see where you had to go, your path was clearly marked. Now the jumps seem more perilous and the ledges are less obvious. The game still takes place in a single palace, but it’s non-linear, you can go anywhere at any time. There is a map. This is a good feature if you’ve missed something, but a source of frustration as well, as you may have to go in circles to achieve your goal, or navigate the same trap-filled hallway 2 or 3 times in a row.Your sand tanks (yes there is still the trademark time-control, thankgod) are severely limited to 6, you have to earn new ones instead of them just appearing.

Princey has gained some skills. Although I’m not into this aspect very much, as far as combat goes, Warrior Within definitely delivers. Fighting options are almost infinite. Do you chop the enemies head off? Cut him in half at the waist or down the middle? Or throw him off the nearest cliff? You can also throw enemies at each other. Whatever you choose, the bad guys bleed profusely, and sometimes they beg for their lives.That’s always fun. Fighting consists of one large main sword, which changes as you advance, and more than 30 smaller weapons you can pick up from enemies and switch along the way. These run from a simple dagger or axe to hidden weapons like a hockey stick or a teddy bear.Learning the fighting styles is a major frustration for me at this point. Sadly it’s also a major breakthrough in gaming technology, and a selling point of the game.Do you like learning combos? I DON’T, so imagine my glee at opening the manual and flipping through no less than *5 full pages* of combo attacks. There’s about 60 of them. The official guide book comes with a fold-out poster of them all. Prepare to study!As it stands right now I’m almost 4 hours into the game and I haven’t progressed much on learning the combos. It’s mostly a lot of straight-up button mashing. I’m not proud of this.But don’t listen to me, I’m just a girl.

The major down-sides to this game, aside from the complicated fighting style, are the soundtrack and finding the hidden artwork. Remember in Sands of Time when you’d find a near-impossible to reach hidden doorway, it would lead you down a mysterious hall into a blue area where you would get a sweet extension to your life line? Well, this time these mystery areas can lead to either a life extension…. OR unlock parts of the production art gallery. You never know.I don’t know about you, but spending 15 minutes risking my life trying to navigate a near-impossible set of traps just to unlock one lousy background sketch kinda pisses me off.And I really miss blowing off steam by hacking up Farah for no reason….that bitch.

If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’ve already heard about the soundtrack. It varies from regular “spooky Persian castle!” score to nu metal. Painful, painful nu metal. The demo video plays to a Godsmack song. Thankfully the guitar riffs only kick in during the fight scenes.

I realize this review focuses on the negative, but I don’t want to come off as hating this game. It takes some getting used to, and the learning curve for the fighting style is huge, but it’s definitely a solid game that’s fun and challenging at the same time. It took me about an hour to stop hating this game, and now i love it. From what I’ve read, this is the general consensus of fans.Warrior Within is truly a great game. The graphics are superb, fluid and life-like, and the story is interesting.And it’s not as good as Sands of Time, but how COULD it be?? — Manic Panda

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