Prince of Persia Rocks!

As I have stated on an earlier blog, I was working on finishing Prince of Persia on the PS3, one of Ubisoft's monster games so far.  I was able to finish it a few days ago and it so totally rocks!  Here's why.

Forget your other ideas of earlier PoP games.  Forget the mild-mannered Prince we got to know on Sands of Time and of the other succeeding titles that were really not that good (they're Two Thrones and Warrior Within I think).  The unamed Prince comes back this time as a grave-robbing, tomb-raiding, smart-mouthed thief, that's right, a thief.  But he's not alone because he joins a runaway princess named Elika for the ride.  The objective: to ride the kingdom of the corruption that covers the entire land.  Hmm.. sounds like the government to me.

As expected from a PoP game, there is a lot of platforming and crazy acrobatics/gymnastics when moving from one point to another in this open world game.  The controls are spot on and wall running and other off-the-wall stunts (literally!) are easy to accomplish.  Battles with the creatures of corruption (this really sounds like the government) is one-on-one with a little help from Elika and her magic attacks.  For completists out there, you can spend a lot of time collecting each light seed from every nook and cranny in the kingdom.  Light seeds, by the way, are used to unlock more areas for you to heal of the corruption.

The game tends to be gentle on the player though as it tells you when to block or what technique to use (sword, gauntlet, or Elika's magic).  Elika's compass acts as your GPS when you tend to get spun around.  In this game, you can never die as Elika always catches you when you miss a jump and saves you when you get your back end kicked by the corruption.  The penalty though is that the enemy's life bar goes up when you were supposed to "die" and Elika saves you.

Over all, this is one game I highly recommend for fans of the PoP franchise or adventure games in particular.  This surely makes up for the other episodes in the franchise that felt empty and mediocre.  This new Prince of Persia will definitely be on the throne of your Playstation 3 adventure game list for a while.