Prince of Persia The Warrior Within

You enter a large clockwork cavern blanketed by bulging vines and endless waterfalls. You swing to a poll then vault to a hanging rope, letting you run on walls until you plummet four stories by slicing your sword in a dangling drapes, only to get attacked from blade dancers and crow masters. Once you’ve mopped those fools up, a thirty foot tall Brute breaks down the walls and stomps you dead. Wait – That’s no good, rewind time to where your face gets stomped on. Dodge the attack, break the Brutes legs, and climb his back for a fatal blow to the head.

Welcome to Prince of Persia Warrior Within. Ubisoft’s latest creation that follows the Prince through his journey to defy fate, outrun a monstrous Dahaka, and return to the island of time hoping of stop the Sands from being born. Warrior Wtihin’s tale is told through impressive CG cinematics and in-game cutscenes, the development of the characters is strong and the engaging story will throw twists at you. The Prince is very likeable as a protagonist and his dark nature and “I’ll kick your ass real fast” vibe fits in perfectly with the more mature and challenging environment.

The Sands of Time possessed a unique artistic direction, and passed it down to Warrior Within. The graphics are gorgeous and often breath taking; like a blend of Splinter Cell’s lighting engine and The Sands of Time’s artistic direction, with buckets of blood thrown in for good measure. Watching shadows dance on walls as Prince deals death to dozens of enemies, then having them crumble into sand is quite the sight. The monochromatic palette and impressive art help breathe emotion into the atmosphere. The dynamic architecture is often a means of advancing or puzzle solving, and the massive levels drenched in nature bleed pristine waterfalls and lush vegetation. Action plays out from a third-person view, which can become obscured by the surroundings. There is also a first person view that uses a clever “fish-eye” perspective, and a fixed view for scoping out levels. On a technical note, Warrior Within suffers from unimaginative use of backtracking; regardless of the “travel back in time” idea, you’ll occasionally grow tired of seeing the same corridors in a different time period. The games harkening difficulty doesn’t help either, but once you die forty times you’ll begin to learn the ropes and tame this beast of a game.

Warrior Within has three difficulties; easy is just that, normal is challenging, and hard will bitch slap you in ways Sands of Time could only dream of. The ball-breaking difficulty adds much needed longevity, and you’ll require patience and perseverance to tackle the great puzzles and challenging enemies.

What makes the combat exciting to watch and a blessing to play, is the Oscar worthy choreography and free-form combat system, which lets you string together combos. Start with a grab, then; mince enemies in two, strangulate them, slice their head off, or throw them off a cliff. Dual wielding swords and the ability to use the environment as your ally deepen the combat. The dozens of engaging foes are a challenging blast, especially the enormous twenty foot Brute. The meat of the combat is near the end, if your man enough to reach this part, the game literally throws dozens of guys at you room after room and giving it all you’ve is the only way to survive. The action is magnified by slow-motion static cameras, and tricky cinematography – such as following a blade as it cuts through air and into someone’s head.

”If I Could Turn Back Time!”

As if the premise wasn’t original enough, Warrior Within spans two time periods – the past and present – and certain swords unlock interesting time bending power with the ability to slow time, rewind time, and slow down your enemies. There’s even a power where Prince goes buck wild and attacks at super high speeds as if he was The Flash. Fused with the free-form fighting, you can slow time to a stand still and mop your enemies up in split seconds. Turning back the clock also makes for more dangerous and complex puzzles, an open mind is required to complete the brilliantly designed puzzles, and the sense of accomplishment rules. Puzzle’s can be as simple as dodging trap doors or sharp blades, and can be as dynamic as entire levels such as the amazing clockwork’s– where you need to activate a monstrous clock. Akin to the combat, the platform hopping runs fluidly and the animations are excellent, above all though the combat and puzzles are hella fun.

For a sequal, Warrior Within is everything you’d want it to be. It’s longer, more challenging, darker, and a more gratifying than The Sands of Time. The game features a few original scores, some heavy metal instrumentals, and some very mood enhancing ambient tracks - if only the music played more often. As cool as the sense of isolation on a lifeless castle is, I’d much rather kill to heavy metal or triumphant scores. The enemies voice overs help enhance the experience, they’ll often taunt and challenge the Prince which only pumps up the player.

The euphoric fun from wire-fu battles and brain teasing puzzles is enough for anyone to pick this up. Add to that cool time warping abilities and an engaging story. There isn’t much motivation to replay it beyond the harder difficulties, but the games long story will captivate you beyond fifteen hours.