Prince of Persia (2008) Review - Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC

So out of the choices of listening to LaughingMan bitch at me of how I don't have a review up or writing a review I though I would save the time and just get a review done with. Fortunately my son is grounded from the gaming systems and I was able to lock on to one of the Christmas presents that they have not taken the time to play yet (they really need to get off the Halo grind). Enter Prince of Persia: A Teen rated game that looks incredible not only to play but to watch. I actually watched my Nephew play some of this which inspired Santa to get it for the boys. It has also given me some nice time off Eve-Online since it is getting boring for me. They have yet to un-screw World of WarCrack and I am thinking of going to get a different MMO but, really just might give it a break altogether since none of them are really appealing to me. But, I digress. This is about Prince of Persia. Onto the show.

Story

Our hero (who is nameless) has lost his ass (donkey) in the middle of the desert and falls into a cavern. Here he comes across a princess (Elika) who is being chased by some attackers. He saves her, but then she tells him to go away. Like the true adventurer he is, he takes off after her and helps her out of a few more attacks. It turns out that she is a princess of a forgotten land that has kept a dark god (Ahriman) from taking over the world. The Prince of Persia (who I'm just going to call "PoPs" since he has no name the entire game) recognizes the name of the evil god and for some reason decides to stay and help her out. I could just stop there since this story was so see though that I actually predicted what would happen but the good thing for me was that there was a twist at the end so I will keep going. Come to find out, her father made a deal with the dark god to bring her back from the dead. PoPs comes right in time to see Ahriman get set free and the lands now turned dark and get enslaved due to the corruption. Elika is disappointed in her father but keeps her faith in not only Ormazd (the Good god here) but her father as well.

The Prince of Persia and Elika now take off to get rid of the corruption and put Ahriman back in prison. To do this they need to travel through the forgotten land and restore the corrupted areas back to Fertile ground so that Ahriman can not break free from his prison that he is still a part of. While traveling to each land they become fond of each other. They also defeat many generals and soldiers of Ahriman to put the land back in order. They really did their homework how evil women can be to each other (especially when they are trying to kill each other) and Elika can come off very cold and heartless in parts. They finally fight the dark god himself to put him back in prison. Even when you fight the generals in their stronghold you will find character developments that sometimes will surprise you. I will leave out what happens next because yes you are right. And no; I will not tell you the twist because despite the rants I will go off on; this is still a decent game to pick up.

Characters

Ubisoft does an excellent job of hiding his name and not letting you guys know it either. I just realized when writing this review that you never hear his name in game nor does he give it to anyone. He is your normal adventurer / thief. Prince of Persia starts with him looking for his ass (his donkey) that had tons of grave robbed loot on it and he was about to retire. That was before he met Elika.

He is your typical guy that does not believe in fate or honor. Many times he points out in game that people don't die with honor, they just die. Elika tries to get him to spill his guts about his past but, he often deflects the questions and turns them back on to Elika who is proud of her past but, wants more.

The Princess of the Ahura and through death has gotten powers from Ormazd. This character is attached to you throughout Prince of Persia now. Lending you help in battle and helping you get though the really tricky parts of the land she helps the prince realize what he really wants in life. Although different from the prince, she and he have great discussions in game that really help their relationship during their adventures. Other gaming magazine reviews pretty much want to hump her but; they are not worth mentioning here. She is controlled by the AI of Prince of Persia and once again Ubisoft did a great job of not making the AI retarded. Well, the AI that helps you that is.

Again no name for another character and you really don't care. He is the one that freed Ahriman and will try and stop you. He has struggled with the loss of his wife and the loss of his daughter is too much for him to bear. He gives his soul to Ahriman to become on of his generals so that Elika might live.

The Prince of Persia is actually the voice of reason here. Although he won't kill him for respect out of Elika he still points out that he doesn't know him and that won't mean that the king won't take off PoPs' head given the chance.

The Corrupted

Think of this as black ooze that covers the land. If it gets a hold of anything living, it drags it down to devour it. This can be formed to be many things in Prince of Persia and usually end up being more of a pain in the ass than anything. It can also screw up your timing on jumps or drops or actually cause you to speed up since if you stay in one area too long you will be pulled back by Elika to a safe spot. It can also manifest itself as a soldier that you have to fight. There are not a lot of these in the game, maybe one between each section so you don't see them a lot. The good thing is that when you do fight them (even though most of them cheat), it is in either an enclosed area or an open platform making dispatching them very easy by either stabbing them against the wall and ripping your sword up, or cunt-punting them off the edge.

Once a proud prince that was a great hunter, enjoying the thrill of the hunt and believed to have hunted all that there was to hunt. Ahriman heard of him and offered him to hunt the most dangerous creature of all. With the prince being too proud to realize the trap set by Ahriman is now trapped himself. He now serves Ahriman by hunting man.

He fights dirty by spitting on your screen so you can't see what is happening. Just make sure that you are in striking distance when he does so you can launch a combo at him and the corruption will fade from your screen. The Prince of Persia takes this fight just a little more personal than the other generals. When you face the Hunter in his realm, he releases moving Corruption blobs into the world when you fight him after the first time. Since these are a BIG pain in the ass I suggest you don't go to his area until after you beat the other three generals. The achievement to get with him is to counter his attacks 5 times. It is very easy to get.

When human this Ahura was close to coming up with a formula for eternal life. He knew his end was near so he pleaded with Ormazd for a few more years of life. When his prayers went un-answered, he turned to Ahriman. In trade for his soul and immortality he now uses the corruption as a way to perform sick experiments on humans and manipulate it the corruption to whatever he needs done with.

I found him to be a LOT faster than the hunter and his fights were a pain in the ass since most of his button sequences were on blink-and-your-f**ked mode. His achievement to get was to not use your acrobatic attack when defeating him which was easy to do when I first faced him. I don't know if it would have been worse later on but, taken how long it was to defeat him in the final stage, I'm glad I didn't wait. He tries to bait you with immortality but neither you nor Elika take him up on it. When you face him, he releases corrupted air into the world. Although it does make you speed up in parts, it's nothing too bad and not much to worry about.

With her beauty beaten out of her by a jealous woman while at court, she lost her power to influence people in the political affairs of the Royal palace and turns to Ahriman to get it back. Ahriman did one better for her by giving her the power to read the desires of whatever man she wanted to influence and be able to bend reality to transform those desires to a reality but, any man that was influenced by her would not recognized her the next day causing her to run away every morning and return and try again every night. Growing tired of the process she gave up and Ahriman called her to serve only him. Now, she uses her prisoners to play a mock court with her or else end up in the next life early.

I really enjoyed taking this bitch out. Her shit talking was annoying and her achievement made want to punch babies. Of course I tried to get the achievement after I took out the Alchemist and Warrior so I think if you went after the achievement the first time you took her on it would not be so bad. The Achievement is to take her out without using your gauntlet attack. Unless she was fully covered with corruption or just her, you would have to let her beat you down until she changed forums. Elika seemed to have taken the fights with her personal and she really shows how much mercy she can have when Elika cleanses the land of her corruption. It was impressive to say the least. When you face her, she releases a corrupted swarm to come after you in parts. Again, not a huge threat, just a pain in the ass.

This king and his country were faced with overwhelming odds and was not only going to loose the freedom of himself but, his people as well. Making a deal with Ahriman to become a man of war, Ahriman transformed him so that he was able to protect his people. Although they kept their freedom, they rejected their king. He kept his honor defending his people but, now he has only one choice: to serve Ahriman.

I'm glad I took this son of a bitch out first cause he truly was a pain in the ass. Because of his fat ass you could not lift him for your gauntlet attacks and if you accidentally pressed the gauntlet attack you actually try and lift him . . . before he back hands you like a bitch. His achievement was easy to get too since it was to dodge his attacks (5 times) in one fight. Although powerful he is slow. Elika makes it her personal mission to try and save him but, he is past hope.

The same king from above but, now because of his choice to serve Ahriman and has become transformed by the corruption. Mourning the loss of his wife and because of his choices; now also mourning the loss of his daughter.

Holy shit this guy is FAST. For the first 5 minuets of fighting him he was making me his prison bitch and I was no where near hurting him. After finding out that countering his attacks are a lot easier than trying to hit him I started unleashing hell on him and he ended up running from me.

He has been in prison for the last thousand years and wants out to rule again. He is the main bad guy in the story and although it seems like everyone in the Prince of Persia world knows about him, the people that were to keep him imprisoned have left his prison unguarded. You actually get to fight him.

The non-existent good god of the Prince of Persia world. PoPs actually pokes fun at him for not being there to help them out although Elika's powers grow throughout Prince of Persia through his name. The Prince of Persia also takes the time to thank him through a round about way when he is saved by Elika. Ormazd is only mentioned and plays no visible part in this Prince of Persia game.

Gameplay

Just to get your mindset right about how you play this game think: Spider monkey + Laura croft - boobs + Crack. To get started it is pretty easy and Prince of Persia controls are very fluid, unless you are a button masher. Most of the time you are trying to find your way to fight the boss of each level. You will face at the most 1 enemy per level which means you have to climb poles, walls, vines, or fissures. You also have this feature called grip fall which allow you to slide down rock walls like you had a grip on the wall. This glove also allows you to wall run short distances. You crawl along ceilings, use wall rings to jump off of, slide down platforms, and flip off of flag poles. When you really get moving it all comes fast and if you are use to how the buttons remember your presses it all looks very good.

When you fight you have 5 buttons that will affect your fight. RT to block, A for acrobatic assault, B for your gauntlet, Y for a magic attack from Elika, and X for a sword attack from the Prince of Persia. Now, the generals are quick and the AI learns your fighting style so it will start blocking you if you keep doing the same thing over and over. The goal is to get your big combo out of the way first, that way you can mix it up later on.

Now, the part you have been waiting for: WHO IN THE HOLY F*** THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO REMEBER YOUR BUTTON PRESSES FOR 3 SECONDS!?! Seriously who? It makes trying to jump from one place to another an absolute BITCH! Once you get use to it, it can be alright but, getting use to it or trying to fix your mistake -- forget it. You would have better luck finding a game God of War didn't copy from (just to piss you God of War fan boys off).

You will find all too often that you have misjudged your jump and because you are use to the timing of the button presses when you need to change the type of jump you do it's too late and will result in you getting saved by Elika, who takes you back to where you started but, only on solid ground.

FU**!!! Now when my seven year old says: "Why doesn't she just take you where you're going" you know the programmer screwed up somewhere. Elika comes and saves your ass more times than you deserve in Prince of Persia but, since you never die what do you expect? the super retarded part is that she takes you back to the beginning rather than just gives you a boost back to where you were going OR take you back to the place you fell from that way you don't have to do the whole damned run again.

Power plates: there are very little differences between the four power plates that you can activate. The colors are green, yellow, red, and blue. Blue lets you fly; Yellow lets you fly with a little control (to avoid obstacles). Red kind of shoots you out of a cannon (still flying), and green lets you run on the walls. While this part I found refreshingly original that's unless you have to go on a yellow or green power plate. You are flying, you are flying, you are flying, OH F**K THERE IS A WALL IN FRONT OF ME!!! you try and go around it but since it takes up your whole screen or Elika is turning in flight, you usually hit the wall which ends up with Elika saving your ass, which means that huge long run of wall jumping to get to the power plate has to be redone. Its worse with the green plate since usually when you run it is dark and hard to see the obstacles in front of you OR tell when an obstacle ends so you can move from side to side to avoid them. It's even a bigger pain in the ass when you are running around rounded pillars with obstacles in your way. They are usually at the end of a big run and you end up doing the whole thing over several times. I think the funniest thing that happened to me was that I was on a yellow plate and just about when I got to the end of the run, Elika dropped me short of the platform. My 7 year old yells out "That was stupid, she was flying and dropped you short dad!"; Once again, the wisdom of a seven year old proves to be wiser than that of a programmer.

Fighting: ALL fighting, not just the peons you take care of during your monkey jumping escapades is fast and because of the button memory: RETARDED!!! F**k those F**king F**k sticks that F**cking thought it F**king would be al-F**king-right to F**king have a F**king adjustable time period to F**king press a F**king button to F**king save your F**king retarded ass! Seriously, just like in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed when you are getting owned in a fight you will come up a button sequence. When this happens you have different time periods to press the button. 1) Normal time: For those that have slow reflexes are not going to get this that much but, it is obtainable although it does not happen enough. 2) Pick your ass, get a drink, drop the kids off at the pool, read a book, order a pizza, and then press the damn button. Or 3) F*** you, you blinked. You get to watch PoPs get owned. Now since you don't die, you get to watch Elika save your ass but, the cost is that the enemy gets his health back. So all that work you did before hand, like the 14 point combo you just unleashed on his ass, gets healed. To top off your freshly raped ass, the bosses then start talking shit to you.

There is absolutely no room for error. If you were holding down the block button when a button sequence starts, guess you are shit out of luck cause you are about to get your balls fed to you. And since you can't tell too often when you go to a cut scene you just might have your block button on and with the 3 second timer on the buttons they decide to give you a dirty Sanchez instead. If you hit the block button at the right time you can set yourself up nicely for a counter attack; usually ending up in a nasty combo.

As you fight more of the generals, more and more items are released into the world such as corrupted air, corrupted moving blobs, corrupted insect swarm, and corrupted tentacles. I would suggest that when you are going through Prince of Persia that you make sure you take out as many generals before releasing more power to Elika. Also take out the Warrior or Alchemist first since the generals seem to get stronger with the more generals you beat.

Graphics

Whether you have Prince of Persia paused or you are actively going through Prince of Persia, it just looks gorgeous! Whenever you want to talk to Elika, the computer comes in for a close up although the Prince of Persia and Elika always do the same thing when they talk, its nice to view who is talking and what the reaction is by the other. When pausing the Prince of Persia game, the graphics go from its normal state to where it looks like it was painted in water colors. The background is moving all the time and the scenery is very good. The cut scenes don't bother to change to a different state when it is time; all the graphics stay the same unless pausing Prince of Persia. The camera works well when you need to look around and there is hardly a time where the camera won't move to where you would like it to.

Sound

The music in Prince of Persia is nice when you clear an area; you hear sounds of nature, birds and insects. When in corrupted areas you hear gurgling of corruption and machinery clanking. The grunts and talking in Prince of Persia when wall jumping are usually the same but, you do have some dialog between The Prince and Elika that give you a nice break from it. The sound of the game fits well even though it is definitely not soundtrack worthy.

The Dialog between the characters is very well written. there are no times where you want to go in a bitch slap anyone for saying stupid shit unlike most JRPGs *CHOUGH PIECE-OF-SHIT-INFINITE-UNDISCOVERY CHOUGH*. They help tell the story very well but, interaction could be a little more varied.

OVERALL

I really don't know who came first with the franchise, Prince of Persia or Laura Croft but, if most Prince of Persia games are like this one I would be interested to see how they turn out. If you have not tried Prince of Persia I would recommend picking up this one first. Its a game that you can enjoy in front of the kids of family, still get your beat down on, and don't have to worry about porn popping up and getting you beaten by the wife.

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Prince of Persia (2008) Review
(Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC)

The Prince of Persia may have mastered the Sands of Time, but the adjustable timed button sequences are raping him raw.

Story

Characters

The Corrupted

Gameplay

Graphics

Sound

OVERALL

9.0

6.0

6.0

6.0

8.0

7.0

Video Series

Authors

Reviews

Popular Topics

Types

Author

Series

Bloggers

CCS.com

General

Prince of Persia (2008) Review (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC)

The Prince of Persia may have mastered the Sands of Time, but the adjustable timed button sequences are raping him raw.

Story

Characters

The Corrupted

Gameplay

Graphics

Sound

OVERALL

9.0

6.0

6.0

6.0

8.0

7.0

Video Series

Authors

Reviews

Popular Topics

Prince of Persia (2008) Review
(Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC)