Chapter 10: Prince of Persia Review

As you can see i've decided to drop Roman numerals in my blog titles. Mainly because I don't know 10 onwards. Also, it was a pain.

Anyway, after a week of Mega Drive shenanigans, it's back to XBox matters at hand.

This week's review is Prince of Persia. Now I never played the previous instalments in the series, even though according to Ben Croshaw, the Sands of Time trilogy were the best games on PS2.

I was given this by Dan to play and decided to give it a bash. Now bear in mind, 5 weeks later, Saints Row 2, SFIV and a Mega Drive have disrupted me playing this game properly so i'm about quarter of the way through. So my review is purely on what i've seen so far.

The game plot is something along the lines of evil prisoner is freed, covers the world in black goo and you (Prince of said Persia) and a magical assistant have to go around to each area defeating baddies and making the grass grow once more. Meh, the plot is weak and thin but is enough to get the gaming moving.

Personally, I feel this game is one of those you play when you want to relax, when you can't be bothered with anything too heavy. I think it's the parkour element. You cannot die because when you are about to plummet to certain doom, magic lady pulls you back. So it's casual and easy.

The parkour is good in the game, although sometimes I press the wrong button and the Prince decides to jump onto well...nothing. That's frustrating. Also, sometimes my brain can't work out the simplest of routes from A to B and so the Prince contiunously has to be bailed out of meeting Beezlebub. I can safely say I won't get that achievement for being saved less than 100 times.

The fighting aspect is easy too. Press X, Y and B during a battle and you'll thrust your sword forward, throw Elika at the baddie or throw him in the air and go Ryu on him temporarily. Nothing too it really. The baddies i've fought so far haven't been too challenging, but as I said i'm in the early stages.

Graphically the game is good for 360 and is colourful and vibrant. A problem I do have with the game is that the main character is a dick. He sounds American and speaks like an arrogant dick most of the time. It's annoying. Why you would ever want to play as someone like that is beyond me. Unless the game was Skins and you could play as Cook.

Another problem I have is that after about 20 mins of play I start to get bored. It's all good and well parkouring your way through the levels every now and then. But doing it every time you want to get somewhere gets monotonous. Maybe it's my lack of adventure but I couldn't play this game for hours straight.

Overall, Prince of Persia is a decent game. I think if you're not a fan of the series already, or a fan of parkour, then a rent is probably best. I've been told the game is around 8 hours complete so you could do it in a weekend. I'll continue to play it off and on but it'll never be a game that encaptures me for days on end.

Rating: 7/10

Gamerpoints achieved so far: 160/1000