ic-games Review - Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

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Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

Information
Reviewer: Andrew St.Denis
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Reviewed: Xbox
Genre: 3D Platform/Action
UK Release: 09th Dec 2005
Article Date: 03rd Mar 2006
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: £39.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 89%

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Pros

Good nusic

Good voice acting

Enthralling storyline

Cons

The chariot racing

Graphics not really improved

Screenshots

16 of 32

The origins of Prince of Persia start way back, 17 years back in fact, when the game broke new ground with the quality of the graphics and the introduction of sword-play rather then projectile weapons. The game spread onto many of the gaming systems of the time, Amiga, Atari ST, SNES and others. Ubisoft have produced the last three titles, with one a year since 2003. Advances in the graphics have seen the 2D side-scroller move onto the 3D extravaganza that we now see, although some of the old title still remains.

With Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones follows on from ‘Warrior Within’, with the Prince and Kaileena (the Empress of Time) returning to Babylon and telling her that no harm will come to her once there. Only problem there is on sighting the great city they find it ravaged by war. To add to that they are fired upon and the ship sunk. From there you get into character.

The first part of the game is learning the moves available to the prince in The Two Thrones (TTT). Jumping, Wall Running and most moves will be similar for anyone that has played the other two titles. Added for TTT is the ‘Speed Kill’ ability, if the enemy is approached stealthily you get the chance to perform this feature. Also added are spring loaded jump points, which allow diagonal jumps, usually from wall running, that can also be used to launch the speed kill as well.

The Prince of Persia franchise, although advanced to the 3D stage is still the platform game at heart with all the little foibles that you get. Collapsing floors, spikes and more then a few leaps or wall runs of faith; this latter part of the genre is perhaps the most annoying factor since before you find out where you have to go you have to die (more often then not). One further aspect of previous Prince of Persia games is the ability to rewind time, this is also included in TTT although only from a certain point in the game. This does help matters, and is a pretty good gaming addition, but this is not an infinite ability.

The other aspect of gameplay is where the ‘Two’ part of the title comes into play. During some parts of the game you turn [in best Darth Vader voice] ‘To the Dark Side’, you become the Dark Prince, this not only changes the way you fight but also the puzzles you come across. The character also differs in that you lose life and only finding more ‘sands of time’ either from killed foe or in objects around the rooms will replenish your health.

Graphically there are no longer the stunning visuals first seen at the start of the Ubisoft Prince of Persia titles, however animations are very nice and things don’t slow down in anyway likely to destroy the gameplay, just don’t expect anything more then previous titles.

Musically it is a return to the first in the series, with everything having a Persian feel to it; sound effects are also up to the standards expected. Voice acting, joins the unfortunately small ranks of being rather good, a supposedly Middle Eastern prince does have a decidedly American accent to him, but that is about all the bad things that can be said about it.

There are some downsides to the continuation of the series, in that platform style games do get rather repetitive. In an attempt to break things up there is the battle between the ‘Two Princes’ in the good versus evil struggle for his body and there is the ‘chariot race’, now the former is actually quite good, having to adapt to a different fighting style does make you have to think, along with some puzzles that do require some thought. The chariot though, just doesn’t sit right within the game, as such it a rather disappointing distraction rather then anything that adds to the enjoyment of things.

So to sum things up for Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, this is a return to the best for the franchise, definitely better then the Warrior Within and as such it will be welcomed by those that have played the games before. For those that haven’t it will require some work to get in to the gameplay, but it is worth the work. It is only single play and there is no ‘Live!’ content but it is certainly worth the price, to either continue the story or to see what all the fuss is about.

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