Review of Prince of Persia

To give some perspective for my review, I think I should point out that on the scale of gamers, I fall somewhere between the "casual fan" and the "obsessive fanboy."

With that said, I found Prince of Persia disappointing for several reasons.First and foremost was Ubisoft's (second) failure to fully take advantage of their astounding open-world engine.I cannot dispute that the developer has, like Assassin's Creed, created an extraordinarily beautiful world with some of richest colors and textures I've seen on the PS3.In the case of PoP, the cell-shading animation of the Prince, his allies, and his villains is reminicent of Okami...jaw-droppingly gorgeous.But while thegraphics astound, the gameplay suffers.It was a groundbreaking to be able to interact with every nook and cranny around the player, but the luster of this level of interactivity quickly wears off.I still have the sense that there has to be some way that Ubisoft could improve the gameplay to be less repetetive.The gold-standard for open-world gameplay has to be GTA4, in my opinion, and the city feels ALIVE.In PoP, however, the world seems to be nothing more than an excuse to showcase beautiful scenery and show-off how cool some of the player animations can be...you never feel as connected to the world as you do to Liberty City.

My second complaint is one that I've read on this product review, but I'll point it out anyway.The game is wholly comprised of the following pattern: execute acrobatic moves until you reach an enemy, fight the enemy...and repeat.The acrobatics and animations of both the "traveling" and the "fight" are seemless and stunning, but they happen over and over and over again.I found myself bored rather quickly.

Finally, I found this game incredibly easy.I completed the main story in less than ten hours.I did not die once as the Prince's companion makes such an occurrence a virtual impossibility.I easily won eight or so boss battles by pressing the "SQUARE" button repeatedly.And finally, the game will prompt which button to push in combat situations...the computer gives you a crutch you cannot turn off.Dissenters might point out that by button mashing in combat situations I am missing out on some beautiful extended combos and animations.I counter with the opinion that a combat system is seriously flawed if the player can easily succeed by pressing one button continuously.

Overall, I'm in the middle on PoP simply because it was incredibly beautiful and had a decent story with excellent characters.If I were you, however, I'd wait to buy this at a discount instead of paying full price.As beautiful as it is, you shouldn't be in a rush to pay full price for PoP.



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