A nice return to classy gaming.
The graphics are very nice in the bright daylight of Babylon (goodbye dark Island of Time) and enemies are well modeled to give them that evil look, just incase you don't realise when they're throwing swords at you. The sound follows suit with convincing voices and battle sounds accompanied by an up-beat soundtrack.
The gameplay is excellent as usual and running up walls and making hap-hazard jumps across gulfs of immense proportions never really gets tiring. Thankfully the platforming sections cover most of the game and split up the battles nicely. Thats not to say the combat is bad, far from it in fact. There are a vast array of moves and combos at your dispense and allows you to almost create your own style. If you want you can pick up an axe an dive straight at enemies dealing blow after blow of damage. On the other hand you may want run circles around your enemies dealing single deadly blows with your dagger. Lets not forget about the sand powers. Once again we can un-hit and un-plummet-to-our-deaths ourselves when we mess up. Dissapointingly there are no new powers associated with this game but none the less, there still a great touch.
There are some new features to this game in terms of gameplay though. There is an addition to the platforming in terms of the dagger pads, which enable us to hold ourselves up using the dagger as leverage. Secondly there is the newly implemented Speed Kill System. This allows to creep up on unsuspecting enemies and kill them without engaging ina fight. This is done through a succesion of timed button presses prompted on screen. However some may find that later enemies who have more presses and shorter leverage times in SK aren't worth the hassle as you'll likely be thrown off their backs with a mis-press. Thirdly, The Dark Prince. This is ourly burly hero's sarcastic alter ego. Every now and again you get sections to play as the DP, however you are constantly on the clock as your health is always falling, and killing enemies is a neccesity. Ubisoft have put so much effort in that there is a brand new list of moves for the DP as well, so you can own sand monsters a brand new way... aren't they nice. The last edition, and my favourite, are the new boss fights. Thats right BOSS FIGHTS. For every quarter section of the game there are boss fights (4 in all). I won't spoil them, but each one requires you to deliberate a strategy to allow you to damage your opponents, some of which are harder then others (Ahem...number 3).
The lifespan. Unfortunately, the experience is relatively short lived at under 10 hours, maybe more for the slow paced. There is very little in the form of side quests bar finding credits for the image gallery and finding helath upgrades.
Finally, are there any problems? Nothing major that affects the game hugely but there are a few.
Battles often see you getting swamped with enemies and you may find yourself constantly blocking waiting for one period to attack.
The Speed Kill system rarely ends in success and often sees you rewinding time for another chance.
The combat though 'free-form' will usually have you repeating the same combo over and over again. Note: personally i didn't but when my mate played he kept repeating Rage of Darius. Relates to player skill.
When you want to save your sand credits you have to Quit, go to the gallery and turn off, other wise they go down the drain.
It has to end....Bye Bye POP