Prince of Persia 3 brings everything that made PoP1 such a great game, correcting all the mistakes that PoP2 had.
On november 29th, I decide to go at my local EBgames (where I work) just to see my co-workers, and talk with them. At my surprise, behind the counter I see numerous copies of Prince of Persia 3. I'm like, what the hell, wasn't it supposed to be out tomorow? We had no street date, so it was on the shelf the day we received it. So I bought it and came back home with it.
I had this bad feeling, that the game would be just like its predecessor, wich means being buggy, unpolished and lacking of atmosphere.
I finished it this game this after-noon. I had to rush throught it so I can let my girlfriend know about it, so she could write about it in her magazine.
The game lasted 17 hours. It's pretty good knowing I rushed throught it. It's by far the longest of the series
here's the review. ---
Gameplay :
The game uses the same good travel moves, and added a few more. It might seem to be the same thing over and over, but it gets way more complex this time, fortunatly, the '' cielling camera view'' gives you a lot of hints on the path you need to take. So it won't always be obvious , but you'll know , for example, that you definitly need to get higher. The added some ''travel'' moves, like being able to stick your dagger in the wall, so you can reach farther areas by starting to sprint the wall from there. The Dark Prince is a good addition, it breaks the linear fighting as the prince, and when you do puzzle jumping and such, his chain can help you to swing yourself from point A ot point B. It's a good idea, no complains on this.They added a new speed kill system, wich works perfectly well, and since its easy to miss it, it never feels overpowered. You'll be able to kill 2 guys at once, and might sound cheesy, but hey, if you can actually hit the button 4 time at the correct timing, you deserve to have them killed, cause it's pretty tricky. You can launch theses kills from all angles, and it feels awesome.
Graphics :
Yeah so I have an Xbox360, and I know what good graphics are. But PoP3 manages to be excellent looking for the old consoles, there's a lot of colors, lots of motion blur effect, the prince animates almost too realisticly and the levels, well, the world around you, like Babylon, is absolutly outstanding. You can't tell that the city is a background, since everything seems to be part of the actual level, and not only a picture on a wall. There's some framerate issues, but not annoying enough to break the action. It can get tedious sometimes, but it wont prevent you to win a fight against some mobs.
Sound : The sound itself is amazing. No more Godsmack ( not saying the group isn't good ) but it didn't felt like an arabian atmosphere. This time, the music is procuded by the orchestra of montreal, and sounds awesome. It really stick to the game's atmosphere.
// And the magical thing that made PoP1 so good is back in PoP3. Let me explain to you.
-You remember how your character's clothing was getting dirty and scratched overtime? It's back. Not totaly about clothing, but you'll see by yourself.
- A narrator. Someone who tells the story has its progressing, like the Prince did in PoP1.
- Farrah's back, so the two of you will help out each other in different area.
- The Prince actually talk this time, unlike in PoP2. And when he say something, it's always something that makes you feel like it's the Prince you knew in PoP1. No more trash talking and such.
Overall, PoP3 is by far the best of the series. It combines the magic feel of the first episode, and the gruesome combat of the second episode. We can definitly see that Ubisoft didn't sleep on the job this time.