Breathtaking

User Rating: 8.7 | Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones PS2
As a fan of the POP series i can say this certainly keeps true to the other 2 titles. For me the most notable difference in the game is the fact several factors have been "borrowed" from God Of War. The dark prince character has the Daggertail, a chainlike weapon seared onto his flesh. Sound familiar? Fighting with this guy is much like Kratos, long reaching sweeping attacks. New to T2T is the speed kill. Approach an enemy without being detected and you can perform an instant kill, provided you can hit the square button at the right time. The screen gets a black and white filter and your weapon lights up, at this point you have to press square. If you hit to early or too late, youl get thrown off and attacked. I found these very hard to pull off on normal so i switched to easy to see all the animations.

The graphics are on par with Warrior Within, although slightly better. Unfortunatly the characters and animation still look the same as WW so the clean wispy dreamlike visuals of SoT are long gone. The game keeps the same vibrant feel as WW, with many objects reflecting light and glowing, which gives the game a nice feel. The music however is pretty forgettable, but luckily theres been no heavy metal as of yet. Gameplay is much of the same. The combat mechanic is the same, apart from the speed kill which actually adds a hell of alot to the boring combat. We all know why we love POP though, the acrobatics. I didnt think it possible but ubisoft have managed to add even more new moves into T2T. These include being able to sit Spider-Man like on top of a swing bar, being able to stab your weapon into a wall in order to hang from it, and as Dark Prince using the daggertail to hook around fixings and swing, again very Spider-Man like, which is in no way a bad thing!

So far Prince has still been a bit moody. I mean thats fair enough really, but its still a shame after his character traits in SoT. Also whats struck me is when you gain a hidden health upgrade (where would POP be without them?!) Prince doesnt make any comments. Only a minor quibble but disapointing none the less. Many comments are made by the Dark Prince however. When playing as Prince the Dark soul will start talking to you, and vis versa. This makes for some pretty comical dialogue at times, and stops the price whining on about his city.

Although i wish for a return to the SoT style POP, the two thrones is a masterpiece, and should appeal to those who were left cold after warrior within.