Bad atmosphere isn't enough to destroy perfect gameplay
User Rating: 7.9 | Prince of Persia: Warrior Within GC
Note: for my reviews, 5 is average Well, here it is, only a year after the revolutionary (yet short) Sands of Time, the not very long awaited Warrior Within is here. At first, I thought that it would stink, let's face it, they dumped the good atmosphere, put what might be TOO much combat in. And worst of all, you fight female ninjas who are ex-phone sex operaters. Plus, a year, who can make a good game in a year? I'll tell you now, Ubi-Soft can. Before you start playing this game, I just want to tell you, turn off the gore. Heads flying everywhere may sound cool at first, until you chop a guy's head clean off by throwing a knife at him. Plus, the gore makes the atmosphere even worse, and we don't want that, now do we? We all loved the platforming in the last game, right? Well, it's back. YES! Let's jump for joy onto a balance beam, then go from that to a wall, then from that wall to a bar! When I heard of the new focus on combat though, I groaned. I mean, cmon, cutting up sand people only goes so far before it gets boring. I was very surprised in this area. Ubi-Soft says that they have created something called "Free Form Combat" where each move leads to three more moves, and each of those moves lead to three more moves. Sort of like a skill tree in an rpg, except with completely impossible acrobatic moves. The game does this, though not very well, there are a lot of moves, but 90% of them don't need another move behind them to be activated. Trust me, you'll still be very pleased with the amount of combos you can pull off. The game goes between platforming and combat very quickly, unlike Sands of Time. The "rooms" of the game are incredibly fun, given the fact that the platforming, puzzle solving, and combat are blended together incredibly well. Another new thing to this game is adventure. No, I'm not talking: "go straight forward adventure." Instead, the game has a solid "world" feel. Sort of like Metroid. This adds backtracking, yes. But it also makes the game longer! (Yes, the length is reasonable this time) Personally, I like the backtracking. The rooms of the game are so fun, that I don't mind doing them again. Another new thing to this game is the actual Challenge. I know, it's hard to believe, this isn't the easiest game in the history of mankind like it's predessesor. You now start out with only three sand tanks! And you can't even rewind in the beginning! (which would go under many of the retarded things in this game) Unlike the first one, you'll need to learn a lot of moves if you don't want to die over and over again. After all, there will be situations where certain moves are best, and if you don't know these moves, you'll either get hurt or die. I almost forgot, while I'm talking about combat, I'll also compliment this game on the fact that it let's you pick up your enemy's weapons! Which rules! There are a surprisingly large amount of weapons, all of which have different speed, damage, and durability. To make it simpler, all of these weapons are divided into four subtypes. Maces: which are very slow but are good for knocking your enemies down, swords: which are pretty standard and well balanced, knives: which are very good for throwing, but generally have very low damage and durability, and axes: which are usually bad for throwing, but are great in close range combat. Weapons, in general, have pretty low durability, meaning that you may take a new weapon off of almost every enemy you defeat. Though, rarer weapons last much longer, and there are even some that don't break, period. Even though secondary weapons are cool, you may dump them altogether for the ability to grab your oponent and strangle them, throw them, slice them, or steal their weapon. Now, to move on to the new look. This, is the only drawback of the game. The "Arabian nights with style" theme is now gone. Giving way to something that is overall uglier. The developers have dumped the series Middle Eastern roots, and taken the generic "angsty and dark" path. If you're a Linkin Park fan or a goth, you may be thinking this is cool. But, even though Ubi tries, you can tell they aren't very good at this whole "dark" thing. Which is good, because if they had succeeded in taking it completely away from the middle eastern setting, we would have one angry Jordan. Instead of sounding "dark" the game instead has more of a brilliantly "retarded" atmosphere. Yes, it indeed is retarded. The "new" prince spews loads of cheesy one-liners. Your enemies sound like a cat dieing, and like I mentioned before, your female opponents can't manage to think about anything but sex. You will instantly lose any connection you had to the lovable Prince as soon as you hear him roar like an idiot everytime you swing your sword, or something equally stupid. In fact, the new Prince is anything but lovable. He's actually rather annoying. His "new" voice (can you believe they dumped the old guy?) tries to sound angsty, but with all due respect, he ends up sounding like a crack addict. The saddest thing is, it is just hard to believe this guy is a Prince. I mean, first off, it's easy to tell that despite how smart he was in the last game, he sounds like he was educated by a paper bag in this one. (actual line: "I am the Prince of Persia and the King of Blades!") There is barely any connection here to actually being a Prince of Persia. You'll even forget the game's Middle Eastern roots from time to time. That is until the Prince chooses stupid line number 507: "For Babylon!" Overall, the new atmosphere doesn't fit the series, but it will probably make you laugh more than disappoint you, it really is that bad, and it poisons the story a little bit, making the plot even more of a downgrade from the previous game (at first it's good but once the punch of the Prince being chased wears off it gets a little dull). Overall, the last game's flaws could be called this game's strong points. It's too bad that the dark atmosphere ruins it so much. I'm serious though, if it still had the wisdom and unchessyness of the first game, this REALLY could be called one of the best games, ever. Let's hope that Ubi Soft returns to the better Arabian Nights theme for the next one.(which, at this rate, could be done right for Christmas '05) Until then, let us remember some of the wise words of your rather slutty female opponents: "OH...The pain...it feels...Exquisite!" 
