Full Review for Prince of Persia by imaloony8.0

Introduction

Now, I've never played any of the other Prince of Persia games. All I know is that Yahtzee Zero Punctuation calls Sands of Time the third best game he's played, and the trilogy have the ingredients for the best game ever. I didn't have huge expectations going into this game, but I was a little excited about it. However, I went in and found a meh plot, bad gameplay, and not much to get excited about.

For this review, I'm also doing scoring a bit differently. I'm using the 1-10 scale, obviously, but rather than a normal review where 7 is average, in this review 5 will be average across the board. Keep that in mind while reading this review.

Graphics

For a 360 games, some of the graphics look dated at first. But when you take a closer look, you'll see a very artistic style to the graphics that gets very pleasing to the eye. It may not be the most technologically advanced 360 game in terms of graphics, but the artwork looks very nice, especially at the two "achievement spots" for the Titanic View and Assassin's View, you'll get a great outlook to see some awesome views where the artwork can really blow you away.
On a negative note, however, some of the textures on the walls look a little off and out of place.
Overall, the graphics of this game are a fresh take in this generation where good graphics are only described by how realisitic they look. It's up to games like Prince of Persia to show us that beautiful artwork goes a long, long way.

Sound

Since this is a 5 average scale, you have to realize how great the sound must be to get a perfect 10.

Start with a sound effects. They sound really good. While freerunning, you'll hear a variety of sound effects, such as Elika's magic, the Prince's gauntlet scraping against a stone wall, or the characters shuffling on a corner. They sound quiet well done and give it a great feel.
The voice acting is also pretty good. The few enemies that talk sound very into it and have very convincing voices that make you believe that they really, REALLY want you dead. Really. The Prince also is very well done, often throwing in a laugh-out-loud line that gives him the spirited personality that he deserves. You love to her his adventurous voice throw in a snarky comment or make fun of an enemy. Elika is okay, but ther personality of her character is so inconsistent, that it's hard for the voice actor to find a good tone for the character. Still, she sound pretty well. Bonus points here for a Blues Brothers references when the Prince says, "Okay, I get it, you're on a mission from God."
Lastly, the sound. Beautifuly composed, especially the great music you hear after purifying an area. It's some of the best composed music I've heard in a game since Fable II.

So the sound is great, simply outstanding. Sadly, this redeeming factor can't do much for the rest of the game.

Gameplay

I was seriously disappointed here with this game. At first, I didn't think it was too bad, but that was simply the thrill of playing a new game that dulled my sence of a good game for a short while. To put it short, the gameplay of this is short and repetitive.

Let's start with the plot. Nothing too bad to say, it's pretty standard. A nameless hero stumbling across the desert looking for his donkey meets a girl with magical powers named Elika. She's on the run from her father's men, who wish to capture her, and you decide to lend a helping hand. Shorly after that, said father releases a dark god, and now it's up to you an Elika to seal up the evil. There are a few cool plot twists along the way, and by talking to Elika you can learn a bit about her world, but nothing too major. That is until the absolutely HORRIBLE end. I'll try to give away as few splilers as possible, but basically, because of something that happens at the end of the game, the Prince does something to completely destroy what he had been trying to do the whole game, and had just finished doing, rendering everything you just suffered through null and void. It's to the point where you want to reach into your TV screen and punch the Prince in the eye.

Now, the combat itself. This is absolutely the worst aspect of this game. It's a pretty simply concept. You fight enemies two on one using Elika as your partner. You can move, although you move INCREDIBLY slowly. Only able to move faster while blocking or by doing a roll. Basically, Right Trigger puts up your guard, and tapping it at the right time deflects the opponents attack. You'll have to get VERY good at this VERY fast, because if you just block the enemy, they'll wail on you for ages, not letting you attack. If you are hit, the Prince will turtle back a bit, holding his side. If you get hit again, you'll get a quick time even. If you succeed, you'll block and opponent attack and magically regenerate, and if you miss, Elika will save, you giving the opponent time to regenerate health. This means that there's really no way to die. And the enemy wailing on you gets so annoying that you might as well let yourself get hit to try the quick time event. The rest of the combat is pretty simple. X for sword attack, A for acrobatic attack, normally a set up for a bigger combo, B to grab the oppontent with your Gauntlet, and Y to throw Elika at them. Elika may sound like a good long range option, but in reality, she has a very limited range. So either she's much less agile than we give her credit for, or she's much lazier than she lets on to. The combos are cool for a while tapping the buttons in combination, but after a while, it feels like a quick time even where you're simply filling in the buttons for yourself. Not creativity like in Devil May Cry, there are a set number of combos possible in the game, which wears on your nerves, because you just end up doing the same combo again and again once you find one that works.

Lastly, the freerunning. Oh, the freerunning. At first, it seems like fun, basically mapped around the B, Y, and A buttons. B to grab rings on the wall, Y to double jump with Elika or activate special plates, and A for pretty much everything else. For a while, it's fun. Then, it hits you. You're not free running, it's one predetermined path that you're following! In fact, it's a lot like a quick time event. Don't believe me? The game basically forces you to press the right button at the right time. Ring, B, gap, Y, beam, A, beam, A, gap, A, wall run, A, over and over. And if you fall, you don't "Die", Elika saves you and puts you back at the last piece of solid ground you were on. Meaning you do it over and over again. It's starting to sound a lot like quick time even now, isn't it? This isn't free running, it has none of the freedom that Mirror's Edge and Assassin's Creed gave you with this machanic, you do things the games way, or you can die.

So, yeah. The gameplay is crap no matter how you look at it. Boring, bland, and repetitive. The only thing that kept me from giving it a 1 was that it was fun for a while, and the plates had some appeal to them.

Lastability

Now, this game has almost no replayability, except maybe to get some achievements. Even less, in fact. The game follows an "open world". This means that you get to pick the order in which you play the levels. This sounds cool, but also means that the levels have to be pretty similar to one another to avoid overcomplication and stuff. Sometimes they throw in a gimic like poison air, or a locus storm that tries to knock you down while freerunning. All this does is rush you, making the game over even faster. Less so, in fact. After purifying the first large area, I was bored and quit. A good game I would have played almost nonstop until I finished it, such as Mass Effect, Devil May Cry 4, or Fallout 3. But this game is so utterly boring that I felt I'd seen most of the game when it was only a fourth over, with me begging to take breaks at times.

With the 5 average scale, this is below average. An average game you would at least want to finish the game and have fun while you finished it the first time around, but this game gets boring long before the end of the game even the first time around.

Overall

Overall, this isn't a very good game. The graphics and beautiful and the music is well composed, but not much else. You'll quickly wish that you were playing something else. Everything this game does in terms of gameplay reminds me of a quick time even, making you bend to the games will, which isn't what a game should be. A game should be about some level of freedom. That's not to say that every game needs to be open world. There are lots of games that are great linear titles, but you need to let the player fail or succeed on their own instead of bending everything to the game's will.

Since this review is based on a 5 average, a 4 means that this game would be slightly below average. This might be worth a look if you've got nothing else to play or you're a big Prince of Persia fan, but it's a rent at best. Certainly not a buy. I know there's a DLC, but I doubt anything in it could change my mind.

Final Score: 54%