Prince of Persia Rival Swords

Last month was the month of Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia coming to a theatre near you. Throughout the month as well on PSN, they discounted many of the POP games to get people hyped up for the release, I bought the PSP port of the third game in the series, The

Two Thrones (renamed Rival Swords), and saw the film on opening weekend. I’ve decided to pit the two against each other to see whether they’re worth your time.

Release date: April 3rd, 2007

Price:14.99 (bought it at 50% off PSN – $7.49)

Story

The prince is coming back from the temple of time with a very important priestess, taking her back to his home, Babylon. When he arrives we see that what he did at the temple of time was mess around with the timeline, and Doom his kingdom. The Priestess is killed, unleashing the power to the Vizier (the villain in the first game the sands of time, who was not killed do to a timeline mess up). You also receive a bit of this power and you develop dual personality disorder where you can turn into a homicidal maniac once and a while who only survives by killing enemies and taking their “sand”.

Now at this point having never played a POP game before, (or at least not in a LONG time) I was a little lost as how the story went, but after time it started to make sense, and really I didn’t feel like I was missing much. The voice work actually was great, and I even started to like the Prince and the cast of characters, even his evil alter ego. At the end of the game it was satisfying and there were a few cool twists to keep you guessing, the story was a highlight for sure.

Gameplay

Now if you’ve ever played a POP game before you know it’s a parkour platformer, with a cool mechanic to turn back time after you go splat on the ground a hundred feet below. Learning all the moves for the Prince took a while and you keep learning them hours and hours into the game. This has a huge payoff, because when you see a room you need to get through, you feel a real sense of accomplishment when you make it to the other side.

When you switch into Alter Ego mode, you’re almost on a clock where you have to keep devouring sands (by killing enemies) and you have a God of War like chain you swing to kill enemies and use in platforming. Once again the platforming feels spot on, and the controls while taking a bit of time to get used to once you have them, you’ll be ready for anything.

The combat is nicely combined with the platforming so it does feel fluid, and you’re not pressing a button to go into tank mode whenever an enemy shows up. There are also stealth kills which feel satisfying, but are difficult at first (luckily the rewind time mechanic works so well), and the Boss fights are great as well, and they make you take your time (because a lot of them are dealt with by quick time events). Still though, you don’t feel like the control is taken away from you 100% but it is annoying when you press the attack button too soon and have to start the sequence over again, or use your rewind time move which in most boss fights you can’t recharge.

Graphics

Now the graphics in this game are pretty good for a handheld, but mostly because of the Art Direction. The textures are blurry, and really even though it’s a handheld game, that’s no reason why. The Prince’s face can emote but his hair looks like 15 or so pixels that rarely move. I also downloaded this from PSN, so perhaps some of the loading was off, but there were a bunch of glitches that I noticed, like voice not syncing perfectly at parts (possibly because of the faster load speed instead of it being on a UMD). But there are other problems like getting stuck in walls, or

continuously falling that were frustrating, especially when I had to go back to my last save, which are luckily pretty generous.

The full motion video is excellent though, and are worth the effort to get to, especially with the great voice acting and art direction driving it all.

The Bottom Line

This game has greatness within it, but a few glitches hold back the excellent story. I still felt satisfaction when the game ended though, and I was playing this until the wee hours of the morning. The story is what really drives it, and the constant bickering between characters is light and entertaining. The controls are satisfying as well, even though there are some sound glitches that should have been ironed out before its release. Took around 15 hours to complete if I factor in failure time, for the price I paid it was a bargain.

8.2/10

Now for the film,

Prince of Persia The Sands of Time

Released: May 28th, 2010

Price: A movie ticket (variable)

Story

The Prince and his brothers invade a kingdom that has  a secret it holds, the Dagger of Time. There is a princess that acts as The Prince’s love interest who is sworn to protect the dagger, and when the Prince is framed for the murder of a high up official (no spoilers!) he flees with the princess and the dagger to clear his name.

Action & Special effects

The movie plays pretty close attention to the games in this aspect, there are lots of cool parkour stunts that are exhilarating, the combat is well interspersed as well, just like the games, bringing that familiar run jump climb swordplay to the big screen, it looks great.

Special effects in the movie also look great, and almost look like the wraith version of the prince from the Rival Swords game interestingly enough. It was familiar to me having just played through the game, and still interesting for those who haven’t played anything in the series. Some of the set pieces like when the Prince and his men storm a city are quite exciting,

Is it worth it?

Really, you should check out this movie if you have any interest in the series, despite a few flaws it’s fun, exciting, and a great summer movie, just this week it will pass the $300 million mark, which might mean that a few sequels are on the way.

8/10