Prince of Persia

To save time I'll get right to the point. This game's controls and spastic camera are its weak link. Graphics are good, sound is good, and story seems to be good. I played about an hour into the game, and I had to give up in frustration because of the horrible controls and absolutely terrible camera. So readers can understand my background, I've played PC and console games since the late 90's. I've played games on PC, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii, Xbox, XBox 360 and XBox One. I've played games using a keyboard and controller. I've also played some PS2 games including the Metal Gear Series, Shadow of Colossus, and Final Fantasy games. In short, I've been playing games for a while, and not on just one platform. This game's controls felt like an old PS2 game with a spastic camera that bounced around so much it made me dizzy. Once I'd played games with well-done controls and cameras (i.e., Splinter Cell, new Tomb Raider games, Thief Series, Deus Ex series, Final Fantasy, etc.), it was painful trying to play this game. Graphics were good. Sound was good. Voice acting was good. Story, at least as far as I got, was good. But the bad controls and horrible camera ruined the game. If you're used to old PS2 games with wonky controls and a bad camera, then you'll likely enjoy this game. Otherwise give it a pass.

It's a positively beautiful game that is fun to play. Some places are easy, some are pretty hard, together it makes a balanced experience. I find the whole concept of cleaning the world of corruption very appealing, I wish it could be done outside of the game as well. The visuals are great, the voice acting is superb, dialogs are full of humour, the female companion is pretty, overall I find it an enjoyable experience. I thought it's mostly for a younger audience, judging by that huge sword in the screenshots and videos - it looks so console-ish. But when you play, it's all fine, and fights are fun, especially since you can't exactly "die". Lots of cool movements and tricks you can pull with the enemies. Just as you're getting tired of jumping and performing acrophobic acrobatics, there comes a fight for a change. A few dialogs afterwards ease the tension. I only wish the prince had more clothes on; having half-naked men on my screen is something that could be misinterpreted by an accidental witness. But I understand it's a tradition of the series, I remember the first one was jumping about in something that looked like white pyjamas. After all, it's pretty warm there, in Persia.

PoP08 is really different take on Prince of Persia formula we got used to in the last generation of gaming. No more time manipulation or lots of foes to defeat or Dahaka to chase you around etc. But I still wouldn't say it's negative thing like many seem to think so. People are just so set on the thing that this isn't what Sands of Time trilogy was like and fail to see the beauty of this game. Story is pretty basic, you're the prince that finds this mysterious princess and you have to purify the land that evil has taken over, simple and works surprisingly well, especially considering the age of gaming we live with complex story lines, characters etc. The story fits the graphical style and the fairy tale world really well. Running around walls, climbing and hanging from ledges has been PoP signature for a long time, and this doesn't change in PoP08, in fact, this does it better than any of the other games. Running is fluid, fast and most of all fun. Little downside is that you can't die, whenever you fall your partner comes and saves you and takes you to previous platform where you started climbing. Yeah, game is really easy, little too easy. Combat is one of PoP08's biggest downsides, but also one of its strong points. You basically have only 4 foes to beat + end boss. You fight each of the enemies 4 times in different places and the fights are always a bit different. The downside is that, well, there's only those 4 foes, but it also allows really cinematic fights that you just don't get when slashing your way through hundreds of opponents. The fights are really different and you can basically decide for yourself which of the 4 you want to fight first. They can be tough battles and you need to think a bit what is the most effective way to beat them. You can use lots of combination attacks with Elika and all of them work differently depending on the enemy. Need I say anything about the graphical style? It's absolutely amasing, I love cell-shading and this is just as beautiful as it gets. All and all, I really don't think you should pass this one especially if you prefered climbing and running over combat in previous PoP games. Running is so much fun and absolutely beautiful graphics enhance the experience. This is different game, but different isn't always bad. Games need to take bold new directions, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, I think it works.

Let me say that this game was awesome and beautiful all the way up till the ending which ruined everything! How they get you to really enjoy the characters and the bond between each other, just to crap on it at the end! I don't want to spoil the ending but it literally took the game and spun it around 180 and took it into negativity and you just have to live with it.. suck it up and then the credits roll. After raging at the end, I went online to see if it was something I did that had the outcome and nope, that's what it was intended. They did release a DLC content package which had an alternate ending which was even worse! Only reason why this game gets 2 stars from me is because the art and characters were really cool. It's not a hard game but something to enjoy like reading a book. You're loving the fight between good and evil and then some Emo bat loving hater comes in tells the company how to do the ending.. just don't get it.

There is no ending!!! and the controls are crap.