Prince of Persia review

We review Prince of Persia for N-Gage, a 3D wall-jumping, sword-swiping platformer

Published on Sep 3, 2009

Eastern mysticism seems to have dropped off the radar in recent years - what happened to Aladdin? Whatever happened to Lawrence of Arabia?

Prince of Persia has returned to redress the balance, complete with funny-shaped swords and flowing robes. The N-Gage version is a side scrolling platformer where you get to control both a male acrobat-come-brawler character and Elika, a supernatural being who follows you around and can fly. As you might imagine, she comes in very handy.

Although the game is played for the most part in two dimensions, the visuals themselves are rendered in 3D. Most of the game is spent running and jumping between platforms. An agile character, you can spin off beams, jump between walls and sprint across any vines clinging to a surface.

Prince of Persia is very prescriptive in the way this is implemented though. Rather than getting to grips with how your character moves, you just need to learn a set of timings for when and where to press buttons. The game’s not shy about leading through this either, offering you frequent prompts as to exactly which button to press at key points.

Helpful as this may be, it serves to highlight the core shallowness in the game that isn’t fully made up for. It’s slick, and looks good, but there’s not quite enough of a sense of free-flowing movement - each movement is still module-like.

Aside from this, Prince of Persia remains an enjoyable linear adventure. It’s split into chapters, each of which is split once more into checkpoints. The toughest boss battles generally have checkpoints just before them too, meaning that when one inevitably bashes you to bits, you’re not left trudging through much of the level again.

It’s accessible then, and the action looks convincing enough to a spectator. It’s just a pity that when you’re actually playing it, you don’t end up feeling much like the high-kicking acrobat you’re supposed to be playing as. Nevertheless, Prince of Persia remains a competent and fairly engaging platformer.