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Prince of Persia Preview

• By Cameron Lewis
• December 12, 2008 16:35 PM PST
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Up Close and Personal

The spreading corruption gives birth to new dangers and new foes. While most action games cram more and more enemies onto the screen at once, forcing the player's viewpoint further from the battle, Prince of Persia makes combat a more intimate affair. "The Prince is not Kratos," Guyot assures us, referring to the ultraviolent protagonist of God of War. "He's not going to kill 10,000 people before breakfast." So instead of encountering hordes of stooges at once, you'll face off against a series of powerful badasses who each boast individual peculiarities.

Opponents such as the Hunter, who interrupts our heroes during one mission as they somersault from one power plate to another. When the Hunter appears, the camera swings in close to reveal grim details: A sharp maw sits unnaturally low on his hulking form, shredded cloth dangles between his legs, and gnarled, root-like toes poke out from his feet. In any other game, the camera would pull back to the point where these details become invisible, but Prince of Persia captures the personal intensity of each struggle from mere yards away. This time, we're right in the thick of the action.

As your blade strikes the Hunter's scissor-sword weapon, sparks and sound effects fly. The beast wants to carve you into bloody teriyaki, and black tendrils of corruption linger in the air behind each swipe of his blades. Every motion, sound effect, and stylized embellishment emphasizes the tension and danger. We even noticed a gripping sense of "give and take" to the dramatic close-quarters one-on-one battle. Swing your sword at the wrong moment, and you open yourself up to brutal retaliatory attacks. On the other hand, if you time your defense just right, you can follow-up with artful counters of your own. The Hunter doesn't just stand there and soak up abuse, either: as we clash, and become embroiled in transient button-pounding standoffs, he changes up his defense. Each requires a different approach, such as launching the big jerk into the air or gaining magical assistance from Elika.

There's more attention to detail on the Hunter's strange claw-like weapon than some games devote to an entire level. As a whole, the art style looks magnificent.

Country Doctoring

As satisfying as it'll be to pound the stink off the scum that gets in your way, your larger goal is to cure the land of its foul curse and restore the Tree of Life to its former glory. Healing grounds are sprinkled all over the place, and you'll tread a different path of pillars, cliff faces, handholds, and impediments on your way to each. The levels are not free-roaming as such-this is not an Assassin's Creed retread, or a mystically minded Grand Theft Auto-but the order in which you tackle each slickly designed stunt circuit is entirely up to you.

Your repertoire of abilities also ramps up smoothly over time, regardless of the order in which you heal the realm's corrupted regions. As you advance in the game, you'll encounter new enemies-such as puddles of sentient corruption that reach out to grab you-and new gameplay elements. As a result, your experience liberating a particular area could be markedly different from those of your friends, or even your own subsequent journeys back through the world. The goal is to give players enough freedom to make each journey through these elaborate warrens personally meaningful. "We want to give the player some authorship over his experience," Guyot explains.

This boss looks impressive when he strikes a pose, but you have to see his blades, chains, and cloth outfit in motion to understand just how cool he really is.

Paradise Regained

When you reach one of the many pillars of light that dot the landscape, you'll unleash a healing shockwave that will heal the tormented countryside. Butterflies will flit around happily, colors will be restored, and previously inaccessible areas open up for further exploration. The more mending you do, the more far-reaching the effects, until, for example, the swirling vortex of muck at the center of the desert is transformed into soothing rays of sunlight.

The fresh start afforded Prince of Persia's corrupted regions is a fitting metaphor for the game as a whole. Where the existing trilogy emphasized rewinding time and the unwieldy consequences, this new adventure springs from the more powerful and transformative notion of rebirth. From what we've seen so far, it could be one hell of a fresh start.

In PoP, you'll find bright specks called 'light seeds.' As you run, climb, and jump to collect them, you'll unlock new abilities at the Tree of Life as well as new areas to explore.

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