When Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was released last year, it was a very pleasant surprise. The game was an action adventure offering in the truest sense of the term, featuring beautifully detailed levels, environmental puzzles, and, of course, the acrobatic Prince of Persia himself. It was an amazingly faithful modernization of a beloved classic. With the newest iteration in the series, Warrior Within, developer Ubisoft Montreal appears to have addressed the biggest complaints about its forebear, which specifically involved its repetitive combat and short length. Yet while Warrior Within's new combat and satisfyingly long campaign improve on last year's game, the now darker tone falls somewhat flat compared to the storybook atmosphere in The Sands of Time. In addition, technical issues on the Xbox and PS2 platforms also mar the experience a bit. However, make no mistake: Warrior Within is a still a very worthy sequel.
The biggest new addition to the game is a deeper combat mechanic. The prince is now capable of dozens of different weapon combos, and these are context sensitive depending on whether you are holding a single weapon or dual-wielding two weapons. With a single weapon in hand, you can grab enemies and throw them. You can even strangle them. Dual-wielding takes away your throw options, but it lets you perform much more powerful weapon combos. What's interesting is that the effect of your moves changes depending on what type of weapon you have in your left hand, which is the prince's less-dominant hand. With a mace in your right hand, you can knock opponents to the ground, while a sword in your left hand lets you to chop enemies in half with certain combos. The weapon in your left hand also degrades with use, so you'll always need to pick up new ones that are dropped by fallen foes. Otherwise, you can choose to throw your secondary weapon at enemies in attempts to impale or behead them. You can, of course, still vault off of enemies and walls for more-powerful slashing attacks, and a new pole-swinging attack has been added. There's also plenty of blood and gore in Warrior Within to further spice things up. As a result, beheadings and halved bodies are par for the course once you get used to the better fighting moves.
With all these new moves available, you can imagine that there's a lot more combat in Warrior Within than in The Sands of Time. It's also quite a bit more difficult in spots. Enemies will come at you several more at a time, so you'll need to become proficient with your moves to survive. Eventually, though, you'll find that you can get through the game more efficiently when you quickly end battles by throwing opponents off of high ledges rather than laboriously finishing them off with your weapons. There are a few boss fights in the game, but, unfortunately, quite a bit of recycling has been employed, so these confrontations aren't as memorable as they could have been. What's more, most of the high-level weapon combos are all but useless against bosses, because these combos tend to get blocked. You'll end up relying mostly on dodging and the simplest of combos to steadily winnow health away from bosses.
Despite the revamped combat, the strength of Warrior Within, as in the last game, lies in its environmental puzzles. As the prince, you'll need to rely on your vast array of acrobatic moves to navigate your way through many cleverly designed rooms and traps. You can still jump, wall run, climb, mantle, swing, and vault your way from ledge to ledge and from branch to branch. You can also now make swashbuckler-style controlled falls by sinking your sword into wall tapestries and then sliding straight down as you slice through them to slow your descents. Completing the game's fiendish puzzles and navigating your way through each room tends to be extremely fun and satisfying, and it's made all the more enjoyable by the well-animated moves of the prince and the beautifully designed levels. For the most part, the rooms you go through look quite natural and do not appear as big Rube Goldberg apparatuses. This natural-looking level architecture contributes greatly toward successfully immersing you in the game's world.
The developer has even found a way to add yet more intensity to the trap-and-hazard-laden rooms of Warrior Within. Several times throughout the game, you'll meet up with the mystical Dahaka. Each of these meetings kicks off an intense chase where you must navigate several sets of hazards quickly and without hesitation, lest the Dahaka catch you. The Dahaka sequences offer a nice change of pace, but our only complaint is that the camera angles used during these scenes seem to have been picked for cinematic effect rather than efficacy of control. Consequently, repeating a chase scene a few extra times due to less-than-ideal camera angles can be frustrating.
The biggest disappointment with Warrior Within, though, actually has nothing to do with its technical gameplay. With the new emphasis on combat, which has been spiced up with added blood and gore (and an M rating), the game has taken on a much darker tone. The new prince in Warrior Within is no longer the dignified, self-deprecating nobleman he was in The Sands of Time. Instead, he comes off as an arrogant brute who yells out conceited taunts during combat, such as "You should be honored to die by my sword!" and "Why do you even bother?" While the new attitude could be explained away by his desperation, it all serves to make the prince a much-less-likable character. Add in the soundtrack, which has some bass-heavy, heavy metal influences, and the wistful fairy tale style of The Sands of Time has given way to a game that feels like it's trying a little too hard to be edgy.


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