Reviews// Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within

At the tail end of a great year for games, it’s all too easy to slate Warrior Within for what it’s not, but really it is a tidy package. But it’s just not quite what we expected, or rather, not exactly what we wanted. Serious gamers will be looking for their combat kicks elsewhere, and so much of the new additions simply serve to detract from what was already there. If you give a ballet dancer a massive sword and smear them in blood, ultimately they’ll still be a ballet dancer - just one that gets funny looks from aficionados. And that’s what’s happened with POP, they’ve taken a gentlemanly and original concept and roughed it up. The good bits are still great, but there’s just an extra layer of superfluous muck to cut through before you find a similar sense of satisfaction as the original.

SPOnG Rating: B+

[i]
Warrior Within is a top game. It blends puzzling, platforming and combat together in a very attractive way. But devoted fans of the original may well be turned off by the change in mood, and newcomers to the POP world might be missing out on the purity of Sands Of Time. Nonetheless, if you have finished with the original and want more similar action, it’s well worth a closer look. Just don’t expect it to be the sort of clear improvement a top tier sequel would normally represent. And do check Sands of Time first.[/i]