Prince of Persia (2008) Preview

Ubisoft's PoP reboot is shaping up to be a wonderful gaming experience

Elika has just cleansed The Ruined Citadel of the God of Darkness' evil (via the mashing of a face button). Tall green grass, delirious butterflies, chirping birds and exuberant flowers spread across the barren, grey interior like ripples in a Garden of Eden pond. We've just finished Prince of Persia's first post tutorial level and it's been a blast. But the real fun hasn't even begun.

Now, with the land cleansed of 'The Corrupted' - the physical manifestation of Ahriman, the God of Darkness himself - the Prince and swinging side-kick Elika are free to simply enjoy themselves. And that's something we intend to do.

Whenever Elika restores what's called a 'Fertile Area' in Prince of Persia, 30 Light Seeds appear in the nooks and crannies of the level. The Light Seeds act as PoP's currency - to be spent on new combos as well as unlocking new Fertile Areas to tackle from the game's main map. They won't be lined up in a nice row for you to collect, however. To get them you'll have to swing, slide, jump, clamber, wall run and even ceiling run upside down like Spider-Man on your way to the glowing white orbs.

It is during the Light Seed collection sequences when Prince of Persia evolves from being a beautiful and fun platforming game into being a completely and utterly exhilarating mess about on a huge children's playground apparatus. Free from the shackles of having to worry about a threat, we're able to enjoy the Ruined Citadel as more than a linear level to work through with an end boss to kill.

You'll see a Light Seed somewhere in the distance, and then rack your brains as to how to collect it. You might inch your way across a beam, jump onto a column, twist around, jump again, wall run and jump, slide down using the Prince's new Gauntlet, jump again, once, twice, three times - the last one too far for the Prince to make himself, so you press the 'Elika button' and she appears as if by magic to give you a helping hand, throwing you to safety. It's brilliant fun.

The PS3 version looks great and trophies are in

And Elika herself deserves much of the credit. She acts as a safety net that replaces the Sands of Time mechanic that allowed players to reverse time and try death-defying jumps again after fluffing them. Here, if you misjudge a jump, Elika will magically rescue you and place you back at the beginning of the attempt. It gives you the confidence to try things out, to simply have a go. And, as you inch your way closer to the 30th Light Seed, some of which have clearly been placed with mischief in mind on the part of Ubisoft Montreal, you'll realise that, actually, this is just about as good as action platforming gets.

In this way Prince of Persia is the game Assassin's Creed should have been all along. That might seem a weird thing to say, but it's the strongest feeling we have following our hands-on time with a preview build of the PS3 version. Why? Because PoP has exhilarating, free-form acrobatic exploration that Assassin's Creed's more constrained tower climbing didn't. And for us, this is what's most exciting about the game.

The combat is less compelling, but it's still an interesting take on the standard Prince of Persia fighting formula. In previous games the Prince would have to fight a number of spawning enemies before he was able to progress. It played out quite repetitively: enter room, fight, progress, repeat. This time around fights are given far more importance, and are actually pretty damned hard. Your average Corrupted beastie, a black mass of physically formed evil, will target you and attack with a flurry of swipes that must be blocked or the Prince, sans a health bar of any description, will eventually be faced with quick time event to save himself from a killing blow. Fail and Elika has to step in and save you, allowing your enemy to refill its life bar right to the top. Sigh.