Prince of Persia 3 Preview

The Prince of Persia franchise is still alive and kicking at the house of Ubisoft. After reaping the success of The Sands of Time, they made Prince of Persia : Warrior Within which was a massive hit as well. Now, Ubisoft have announced Prince of Persia 3 (working title) as a continuation to the third person action series. It seems like the Prince has not messed enough with time itself. Trouble still follows in his wake, even after evading the Dahaka. The game begins with the Prince coming back victorious with his babe Kaileena, only to find his great city of Babylon in ruin. What’s worse is that all his people have turned against him. The Prince is almost immediately captured and it’s up to Kaileena to release him by sacrificing herself and unleashing the Sands of Time. Free from the confines of the clink, the Prince finds himself back on the streets as a fugitive trying to escape from his hunters all over again.

The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities…

The Prince soon discovers the consequences of treating time like Play-Doh. His temporal alterations in the prequels have given rise to the creation of his second self whose banal appellation is ‘dark Prince’. The good news is that he’s on your side as you take turns controlling both the Princes throughout the game. The two are very distinctive in their combat styles and this promises to add new elements to the gameplay. The light Prince who is the one we know and love, is now an aerialist who is more suited for running across rooftops and executing skillful acrobatic moves. However, this does not make him a sissy who is afraid to kill baddies when necessary.

The dark Prince on the other hand, is a stealthy assassin who is equipped with a sick chain called the ‘Daggertail’ which can cut through enemies and also help in noiseless decapitations. The dark Prince looks different as well. He’s got white hair and a faint aura around him. Remember the transformed Arthas from the Warcraft III campaigns? Players can switch to the dark Prince by walking through fire and switch back to the light Prince by taking a quick bath in life-restoring water. Yeah, who would have thunk?

Enter Babylon to begin Combat

Miscreants have taken over the Prince’s magnificent city and he is enraged. It’s time to begin the slaying spree. Prince of Persia 3 aims to improvise on the nice focus on combat that we saw in Warrior Within. One level even has our Prince involved in a frantic chariot race through the city of Babylon. With enemy chariots at his heels, the Prince needs to make quick work of them by pushing them off the road. Some of the enemies even try to hop onto your chariot but they’re just minor distractions for the Prince of Persia. Of course, the method of inflicting punishment differs depending on which Prince you are controlling. There are plenty of new moves in the game and the one that stands out the most are the new ’speed kills’ where you kill enemies quicker than they can realize that they’ve been split into two vertical halves. An example displayed by Ubisoft was one in which the Prince dangles from a high ledge, drops down in bungee fashion, kills an enemy and springs back to where he was. Another showed the Prince breaking into a run, traversing across a wall, leaping into the air and taking out two enemies at once.

Melange

There were quite a few who whined about Prince of Persia : Warrior Within even though the game was commercially a huge success. Some people missed the noble Prince from the first game. Prince of Persia : Sands of Time did have its share of fighting but there were a lot of mentally challenging puzzles which received acclaim from the fans. Warrior Within was a big change. The second game had a dark theme to it in which the Prince seemed to be this arrogant and ruthless bad-ass type killer who thirsted for blood. A lot of people ate this up but some disliked the new direction the game was taking. According to Ubisoft, the third game will extract the best elements from both the games so as to satisfy a larger crowd. We’ve already seen the light and dark Princes. From what the developers say, it looks like we’ll also get more puzzles to solve as well as more throats to slit open. The Princes are also capable of new tricks with time but at this point, details are unknown. Visually, the game appears to be an impressive mixture of the soft but vibrant colours from Sands of Time and the dark and morose environment from Warrior Within. Ubisoft claim that even the music will be a cool mix.

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The third installment in the line looks fantastic so far, catering to the whims and fancies of both the fans who loved the soft side of The Sands of Time and those who enjoyed the dark theme in Warrior Within. With a lot of new and interesting aspects added to the gameplay of Prince of Persia, the game will at the very least, be unique.

You are now allowed to explore the city of Babylon according to your will, rather than having to conform to a set path where waves of enemies come at you. Road or rooftop? That again is your choice. Making a successful sequel to a game sure is hard but after Warrior Within, nobody seems skeptical about this franchise of Ubisoft. The game is still on the drawing board, with a considerable portion unfinished as of yet but we can expect it to ship for PC, Gamecube, Playstation 2 and Xbox this December. The first two games met with success and it is highly unlikely that Prince of Persia 3 will fail to enthrall gamers around the world.

Ashwath Ravee