Game developers find themselves in a difficult position these days. A new game in a longlived series, such as Prince Of Persia, comes with some weighty expectations. Whether these demands stem from the increasingly discerning gamer’s opinion of what a ‘reboot’ should be, or from the lofty claims developers habitually make about the revolution its game will herald a year before screenshots even appear, it’s hard to say. In all likelihood, it’s a combination of things, but the build-up is often very difficult to live up to, and the all-new Prince Of Persia struggles to meet its own party line.

Essentially this is a reboot of a reboot, and as the series gets further from its origins, the cult following is bound to get left behind. Indeed, there seems to be a subtle intention for this to happen in Prince Of Persia, with Ubisoft carefully attempting to shed the stalwarts who obsessed over the Sands Of Time trilogy and bring in a new breed of casual or FPS-enthused gamer. Depending on which side of the fence you sit, this makes the Prince’s second reboot either a good or bad experience.

It was a deliberation whether to compare this game to the Sands Of Time trilogy, but in the end it’s the Sands Of Time, Warrior Within and The Two Thrones that have built the franchise to this level, and it’s perfectly reasonable that the legions of fans will want to know how this reincarnation holds up. So that’s precisely what we’re going to do, and although it’s a harsh and unforgiving jury for this new game to face, it’s a comparison that must be made to really tell the story of the all-new Prince.

It doesn’t take a particularly sharp eye to spot that the first major difference is in the Prince himself. A reasonable analogy to draw between this new Prince and the one we got to know in the Sands Of Time is a comparison between the Batman we saw in The Dark Knight and Adam West’s camp rendition of the Sixties. The new Prince was taught to act in the Adam West school of child-friendly heroes, in contrast to the overly dark and brooding misery guts of The Dark Knight/Sands Of Time. There’s nothing wrong with either, to be quite fair, but personal taste doesn’t easily allow us to enjoy both. Whether you like it superficial and wisecracking or dark and humourless will determine which Prince of Persia you prefer.

Neither is a suburban, all-American white male’s accent technically any less acceptable than the pseudo-thespian English lilt of the previous Prince, but there’s something disappointingly ‘lowest common denominator’ about the macho oneliners the Prince now speaks in. His attitude is no longer one of urgency or capable vengeance, but of a lamentably one-dimensional, Hollywood-born, ‘wrong place, wrong time’ all-round action hero.

To complete his Americanisation, the Prince obviously needed a female lead, and the enigmatic Princess Elika was recruited for him to bandy one-liners off and to spark a little superficial sexual tension. She has other roles in the game – important ones – but it seems pretty clear from her introduction (thrown into the thrice-muscled arms of the all-new Prince) that she’s there to provide a feminine springboard designed entirely to accentuate our hero’s latent masculinity

… continued