Prince of Persia : Warrior Within

[Squirtle]

So, I just finished this.

Sometimes the consensus around these parts seems to be ok. But sometimes it's so far off the mark that it's not even funny. Case in point: POP2:WW. Quite frankly, it's bloody ace. No, really.

But, squirtle, it can't be ace because it's got dodgy metal music! It went all moody and mock gothic on us! It's all about fighting and darkness and blood now! It changed too much of why I think POP:SOT was so good!

Wrong, wrong and wrong. So wrong. Not about the tone or music, but about this perception that it changed so much of the SOT. It didn't, not really.

Quick question: Of those that didn't like it, how many finished it?

I will concede that the first hour is a bit weak. The boat sequence and first mini-boss fight was not the best way to set the game up. But once past thatm, once into the jumping and climbing, the exploring, the wall running, the grabbing and leaping and shimmying, it's still as delightful and as exhilirating as the first game. Even more so in places. And it has much better combat. I went back to POP:SOT the other day. The combat is appalling. They made it so much more enjoyable and natural for WW that it's not true.

So, you lot. You know who you are. You're wrong. Simple.

I'm not listening to you lot any more. I put off playing WW because of you lot. What a mistake-a-to-make-a!

So, yes.

Ace game.

And just to set the record straight, it crashed twice on me. For something that's taken me upwards of 15-20 hours to finish, I don't think that's too bad. Loads of games have crashed on me this gen. So, no real bugs to speak of and a fantastic game.

Honestly, if you haven't tried it yet, have been put off by the wealth of negativity towards it, or thought that the first hour is representative of the whole thing, think again, and give it more time.

I can't quite frankly wait for the third one.

Yes.

[Kotatsu Neko]

I played it for a couple of hours and hated it. The first level on the boat was not just a chore, it was painful to play. Once past that the depressing visuals so totally devoid of the charm and magic of the originals sucked much of my desire to play further.

Maybe it does get better later, but experience has tought me that things rarely do, and initial impressions are often the right ones. The visual style was terrifyingly bad, the music simply beyond belief it was so poor, and the juvenille, amateurish teenage stylings were an insult to my intelligence.

I don't like being offended when I play a game. Warrior Within seemed to set out to be as obnoxious and offensive as possible, which is why I, and many others, refused to invest much time playing it.

The review on NTSC-UK was right. Warrior Within really, really sucked.

[dc-arena]

I thought it was a great game, but had certain issues which should of been fixed. I also thought they created new issues by trying to fix old things too (some of which, didn't need fixing). Ah well, at least they tried something new with the game and combat style.

And yes, I completed both games

[Ben-K]

I played past the first boss, got to an uninspiring platforming section, got to the second boss, found him to be just as cheap and nasty as the first, ejected the game, put it back in the box, took it back and exchanged it for Sands of Time, which I am now playing through for the second time and enjoying immensely.

My time is precious, I'm not going to waste it persevering with a game that has such awful sections to get to the good bits, which are no better from what I've seen than SOT (even SOT the second time around!).

Why people play this game when they could be replaying Bujingai, Ninja Gaiden or even Sands of Time I will never know.

[dc-arena]

I could say the same about Ninja Gaiden

[Ben-K]

The difference is that while Ninja Gaiden is bastard hard, it's not hard because of glitchiness. When NG hands you your ass, you deserve to have it handed to you.

I'm still stuck on the boss on the horse in NG (I know, I know...), but I'm not regretting the time I've spent on it.

I feel like the few hours I spent on WW are hours I'll never get back and were spent mostly watching cleavage girl take advantage of shocking collision detection to raise me high up on her big claws from several feet away......rubbish.

[Squirtle]

I played up to the city in Ninja Gaiden where you keep getting hit by those cheap ass people with projectiles. I gave up shortly after. It felt really bad. I never got to grips with the combat and the camera was awful. Still, horses, courses etc.

[Mardigan8]

The section described above is one of the more frustrating bits but it made me become so fast at moving between targets and breaking off attacks at the right time... it is without doubt one of those games that constantly asks you to up the ante or you will hit a big brick wall... finishing it is definitly something to be proud of

[Yoshimax]

Well said P - You were asked to step up at that point - It was like end of level 1 all over again - If you can't be assed putting in the effort **** off back to Game and swap it for summit else - Sorry, bit pissed

[Kotatsu Neko]

The difference is that while Ninja Gaiden is bastard hard, it's not hard because of glitchiness. When NG hands you your ass, you deserve to have it handed to you.

Well, the camera was absolutely shocking. Many undeserved deaths there.

I also thought the gameplay was often unfair and extremely biased towards the CPU opponents. A fair fight, it was not. A fair amount of luck was often needed.

[Sane]

Well, the camera was absolutely shocking. Many undeserved deaths there.

I also thought the gameplay was often unfair and extremely biased towards the CPU opponents. A fair fight, it was not. A fair amount of luck was often needed.

I have to disagree there, the camera is far from ideal, but once you train yourself to keep centering it it becomes much less of a problem, aside from a few platform jumps here and there. As for luck being needed, I don't think there's any part of the game that requires luck to beat. With practice you can do any section without taking a single hit, of course as with DMC3 it takes a lot of practice .

[Neon Ignition]

Threadorarum Resurrectus!

I've been working my way through this again thanks to the joys of the recent Trilogy HD Collection and I think I'm up to about 2/3's of the way through. I remember some shocking game build first time around when I played it on Xbox so I was wary moving onto this after SOT, I distinctly remember it being by far the worst entry and on going back... it's pretty good! In retrospect the differences between this and SOT seem a lot less pronounced that I remembered. Also, as far as I can tell Ubisoft has made some effort with the overhaul here and I haven't come across a single audio, visual or gameplay glitch so they must have done some tidying up at last. All in all it's given me some optimisim for when I reach Two Thrones again.