Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

Whether you loved or loathed it, there’s no way around the simple fact that last year’s ‘Prince of Persia: Warrior Within’ sold more copies than there are fleas in Cairo and clinched more than it’s fair share of Christmas dollars. Unsurprisingly, Ubisoft are now gearing up to release the third and final instalment into their trilogy, and have been titivating us all with glimpses of what is supposed to be the conclusive title under the name, ‘Prince of Persia’.

Picking up right after POP 2, the game opens with our jubilant prince on his way back to Babylon with the Empress of Time, Kaileena, by his side. Unfortunately, Babylon isn’t the swinging place it used to be and it quickly becomes apparent that the war torn city’s denizens aren’t overly partial to their prince’s return. Things rapidly go from bad to downright icky and culminate in Kaileena’s death and the release of the mystic ‘Sands of Time’, which thankfully allow our hero to escape his would be executioners. Now cast out onto the streets of Babylon, the Prince soon discovers that he is not alone, and that a dark ‘twin’ prince has emerged as a sort of reality kick-back to all of his time tomfoolery. Faced by the might of the city, the odd-couple are forced into an uneasy alliance and set about trying once again to undo the past in an attempt to change the future.

It would seem though, that this story is more than just a background, as being able to play as both the ‘normal’ and ‘dark’ prince opens up a lot of opportunities and is to some extent what will likely define this game from it’s predecessors. It’s no Arabian Night’s tale that POP 2 caused a tear in the Prince of Persia fan base – instead of building on the puzzler aspects of ‘Sands of Time’ it went in a completely different direction, focusing more on bloody battles than clever conundrums. ‘The Two Thrones’ tries to remedy this and pilfer everyone’s pockets by appealing to both sides of the dinar with it’s use of two different main characters; the Dark Prince fulfilling your sanguine desires while the ‘normal’ Prince lends a more acrobatic and cerebral aspect to the game.

Both hero and anti-hero alike will have their own special abilities, besides having access to an expanded, but unfortunately still undisclosed, array of time control powers. Beyond this, the POP 3 team have added in a few other nifty features. A new ‘speed kill’ system will be making it’s début in the game and will allow dexterous players to quickly slaughter an enemy or even a group of enemies with some well-timed button presses. In a nice touch there are a few subtle - and not so subtle - differences between the ‘speed kill’ styles of the two protagonists. The Dark Prince appears to favour a more furious series of button presses that will likely eviscerate your opponent from crotch to collar, whereas the normal Prince opts for a more controlled and precise approach that will dispatch the unfortunate foe with a touch more elegance.

POP 3 is set in the massive city of Babylon with its dank, claustrophobic city floor and sprawling endless roof-top levels. From what we could tell these appear to be the two main environments; the shadows of the lower levels being best suited to the Dark Prince and the newly added stealth game play mechanic’s, while the open roofs provide ample space for the original prince to perform his gymnastic shenanigans and give us a more familiar POP experience.

The music for the game is still in progress as are some of the sound effects, however we have been told that ‘The Two Thrones’ is once again going to tight-rope walk down the fence and mix the more orchestral stylings of ‘Sands of Time’ with the blood boiling rock of ‘Warrior Within’. The visuals are looking very slick so far, proffering cleaner graphics, greater character detail and a tighter camera angle on the prince that will hopefully mean fewer express lane trips to the city floor.

Assuming it all comes together as planned, Prince of Perisa: The Two Thrones looks to achieve that sacred middle ground that will appeal to both fans of POP 1 and 2.

At the very least, everyone will enjoy at least half of the game.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones will be released on PC, Ps2, Xbox and Gamecube before Christmas.