Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

The Good
Bob the Imaginary Gaming Friend: "You know, I never would have expected you to play a game like Prince of Persia, considering the fact that you only like RPG-s and Adventures, and mainly because you consider every other game not written by Chris Avellone pure crap."

Well you know, even I get into the mood when I just want to play a game with loads of scantily-clad women, and then I saw that nice juicy screenshot of that metal bikini ass (dear reader, go to the screenshots section now and admire that ass too). Seemed to be an honest enough game made for sex-starving nerds like myself.

Bob: "I see. So games need not to be delving into the darkness of human soul after all.

Yeah, sometimes a great shot at big breasts will do the job.

Bob: "But still, since I being the normal half of your schizophrenic personality and me, Im honest enough in what I like and dont like and even I admit Warrior Within is not quite the etalon of great writing...and you being "story this and writing that" kinda of a guy... what surprises me is that you ended up liking the game.

Well there is some great writing...

Bob: "Oh come on... be honest."

Voice acting is pretty good.

Bob: (laughs)

Okay, so I liked Kaileena.

Bob: "Big breasts make you care, eh?"

Yup.

And there is still some psychological darkness to the characters.

Bob: "Yeah, sure. If you are 15 year old emo and like to cut yourself."

Okay, so the game is not a masterpiece. But it was fun.

Bob: "Not love from the first sight though. I remember a year ago you were still screaming that this game is pure crap. What happened?"

Well, at first you know...

Bob: "You discovered that instead of the loads of half-naked voluptuous female forms, there were only two... and one died to soon... that?"

Well, that too. But what I actually meant was...

Bob: "Oh yes, I remember now. RPG guy with strategical thinking trying to adjust himself to arcadish reflexive gameplay. That was the most fun I ever had just laughing at you. Mockery: "So let me get this straight. I need to ran from the wall, jump, grab the ledge, drop, slide myself down from the tapestry, jump, grab the pole and then make an aerial decapitator attack on that dead sadistic female sand monster who stares at me so evilly (would I sleep with her? I guess I would) on that balcony. Okay, here we go (presses a wrong button and instead of wall running he jumps down from the ledge and finds instant death on spikes)...whoops, what did I do wrong...when did I last save?". Brilliant, just bloody brilliant. Although at that time you claimed that the story was not good enough."

Well, I needed an excuse.

Bob: "But I will admit, that the game is slow in making you care. Unlike the first game which makes the goals and other stuff quite clear, this game shows you just some weird intro and then drops you into some gothic castle and you spend the first half of the game just jumping, climbing and fighting weird sadomaso females without knowing the whys and whats. On some level it could work as a spiritual experience... like catharsis or something... but mostly it just ends up alienating the player, especially when considering what a masterpiece the first game was."

I agree. Sands of Time as a whole was a better experience. It was like everything was just right and perfect for the game. It was a perfect swashbuckling tale - romantic, funny, warm and yet bittersweet. But it left me craving for more and so I came back to this game.

Bob: "You liked the gameplay, the excitement, the feeling when you didn`t need to look which buttons to press because that came instinctively, just right on time, like you were one with the game... inside the action, everything depending on your reflexes, when you had to move faster that you think, when you felt the adrenaline rushing trough your blood..."

Yes. And I wanted more.

Bob: "Did you get more?"

In a way. A lot more adrenaline and that cool feeling when your reacting faster than your thinking. That primal instinct for survival.

Bob: " Well survival is the main theme in Warrior Within. That means you must have liked the Dahaka Chases."

Yes. They gave me everything what I liked gameplay wise in the first game in the course of few minutes. You had no time think, no time to look that the way your going is the right way, everything just depended your instincts, your intuition. If you didn`t react correctly, you would die.

Bob: "For the reader: Dahaka is a poorly contrived plot point. It seems that the Prince is not really left alone for the deeds in the last game, and now some Time Guardian wants to punish him for messing with time. And in dome parts of the game this Dahaka fellow will start chasing the Prince, these moments made especially adrenaline heavy thanks to Godsmacks "I Stand Alone" backing it up. Its a poor addition to the story of the last game, but it works."

But what I really liked about this game is the combat.

Bob: (raises an eyebrow) "Really? (side-note: "You know, I really hate it when you make me ask stupid obvious questions.")"

Yeah, in the last game you could do some cool looking moves, but in the end you spent most of your time just blocking and waiting for your chance to strike. In Warrior Within the combat is just so perfect, so smooth, so incredible. (side-note to Bob: You are after all a voice in my head.)

Bob: "If you get used to pressing different buttons really quickly and at the right moment. But true enough, in Warrior Within it really feels like almost every three different buttons make cool combos. And there are loads of these battle combinations. As the name Warrior Within implies this game is combat oriented, fortunately it`s pretty smooth if there is nothing wrong with your reflexes."

Yeah. There is something in the feeling when you fight with 10 opponents and kill them all in different cool acrobatical strikes without getting a single scratch. Once I developed my Warrior Within, when I just reacted and did it.... I can`t really describe it... it was perfect... it was divine.

Bob: "What Winterwolf means is that when he found out his favorite combos, or more precisely the ones that were most easier for him to do, he started to have fun in the game."

But this combat... it was so exciting, so primal, so depending on your instincts of survival...

Bob: "Such primal manly instincts."

Yeah.

Bob: "Sex and violence."

Yeah!

Bob: "Voluptuous females in your embrace and mutilated corpses of your enemies cast down at your feet!"

Yeah!!

Bob: "You do realize I`m making fun of you?"

It`s my favorite kind of combat... every other forms of combat just suck for me now. I want more.

Bob: "It does give you a overdose in adrenaline, and it`s fun and exciting.... instead of being annoying like combats usually are in games... especially in RPG-s."

Yeah, if there is combat then it should serve it`s purpose - which is to be exciting and tense... and look cool... the animations are just brilliant in this game... creating a whole new level of intense action. This game does that. It does it really well.

Bob: "At the expense of the writing."

Well yeah. Although it does have its moments. The writing starts to have some sort of depth in the last half of the game. When its made clear why Prince is so different from the last game, when the game finally shows what a broken shell of a man he really his, that his only motive is to survive, even if it means to destroy other lives.

Bob: "Yeah, that scene when the Prince finally gives up was a light of brilliance in writing and also in voice acting in the game. Unfortunately it introduced another poorly contrived plot point."

Yeah, voice acting in cutscenes really shined in the last half of the game. In the first half it was pretty awful, although that might have been because of the writing. Although I personally liked the new voice of the Prince. Such a nice "I smoke three packs of cigarettes for breakfast" breaking voice. And Kaileena was also pretty good.

Bob: "I doubt that the writing or voice acting made you care about Kaileena."

It was the eyes. I like her eyes.

Bob: "Wtf?!?!"

It`s true. She has such nice big green eyes. And such an intelligent face also.

Bob: "And it has nothing to do with the fact that she has a big ass and a DD cup?"

Well... big green eyes, you can just drown in them... okay... so the first thing I noticed about her was her big bust. And Ill admit that I noticed her eyes when I found her to be interesting character enough... which was almost a year later. A women with such beauty should not suffer so, especially when shes so half-naked.

Bob: "Yeah. Such sadness, such pain. She also wants to survive at the expense of others... just like the Prince."

Such sad big green eyes.

The Bad
What is mainly bad about the game is mostly to do with the plot and the story.

The story itself does not really add anything new to the world Prince of Persia. And it really feels like an extra fan fiction chapter for the last game than a really new story.

And the plot has you doing stuff without giving you reason to make you care.

Prince: "Hello, Im Prince of Persia. Ive come to kill the Empress of Time."

Kaileena: "Oh, sure. Do you have an appointment?"

Prince: "Well, no."

Kaileena: "Then come back later... like in the next millennia or so."

Prince: "You don`t understand! I must kill her!"

Kaileena: "Okay. Well. We have like this two towers. Go kill some monsters and solve some puzzles. Okay?"

Prince: "Okay."

That pretty sums up what goes on in the first half of the game. And you don`t get enough inside look into the mind of the Prince like you got in the first and the third game. You have no idea who is this guy who gruffs and runts and yells stupid things at his enemies. "You should be honored to die by my sword." "Next!"

Of course it does get better in the second half, but unfortunately it starts to use way too much deus ex machina.

And the setting is not really impressive either. The entire game takes place in a gothic castle. It really gets pretty boring soon. No change of scenery, like in the first game.

Bob: "Well it did have gardens."

And there are two endings. Unfortunately the way to get these endings does not really depend on your choice, it depends on the fact how many life upgrades you get during the course of the game. If you get all then you get the good ending, if not then bad. It`s not really that obvious and is rather stupid way to have endings in my opinion.

Bob: "You say that because you got the bad ending and then only found out about the other ending in the internet."

But I was not the only one.

Also the soundtrack is pretty awful. It uses too much uninspired trashy metal music. There are only few traces of the last game`s beautiful persian style rock music with female vocals. Although "I Stand Alone" works for me in action scenes.

Bob: "I still curious of what Monica Belucci had to do with this game. The game was advertised with that Monica Belucci as Kaileena but Kaileena`s voice is not hers at all."

Beats me. I did saw that interview with her where she talks that Kaileena is such an interesting character, and that Prince of Persia is such a deeply mythological story. Now that you mention it, its not Monica Beluccis voice at all. I wonder what happened?

Bob: "But still, did you care about the story at all when you were playing the game?"

Yes and no. The first half, when I was not into the combat, was pretty boring. And in the end the game did not leave me with such a feeling of satisfaction than the first game did.

But the game was pretty fun.

Bob: "And Kaileena does make you care with her big green eyes."

Yeah, such beautiful big green eyes.

The Bottom Line
Bob: "So what is the judgement then? Good or bad?"

You know I came to the trilogy of Prince of Persia as a sex-starving nerd, but in the end I got lot more than I wished for. And Warrior Within, although not as brilliant as the other two, it`s good enough a game. And it introduced me to a great trilogy.

And besides, those beautiful big green eyes should be a reason enough to play the game.