I’ve been playing this series since the original was out on Apple-based computers. I spent much of my time with it during its Macintosh incarnation, in which I enjoyed the grueling time restrains and timing-specific puzzles that were best described as unforgiving. I was a glutton for punishment back then. Come to think of it, after spending a few hours with Sonic Unleashed, I realize I probably still am. Nevertheless, with or without that change I’ve still been a huge fan of the series, especially into the Sands of Time arc.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m not going to run off a huge diatribe for you, but, rather, I’m going to list off the points of this game that stuck with me the most and are essentially the core of the play experience. This particularly pertains to the PS3 version of the game, but I’m certain that the Xbox360 version is identical. Here we go:

1. The game looks good maybe half of the time. A lot of reviewers have been praising this game for its art style, but that really only comes through in a few of the backgrounds. Everything else looks exceptionally low-res with little detail, which is exactly the opposite of an attempt at a hand-drawn rendition. The player models especially look janky. They’re something akin to a bad Nintendo 64 game, mostly when you get up close and even when at a great distance. It’s at about a close-to-medium range the models look somewhat appealing. The animations are fairly well done, only occasionally stiff. I won’t bother with the extra characters that you unlock (one of which is your only reward aside from artwork); those are lumpy and disfigured. Aside from the Farah model’s white underwear, which seems to have been modeled and rendered with great care, the rest are junk.
2. The music is fitting, albeit repetitive.
3. Most of the game revolves around your acrobatic running and jumping which is fantastic for a little bit, but then quickly becomes tiresome as every jump in the game offers exactly the same amount of challenge in order to compensate for this “open world non-linearity” bullshit they’re trying to pass off. Without any scaling, which I’ll grant is probably impossible due to the gameplay revolving around fixed environments, the game devolves into mindless hopping, having you run down the same strictly linear paths you’ve hopped over before, which, I should mention, the game makes you do in spades.
4. A portion of the story unfolds in occasional cinematics after reaching your current objective or completing it, which look nice though infrequent. Much of the story and background info, however, is carried in optional conversations which are triggered by area or your place in the game and then having the player press the story button. The problem with this is that only generic animations are used in these sequences along with vaguely appropriate lip-sync. On top of this, each blurb of info in incredibly short even though there’s a massive amount of story, character development, and back-story to burn through, so this results in the player coming to a full stop and repeatedly pressing the L2 button until the characters finally run out of shit to say. This could have been better implemented if I could start these conversations while jumping over the same shit over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and fucking over. As it is, it’s just a huge, ugly waste of my time.
5. The characters themselves are unappealing, too. The Prince’s voice doesn’t fit him, and only justifies itself during one sequence at the beginning of the game, which also turns out to be the best moment in the game. Elika is alright, but without the right Prince at her side, it just doesn’t work.
6. The death mechanic that everyone complains about making the game too easy does not, in any way, make the game any simpler. I still died more than a hundred times, which is far more than any other game last year. All it does is quicken up the pace of this game, which is actually what makes it enjoyable in the first place. By making your play time more frequent and lessening the failures, this allows the player to not dwell on the flaws of the game while waiting for a load screen, thus hastening their frustration. Instead, it’s a nice fluid experience that tricks you into thinking you’re good.
   

   The artwork for and inspired by the game is much better to look at than actual in-game screens.

7. The fights are terrible. Frequent button-mashing sequences that are the same every time serve to break up and completely stop your attacks which are essentially the only thing that damages the enemies. This doesn’t make these battles hard, no, they’re actually very simple. I think I maybe missed a button sequence 3 or 4 times, and, even then, that was due to some unresponsiveness. They are, however, very frustrating in their length. The one good thing about these fights is that you can’t repeat combos because the AI will counter your repetition flawlessly, which forces the player to actually think whilst fighting these enemies.
8. There is no replay value. Although it’s very short, it involves a bit too much collecting to warrant a second play-through.
9. Even though the final boss is an outright joke, the ending is really well-done. I probably liked it as much as I did because the Prince never opened his mouth. Now that I reflect on it more, it was an excellent ending.

That’s about it. So, in summation:

The Prince of Persia offers contradictory linearity and superfluous fight sequences that only serve to fool the players into thinking they’re having a good time. It’s worth maybe a rental if only for the incredible amount of Trophies/Achievements you obtain without trying.

The rental price at Blockbuster is $8.99 right now. If you feel like you need to feel good about yourself, by all means, go for it.