Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4894 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Released on: 2004-12-03
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: PlayStation2

Amazon.co.uk Review
Considering how highly lauded its predecessor is, the fact that Prince of Persia 2 seems to so be effortlessly surpassing it, after little more than six months of development time, is a minor miracle.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was critically acclaimed but commercially underperformed; this sequel has a chance to right that wrong early on with a noticeably darker and more violent adventure. The Prince is being hunted by an "immortal incarnation of Fate", who's peeved with him for mucking about with the space-time continuum in the last game and aims to make sure he won't be doing it again.

Although the Prince has a number of new acrobatic moves (including the rather Errol Flynn-esque ability to shimmy down tapestries) and time attacks (such as a new fast forward move that allows him to buzz through a cluster of enemies as nothing more than a blur of light) the most important new feature in the game is a completely new combat system.

Using the analogue controllers to full effect, it's now possible to incorporate your weapons, enemies and environment into a seemingly endless stream of combos as you leap behind and around bad guys, steal their weapons and turn a normal wall run into a lunging slash attack. If this game was only as good as the last one it'd still be amazing but the genuine improvements already seen should see the Prince take his rightful place as king of the action platformers. --David Jenkins

Customer Reviews

Better than you think.
You may have heard some bad reviews for this game. Forget everything you've read because this game is as good as the original. It's tough! The first game was great but easy. This game is a challenge. It plays as good as the first game, requiring skill, thought and bravery. The combat has been improved 100%. True, the rock soundtrack is a bit different, but it only 'rocks' when you have a fight, the rest of the time you're treated to atmospheric, ephemeral sounds - nice.

I'd say the people who shelved this game after 10 minutes simply couldn't beat the first boss. True, it's a tough fight and it's you're very first fight - but beat here and the game opens up into an experience equal to the first game, and perhaps 4 times bigger as well. Ignore the people who poo poo this game and try it out.

Possibly the most mixed game I've played
After hearing good things about Sands of Time, I dutifully got Warrior Within for Christmas. What can I say? Whilst exceeding my greatest expectations, it SOMEHOW manages to simultaneously disappoint me.
Let me break things down a bit. Graphically, Warrior Within makes Sands of Time, already a beautiful-looking game, look basic. I kid you not. It's reached the point where the video sequences (accessible from the Start menu) equal those of Halo 2, with none of that game's flicker or pop-up. The in-game graphics look more like Sands of Time's video sequences did! 10/10.
The combat system has been given an overhaul to the point where there are moves to the nth degree that you can perform on enemies (interaction with environment was a particular plus - hurling enemies off the edge of extremely high cliffs, slow-motion spinning pole slices and performing an Angel Drop from vertical wall run are my favourites), and the repetition of combat which troubled Sands of Time is largely gone.
However, fights can be frustrating when surrounded by enemies, especially when they start doing unblockable combos and you have no sand left. Admittedly, there is nothing - NOTHING - as satisfying as vaulting over a cocky Sand Warrior who just did an unblockable attack, grabbing him from behind in a stranglehold, listening to the pleasant sound of his neck splintering as he struggles for air, releasing him, shoving both blades in his back, removing them, swinging them and watching his head float away in slo-mo as clouds of blood billow from his neck.
The combat is really the least troublesome area of the game. The thing that will really get you in an apocalyptic, hurling-the-joypad-through-the-screen fury is the platforming. Evidently, someone forgot to tell the level designers this; if you're going to painfully raise the difficulty level of the game, THE PLAYER'S CHARACTER NEEDS TO BE GIVEN NEW ABILITIES TOO, TO COPE PROPERLY. The new platforming features include rather snazzy rope-assisted wall-running and riding down curtains with your sword, but they sadly can't help you cope with the difficult parts of the platforming. When you start the game, you only have limited sand, with the result that if you use any to help in fights, you risk not being able to rewind when you plummet to your death yet again while platforming. It's a real shame that wretched faults like this were allowed to exist in what could have been a 99.99% title. For this reason, I give it four stars (just my opinion).
What I'm trying to say is this: buy it, buy it for its graphic beauty, full storyline, hours of playing time, savage combat, dark Eastern dungeons and heavy metal soundtrack (if you're into that sort of thing). The Prince, sadly, adopts the sinister rasp of an American trying to sound English (or an Englishman trying to sound American - I can't tell which). A shame, I preferred his slightly camp college-boy tones from SoT.
Buy it - but please for your own good, prepare yourself for screaming rage as, through no fault of your own, the blood-splattered 'GAME OVER' screen smirks malevolently at you over... and over... and over... again.

A change of tone
The game is technically outstanding, but has an fundamentally different atmosphere compared to the original and in some ways feels like it was designed by committee. Someone obviously had the bright idea of getting the game to appeal to 14-year old males as much as legally possible (they probably got promoted for that gem), so cue the tedious and unatmospheric goth/metal soundtrack, increased emphasis on turgid fighting with new moves and combos added seemingly just for the sake of it, improbably proportioned and women characters and a general rise in aggressiveness, bad language and testosterone. If you like that sort of thing then great, the world's your oyster, but more mature games who enjoyed the original be warned.