Prince of Persia: Rival Swords ( Nintnedo Wii )

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flair.

You get running dialogue as you play, again adding to the cinematic atmosphere - but it becomes really annoying when you have to replay a given level for the 10th time due to missing a ledge and hear the exact ... same ... thing ... all ... over ... again. A good way to play this game is with friends watching, so they can give advice on solving the puzzle, but it also means that you all start chanting along with the repetitive dialogue each time you go through it again.

I like the dark and moody atmosphere of the game, and the middle eastern poppy music they have in the background. I do find the graphics to be a little TOO dark in scenes, though - you can barely see what you're doing. It's hard enough to solve a puzzle you can see - but to solve a puzzle that involves murky half-shapes is a challenge that seems unnecessary. Especially when the price of failure is listening to an inane description yet again.

Still, these are minor complaints in a game that is fun to play and draws you into its world. Even if you've played the Two Thrones version, I recommend at least renting this, to see how it feels to play this. If you've not tried Two Thrones, this is well worth getting.

Prince of Persia: Rival Swords ( Nintnedo Wii )

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after about 10 minutes because it walked a fine line of being too sensitive when you didn't want to turn the camera (be sure to hold the controller flat when walking a narrow plank) and not being sensitive enough when you need to quickly move the camera. So it's d-pad camera action for me.

So both the buttons I mentioned above have to do with combat (swing your dagger or swing your sword) so when you are playing the puzzles (some of my favorite parts of PoP games) you are basically playing with a normal controller. It's all buttons and thumbpad, no waving of the controllers to be had. So the puzzles were fun, but the wii controller added nothing to it.

As you may know already this game has a "stealth" attack mode. If you sneak up on someone you can swing the nunchuck and he goes into attack mode. If you are sure to hold the wiimote nice and still and then swing it randomly when the screen changes color you can kill an enemy in anywhere from 1-5 moves with zero risk to yourself. Now when you are playing as the dark prince this changes a bit. You see instead of swinging the wiimote at the right times you now have to swing it over and over again, kind of like you are mashing a button ... uh hello???? Talk about annoying. I could pull it off about 65% of the time but it was very annoying to sit there swinging the wiimote around like a freaking idiot.

So while this stealth thing was cool with a normal controller it pretty much sucks with the way they set it up on the wii. While it's easy to not press a button until you need to, it's not so easy to pull off the "do not move the wiimote too much because the game will think you are swinging" maneuver. Oh yeah, and button mashing should be left to buttons, ok? thanks!

So now imagine that this stealth thing is incorporated into some of the boss stages, except that they make it more difficult with less room for error so that you must swing your wiimote like an idiot at the perfect moment (better do it a few times to make sure the game knows you are in fact trying to swing). Sometimes you don't even know that you are in this "stealth" mode until the game says "you timed it wrong". huh?? what?!?!?! oh, i guess i have to make sure NOT to swing when i'm standing on the giant's head, silly me, thought i was trying to kill him. Guess I'll just spend another 30 seconds trying to get back up there again. Gee I wish the camera would stop freaking out so I could actually see where i'm going.

[spoilers in regards to what the end boss stage plays like ... i suggest you read it though as it's the weakest boss stage I've ever seen]

By the end boss this stealth thing is completely out of hand. At one point you are trying to dodge a bunch of random blocks going around in circles while trying to run up a wall and then you have about a 1/2 second window to activate the stealth mode and then an even smaller window to perform each of the stealth attacks. You have to perform all 3-4 of in a row perfectly for _any_ damage to take place. Then you have to repeat this incredibly difficult maneuver 3 times before you can move onto the 3rd stage of this boss. Oh, and say you mess up a little and decide to retry with a sand tank (go back in time) ... well i believe there is a bug where if you have done this in the middle of the stealth attack the timing is off. Now you have to swing the wiimote like a fool _before_ it tells you too. I found this out after many wasted rewinds and lots of frustration.

Did I mention the moving blocks? Yeah well they are incredibly annoying because the camera stays centered on the boss and the blocks come from behind you, randomly, giving you very little opportunity to dodge them. Sometimes he will throw you to the ground right in front of a block (double ouch), get up and you get smacked by a 2nd (ouch for the 3rd time). These blocks also do more damage then he does and more damage then when the hurls them at you .. go figure.

I did all this once and then found myself trying to climb up blocks while the boss is hurling fireballs at me from above (again you can't see them coming). Basically you have to save all your sand tanks and use them when you get knocked off the blocks because the blocks are high in the air and you'll instantly die otherwise.

The final straw for me was when I was trying to get the stealth attack timing right for the 54th time and the game froze on me. This was not the first, second or even 3rd bug that I had encountered ... but I couldn't take any more. The game is going back tomorrow, thank god for being able to return used games to EB!

Prince of Persia: Rival Swords ( Nintnedo Wii )

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console is all about anyway? Now, if only they could lower the price on these re-hashed games. That would make much more sense. Bottom Line: Great game, fun controls, but a bit on the pricey side for a re-release.