Prince of Persia (2008) Hands-On Preview

We get to grips with a fresh build of Prince.

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Elika is as quick on her feet as her soon-to-be love interest (seriously, guys, we'll put down real money) and many of the new moves are team-based: the wench rides piggyback when you clamber over vines, and you can boost her up a level if she loses her grip. The time-wizardry of Prince of Persias past has been taken out of the equation in favour of plain old magic: double-tap the jump button, for instance, and Elika will teleport-swing you a few feet further. You can tune up her paranormal arsenal by collecting sundry glittery things and trading them in via the pause menu, though the Prince's abilities remain consistent (we're told) throughout.

Elika has one other, vital function: with her on the scene, you can never die. Take an ill-advised tumble off a cliff and she'll warp you back to solid ground; get knocked on your tailbone by one of Ahriman's creations and she'll hadoken-punch the presumptuous sod across the room. Being saved in this way has its negatives, however, as your enemy will regain a little health every time Elika intervenes.

Which leads us nicely to one the most promising bits on offer here: combat with real substance. Previous games were great, once again, at making you look good in the fray, but less successful in terms of balancing each encounter or inducing you to squeeze the sap out of the combo tree. The latest iteration narrows the focus by confining combat almost exclusively to cinematic, one-on-one boss battles at the summit of each level, as the Prince faces off against Ahriman's chief henchmen, the dextrous Hunter and the brutish Warrior.

We took a tangle with the Hunter during our hands-on, and it was a hard-won engagement indeed. Flailing one-button combos were punished with serpentine countermoves (which were themselves counterable, pleasingly enough), and it quickly became clear that only by mixing up the Prince's lifting assaults, sword swipes and Elika's spells (all mapped to the face buttons) would we make any headway. The Prince isn't quite so sprightly when he's hurtin', which makes it difficult to bully your way out of a losing streak; pinpoint timing is the order of the day.

Once we'd inflicted enough damage, the Hunter was forced to call upon Ahriman's unholy energy, becoming impervious to certain attacks. We soon put paid to these delaying tactics, however, cornering and finishing him off in a slick, surprisingly unirritating QTE sequence. With the dark god's focal manifestation removed, the landscape underwent a Technicolor makeover, plants and wildlife gushing forth from the brittle soil. Awww, it's a bit like Okami, we said. And on that auspicious note, our hands-on ended.

We're feeling reasonably safe about the latest Prince of Persia. Ubisoft Montreal has lost none of its old aptitude for sinuous gymnastic linearity, while widening the view in a perfunctory (what game world isn't open-ended nowadays?) but nonetheless appealing fashion. If the developer can vary those level designs and climatic battles as successfully as Shadow of the Colossus, this could be something rather special. We might even end up liking the Prince, too. Stranger things have happened.

Prince of Persia is released at the start of December.

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