The Prince Takes a Darker Turn
His dark side is one habit the Prince might not be breaking any time soon in the awe-inspiring demo for what might be 2005's Game of the Year.
Published: May 26, 2005
Likely to be one of the most highly anticipated titles this Fall, Prince of Persia 3: Kindred Blades is certainly looking to live up to the massive hype Ubisoft piled upon it at E3. The game takes place in the Prince's hometown of Babylon, which is apparently now in flames and beseiged by some strange force. It's up to our beloved hero to figure out what's going on and claim back his homeland.
The basic premise seems to continue the 'crawling in my skin' attitude of Warrior Within, with the Prince becoming corrupted by the Sands of Time to start off the game, effectively splitting his personality. After walking through flames, the Prince can now transform in the dreaded Dark Prince, who has white hair, an evil scowl, and black-as-death clothes, who will obviously encompass all the 'negative' aspects of our hero.
[a_img="01" float="left"]Hello Evil, meet the Dark Prince's chain.[/a_img]While the angst angle seems to be amped up, it actually brings a pretty interesting dynamic to the game. The Dark Prince will actually wield a chain as his primary instrument of death, allowing for some pretty awesome moves, not just limited to long-range death. He can also use the chain to grab onto once-unreachable poles and basically turn the streets of Babylon into his own, personal jungle gym.
Speaking of Babylon, the city itself looks fantastic. Aside from your traditional, inside environments that you've grown accustomed to over the past two games, a focal point of this one will be the rooftops of the city, and let me tell you, they look incredible. The draw distance in the game really puts the size of the city into perspective in a way the previous games weren't able to portray.
[a_img="04" float="right"]They'll never see it coming, that's the fun part.[/a_img]But enough about the gorgeous graphics, let's talk about the battle system. What appears to be a major focus of the new system is the wonderfully-imlpemented quick-kill. If you have your wits about you and are able to time everything without being detected, the Prince will be able to subdue his enemies in one gruesome slash instead of having to fight it out hand-to-hand. There are many instances where this can occur. A couple that were shown in the demo included the Prince running along a wall and jumping out to immediately slice off the head of his foe; the Dark Prince hanging from the end of a chain, unleashing his own chain to lop off another head; an incredible scene where the Prince jumps down from a ceiling, grabbing onto the neck of one guard and swinging around to destroy the other at the same time; and an even more incredible scene with the Dark Prince attaching chain to a pole, pulling it tight, and running around it in order to, yet again, decapitate his nemeses.
Without a doubt, Ubisoft has put a lot of thought into how this system will work. The game will definitely not turn into a Metal Gear Solid stealth-fest; they made a point to mention multiple times that the focus is on the action. The Prince will have to move quickly in order to achieve his one-hit kills.
[a_img="02" float="left"]Seriously, why fight hand-to-hand when you can take a knife to a throat?[/a_img]When he fails, however, he will have to resort to the traditional hand-to-hand combat. One quirk with the new game, however, seems to be that the Prince doesn't have a specific weapon, aside from the Dagger or chain. Instead, he'll have to find weapons lying around in order to fend off his enemies. It wasn't made entirely clear whether this would be the case for both the Dark Prince and the regular Prince, but in the demo, the Dark Prince needed to pick up a sword to fight back against one of the monsters.
Another big inclusion into the game is the addition of real-time chariot races. If you are a fan of the oft-overlooked cult-hit Beyond Good & Evil, also developed by Ubisoft, then you may remember its incredible rooftop sequences. In these parts of the game, the line between gameplay and cinema was blurred to the point where you had to let go of the control for a few seconds to just make sure you were still actually playing the game. Its fluidity was incredible.
And that's exactly what you'll get with the chariot races. You will have to drive your chariot through the streets of Babylon while evil on-lookers attempt to stop you in you in your tracks. The Prince can decapitate them before they climb on, or fend them off in other ways. At certain intervals, the gameplay will switch over to cinema and you'll see the Prince pull of some spectacular killing moves, only to be thrown right back into fending off another chariot. The seemlessness of it all is what is incredible. There was not a single dip in framerate or a moment where the non-gameplay portions interfered with the interactive ones.
The last portion of the demo included the introduction of a new boss: An incredibly pissed off an enormous giant with a sword the size of four of five Princes. They didn't show any actual gameplay, but stressed the fact that the boss battles in the game would feature larger, more intricate battles that feel more like boss fights than just another stop on the way to the end of the game.
All-in-all, Prince of Persia 3: Kindred Blades was absolutely one of the best titles demoed at E3 this year and was instantly catapulted (via chain, no less) into my top 3 most wanted for the year.
The basic premise seems to continue the 'crawling in my skin' attitude of Warrior Within, with the Prince becoming corrupted by the Sands of Time to start off the game, effectively splitting his personality. After walking through flames, the Prince can now transform in the dreaded Dark Prince, who has white hair, an evil scowl, and black-as-death clothes, who will obviously encompass all the 'negative' aspects of our hero.
[a_img="01" float="left"]Hello Evil, meet the Dark Prince's chain.[/a_img]While the angst angle seems to be amped up, it actually brings a pretty interesting dynamic to the game. The Dark Prince will actually wield a chain as his primary instrument of death, allowing for some pretty awesome moves, not just limited to long-range death. He can also use the chain to grab onto once-unreachable poles and basically turn the streets of Babylon into his own, personal jungle gym.
Speaking of Babylon, the city itself looks fantastic. Aside from your traditional, inside environments that you've grown accustomed to over the past two games, a focal point of this one will be the rooftops of the city, and let me tell you, they look incredible. The draw distance in the game really puts the size of the city into perspective in a way the previous games weren't able to portray.
[a_img="04" float="right"]They'll never see it coming, that's the fun part.[/a_img]But enough about the gorgeous graphics, let's talk about the battle system. What appears to be a major focus of the new system is the wonderfully-imlpemented quick-kill. If you have your wits about you and are able to time everything without being detected, the Prince will be able to subdue his enemies in one gruesome slash instead of having to fight it out hand-to-hand. There are many instances where this can occur. A couple that were shown in the demo included the Prince running along a wall and jumping out to immediately slice off the head of his foe; the Dark Prince hanging from the end of a chain, unleashing his own chain to lop off another head; an incredible scene where the Prince jumps down from a ceiling, grabbing onto the neck of one guard and swinging around to destroy the other at the same time; and an even more incredible scene with the Dark Prince attaching chain to a pole, pulling it tight, and running around it in order to, yet again, decapitate his nemeses.
Without a doubt, Ubisoft has put a lot of thought into how this system will work. The game will definitely not turn into a Metal Gear Solid stealth-fest; they made a point to mention multiple times that the focus is on the action. The Prince will have to move quickly in order to achieve his one-hit kills.
[a_img="02" float="left"]Seriously, why fight hand-to-hand when you can take a knife to a throat?[/a_img]When he fails, however, he will have to resort to the traditional hand-to-hand combat. One quirk with the new game, however, seems to be that the Prince doesn't have a specific weapon, aside from the Dagger or chain. Instead, he'll have to find weapons lying around in order to fend off his enemies. It wasn't made entirely clear whether this would be the case for both the Dark Prince and the regular Prince, but in the demo, the Dark Prince needed to pick up a sword to fight back against one of the monsters.
Another big inclusion into the game is the addition of real-time chariot races. If you are a fan of the oft-overlooked cult-hit Beyond Good & Evil, also developed by Ubisoft, then you may remember its incredible rooftop sequences. In these parts of the game, the line between gameplay and cinema was blurred to the point where you had to let go of the control for a few seconds to just make sure you were still actually playing the game. Its fluidity was incredible.
And that's exactly what you'll get with the chariot races. You will have to drive your chariot through the streets of Babylon while evil on-lookers attempt to stop you in you in your tracks. The Prince can decapitate them before they climb on, or fend them off in other ways. At certain intervals, the gameplay will switch over to cinema and you'll see the Prince pull of some spectacular killing moves, only to be thrown right back into fending off another chariot. The seemlessness of it all is what is incredible. There was not a single dip in framerate or a moment where the non-gameplay portions interfered with the interactive ones.
The last portion of the demo included the introduction of a new boss: An incredibly pissed off an enormous giant with a sword the size of four of five Princes. They didn't show any actual gameplay, but stressed the fact that the boss battles in the game would feature larger, more intricate battles that feel more like boss fights than just another stop on the way to the end of the game.
All-in-all, Prince of Persia 3: Kindred Blades was absolutely one of the best titles demoed at E3 this year and was instantly catapulted (via chain, no less) into my top 3 most wanted for the year.
