Prince of Persia Revelations - PSP review

Full Review

While Ubisoft seems intent on releasing puzzle based games for the PSP gaming masses, it hasn’t stopped the publisher from porting the latest Prince of Persia title, Revelations, to the handheld gaming console. But can the popular console smash-hit be as successful on the small screen? We find out.

With visually stunning graphics and a lengthy cutscene sequence to get you into the action the game tries its best to set the scene for the impeding battles and quests. The game starts on a ship on the high seas under attack from a band of pirates set on nothing more than taking your life.

The story follows in the same footsteps as the second outing on the console - the Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and begins a few years after the conclusion of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

The Prince has returned to Babylon, to find himself hunted by a supernatural creature bent on his destruction. The Prince quickly realises that there's only one way to end his troubles: journey to the birthplace island of the Sands of Time, find a way to travel into the past, and stop the Sands from being created.

Cue, elaborate sets, action and adventure as you battle you way through bad guys and monsters.

Luckily for you, you are trained in melee combat and more acrobatic moves than Cirque du Soleil. There are so many combat moves at times you would be forgiven for thinking that you’re playing the latest Tekken or Street Fighter rather than an action adventure game.

As with the moves - the key seems to be to keep moving - the game does expect you to have played the Prince of Persia games before. We don’t profess to being the best gamers around here at Pocket-lint, but you wouldn’t expect it to take you ten attempts to beat the first end of level baddie you come across. You also wouldn’t expect that end of level baddie to come only ten deaths into the game.

It’s a trait that carries on throughout the game, and even on the Easy setting it doesn’t get much better.

To help the weak, there is the ability to shift time in your favour, either by slowing it down to get in that killer blow, or to rewind it completely so you can run away from trouble, catch your breath and try again a few moments later. Both require you to get so called “soul” juice from your victims and the more bad guys you kill the more chance you’ve got of getting out of trouble later down the line.

Verdict

While gamers of Warrior Within will be disappointed with the virtually identical storyline, albeit with a few more levels tacked on to the end, for the rest of us the experience is very good.

The graphics push the limits of the handheld console and are just as good as Rockstar's GTA Liberty City Stories. As for the gameplay, don't expect it to be an easy ride.

We personally found the bad guys hard to defeat compared to everyone else, and this spoilt for us what otherwise would have been a top marks score.

• Comment on this story for your chance to win a TomTom XL Live IQ Routes Europe