E-Mail This Article to a Friend Two princes Warrior Within has a pocket full of Kryptonite BY MITCH KRPATA
	Prince of Persia: Warrior Within Published by Ubisoft. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal Studios. For PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, and PC. Rated M for Mature.

I could wax rhapsodic about Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time for hours. It was, quite simply, the best game of 2003, and probably the best game of the past five years or so. The prince was an engaging, complex character, the storyline packed an unexpected emotional punch, and the gameplay was nothing short of revelatory. For God's sake, you could reverse time. No more cheap falling deaths! And why did it take the game industry almost 30 years to make a game in which pulling crates around wasn't a Sisyphean task? Oh, good times.

Now we have the rushed-to-market sequel Prince of Persia: Warrior Within – a darker, self-consciously edgier take on the franchise, and a step in the wrong direction.

The breakthrough platform gameplay that made the first game great is to be found in Warrior Within, and it's as much fun as ever. The prince can still do everything he did before – run along walls, climb columns, and swing from flagpole to flagpole while always, always avoiding spiky poles – and Ubisoft has added two new moves to the prince's repertoire. He can now grab ropes hanging on walls and essentially rappel, which is neat, and stick his sword into tapestries in order to glide safely to the ground, which is less neat (it looks cool, but feels less interactive than most of his acrobatics).

The underlying game is solid, if not a big step forward, and by itself would make for a worthy sequel. But Warrior Within's problems are apparent from the opening cinematic, and it never gets any better. When we first see the prince, he's running down narrow city streets, fleeing from some amorphous beast we can't quite see (called the Dahaka). This is all well and good until the prince finds himself backed against a wall and turns around to reveal him glowering like Vincent D'Onofrio in the "I am … in a world … of shit" scene from Full Metal Jacket. The prince keeps that expression on his face the whole game.

Frankly, the prince as envisioned in Warrior Within is an insufferable bastard. In Sands of Time, he was presented as an affable playboy, well-educated but bratty, quicker with a rejoinder than with his sword. He was an underdog who grew more likeable as the game progressed, and he learned to bear greater responsibility. But in Warrior Within, he's gone way too far to the other side; the prince now spends his days supremely pissed-off. That's all. He's no more complex than the by-the-numbers nu-metal score that accompanies the proceedings this time around.

He taunts his opponents during combat, coming off more like Colonel John Matrix than the Prince of Persia. I can imagine that finding out he's doomed to die for messing with the time continuum could mess a guy up a little, but this is ridiculous. Not only that, but they've ditched the inexplicably British-accented, charming voice actor from the original game and gone with an inexplicably American-accented, generic voice actor for this one. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if the prince didn't also scream like a pirate during combat. I'm not kidding; every 10 seconds or so, he emits this "Yeargh!" noise that sounds like he's passing a kidney stone.

His opponents also scream a lot. The prince spends much of the game clashing with Shahdee, a page to the Empress of Time who wears a steel thong (I assume for its practical value as much as anything else). Shahdee tends to shriek while performing the same move set over and over, which the Prince can simply block until she's done . . . and therein lies the other crippling flaw in Warrior Within.

The combat system is allegedly the game's big draw this time around. Ubisoft has promised nearly unlimited attack styles, and on this count they've delivered. The prince can now wield two weapons, and can throw one of them if he likes (this turns out to be extremely useful at points). The instruction book has entire pages packed with button combinations for different attacks. (If only hitting Y+A+A really affected the gameplay in a distinct manner from hitting Y+Y+A.) I mean, yes, the Prince can attack in a billion ways if you're judging only by animations, but with few exceptions the same two or three offensive maneuvers that worked in the first game work here.

In their bid to grab a greater market share with Warrior Within, Ubisoft has gone the mature – some would say easy – route. In addition to undergarments tailored from metal ore, there are also buckets of blood in this game. For particularly gnarly murders – like decapitations and Kung Lao-style bisections – the camera cuts to the most visceral angle possible. It's not that I'm against gore in games, but The Sands of Time unfolded like a swashbuckling Errol Flynn movie, and Warrior Within is nothing more than a wannabe Ninja Gaiden.

Judging by the sales numbers, audiences prefer the sequel, which is selling at twice the clip of the original. I sincerely hope people are enjoying it. But for those of us who loved The Sands of Time, Warrior Within is a slap in the face.

Score: 6.0 (out of 10)