Review: Prince of Persia Revelations (PSP)

Sony's handheld is a mixed blessing: on the one hand, you have what is pretty much a PS2 in portable form; something you can play on the train or in a waiting room; have a Wipeout Fusion tournament while travelling to work or a high-score smashing blast of Lumines while waiting to have your teeth drilled - it's a tantalising prospect. On the other hand, you have what is pretty much a PS2 in portable form; something you can play Medieval and the Sims 2 on - lazy rehashes of home console games that, in their original form, now cost a third of the price of a PSP game. With this horrifying thought fresh in our minds, Gamestyle dove reluctantly into Prince of Persia Revelations.

As you may know, Revelations is an almost exact replica of Warrior Within, itself a sequel to the much loved (yet commercially ignored) Sands of Time. In fact, it's not so much a replica, more of a special edition, as Revelations boasts twenty or so new environments on top of those from the original game. Sounds good, doesn’t it? An extended version of Warrior Within might have made up for the mild disappointment that came with its initial release: the new maps could have been brought into the existing levels to make the game flow more fluidly, like Sands of Time did. The Godsmack soundtrack could have been disposed of. Ubisoft had so many possibilities to redeem themselves. Sadly, Revelations doesn't solve these problems - it creates new ones.

The main issue with this game is its control system. Lacking two further shoulder buttons and one more analogue stick doesn't really hinder many other PSP titles, but for a Prince of Persia game, the loss is significant. Most actions (such as wall running and pulling levers) are assigned to the right shoulder button, and the fascia buttons perform the same actions as on the PS2 game. This works, until you realise that all other commands have to be assigned to the remaining controls. For instance, the left shoulder button - when held down and used in conjunction with the analogue stick - moves the camera; when combined with unintuitively relying on the D-pad to harness the powers of the sands of time, you have a problem. This is a game where you must act fast or face certain death; having to move your thumbs all over the place just to place the camera where you want it becomes frustrating, especially when dodging traps. It's uncomfortable, and means the game doesn't flow as smoothly as it should.

Loading times also cause trouble. Gamestyle found itself leaping from platform to platform only to be confronted with (while in mid air, mind) a five second pause while the game loaded the next part of the level. It's understandable that the PSP doesn't quite have the same capabilities as the PS2, but having the game stutter like this at crucial moments really grates - it should have been optimised better. Warrior Within's gameplay was never as graceful as its predecessor anyway and, because of this inconvenience, is now more flawed than before. Fortunately, there are some positive aspects to the game which go some small way to make up for its shortcomings.

Presentation wise, the game is very close to its console peers: levels are large and clear enough for you to see which poles and platforms create a path to your destination. The characters are easy to pick out from the backgrounds, and are well animated - it's only during cut scenes that you notice the lower quality of the textures, but this isn't much of an issue. The sound is ripped directly from the home versions, and is much improved by wearing headphones (if you can tolerate Godsmack's brand of faux Goth rock, that is).

Something else that works in Revelations is the free form fighting system. Due largely to a more combat-focused style of gameplay, this is the one aspect that is improved from the Sands of Time (to be fair, SoT was focused more on graceful level negotiation than combat). The Prince learns new moves as the game progresses, adding some much needed variety in dishing out death to the numerous enemies. Combining moves into combos allows for more skillful play, and less of the repetitive button bashing seen in some titles.

Unfortunately, the negatives outweigh the positives in this conversion. It's a pity Revelations couldn't live up to its potential; so many little problems really make the game feel more like a chore than a form of entertainment. Revelations smacks of a rushed release thrown at the shelves to coincide with the multi-format The Two Thrones (unlike the new and completely different strategy title, Battles of Prince of Persia, for the DS). Had developer Pipeworks been given more time to work on the title, this could have been a great improvement over Warrior Within; as it stands, we have a game that should only be bought by Prince of Persia completists and curious PSP owners who don't have a home console.

Rating: 5 / 10

Words by Dan Gill