Ubi reveals more on the Prince`s return later this year, including a look at the chariot racing...

The Prince of Persia ‘Sands of Time’ trilogy is set to finish this winter with the release of the third game, presently called Prince of Persia 3. Set after the events of Warrior Within, POP3 (and I’m not talking about email) sees the return of the Prince to his home city of Babylon with his love Kaileena, but instead of taking the traditional Disney-esque route of living happily ever after, the Prince finds his homeland ravaged by war and he himself hunted. The two are soon captured leaving Kaileena no choice but to sacrifice herself and release the sands of time once more – now back on the streets and rooftops of Babylon, the Prince is left determined to rid his land of this new evil, even though he finds that he’s increasingly overpowered by the Dark Prince, a manifestation of his past deeds…

Similar to the duality of the Prince and his dark alter ego, Prince of Persia 3 has ‘flip-flopped’ in its name although the new title is highly unlikely to break with the tradition of its predecessors ‘Sands of Time’ and ‘Warrior Within’ respectively and side with the number ‘3’. In fact Ubisoft has already pulled one moniker for the game, which had been until recently called ‘Kindred Blades’ before being quietly removed. We wait with baited breath to discover the final subtitle for the game, which we’ll be sure to shout from the rafters as soon as the confirmation comes through to us.

Since this is the final episode in the so-called ‘Sands’ trilogy (although the ongoing success of the franchise makes this highly dubious), the French company has pulled out all of the stops in an attempt to make Prince of Persia 3 the most memorable and successful of the lot – something that was evident last week when Ubisoft held their inaugural ‘Spotlight’ event that showcased the major titles heading for the shop shelves before Christmas. Whilst hands-on demonstrations and previews were available for some games set for a similar winter 2005 release, Ubi had no playable build of the game for the selection of press and retail to try out. Instead it was up to a Ubi representative to demonstrate the game with the help of an assistant, ably skilled with a console controller, as the Prince/Dark Prince (both are playable characters) worked through pre-determined levels including the new chariot racing sequences – more on those shortly. It has to be explained that in order to take advantage of the power of the darker alter ego however, the Prince has to take a walk through flames, which then mutates him into the Dark Prince; though Ubisoft has been exceptionally quiet as to how he changes back to his ‘normal self’, and even at Spotlight there was no mention made of how the process is reversed. Hopefully there’ll be more news on that in the coming weeks.

One of the fundamental differences marketed at the Spotlight event was the seemingly expansive environment, which this time around sees the Prince running in the backstreets of Babylon as well as traversing the ancient city’s rooftops – the mythical Tower of Babel always visible on the horizon. Although it was hard to test exactly how open the environments in POP3 actually are, they certainly appeared to offer a wide selection of routes to the Prince, all the more thanks to his increased agility and athleticism – he’d be sure to win several gold medals for Persia in the ancient Olympic Games, but sadly there appears to be far too much going on in his city to worry about all that! The introduction of ‘expansive environments’ does raise the concern that the franchise’s trademark puzzles (including the use of strategic cameras to help with the solution) will play a lesser part in POP3 – but again this will have to be seen.

Pre-production design on the ancient city in the game was the responsibility of Ubisoft’s studios in the Moroccan capital Casablanca, which used their surroundings (as well as the city of Marrakech and the Egyptian capital Cairo) to create a Babylon that wouldn’t look out of place in a re-telling of Arabian Nights. During the demonstration, the Prince’s typical agility and the design of Babylon created a synergy that accentuated the flow of the gameplay experience; seeing the Prince jump off one rooftop only to suspend himself between two walls before sliding down to the street-level and progress through the shadowy alleyways of Babylon showed that the developers had certainly not lost their touch. Not to be outdone by ‘normal-self’ the Dark Prince also has a high level of agility that would make any gymnast gawp in awe, especially when he uses his Daggertail chain weapon to swing across buildings…

Of course the agile, gravity-defying acrobatics return once again, although this time (as with the example above) the Prince seems to have learnt new moves to compliment his surroundings, as well as a whole raft of stealth kills to slay his enemies that would make Sam Fisher proud. Christened ‘Speed Kills’, both the Prince and the Dark Prince can achieve quick and quiet manoeuvres that have a satisfying level of blood and decapitation - at this point it’s perhaps good to note that a question was raised at Spotlight about the various restrictions that were to be put into place before the game was released in Germany, the home of green blooded videogame characters. With enemies far stronger and resilient to attack, the Speed Kills enable the Prince and his alter ego to achieve successful kills with deadly speed and silence. During the presentations at the Spotlight event Ubi were very keen to display examples of Speed Kills by both of the playable characters including one by the Dark Prince used the ‘Daggertail’ (a length of chain tapering around his arm) to hook onto a pole standing between two guards and cut them in two by swinging around the pole at speed. The use of the Speed Kill system does seem to tie in with the athleticism of the Prince, much like the Free-Form system, with the requirement to reach higher positions above the guards to successfully achieve a silent kill – if the Prince is detected by a guard expect reinforcements to appear soon after, leaving the Free-Form combat system as the only way to defeat the surrounding enemies…expect a heavy loss of energy from the Prince’s health bar.

The fluid free-form combat system reappears in POP3, although with the new silent moves the enemy strength and AI have both been improved making the veteran system seem quite antiquated in one sense and certainly seems to be relegated to secondary combat status behind the new system. Hopefully the introduction of Speed Kills and the effects of their addition to the game hasn’t changed the gameplay experience too drastically from the previous titles although it was stressed by Ubi at the Spotlight presentation that the player will always have the choice between the two strategies. Ubisoft has promised that the Sands of Time abilities will be available to the player, although the only example shown at the presentation was the time reversal skill – and that was only shown because of a Ubi rep mistiming one of the Prince’s jump…

The lack of hands-on experience with the game does mean that we’ll just have to wait and see whether Ubisoft has taken the franchise down a path that will leave some fans feeling alienated. There is no doubt that even though our experience of the game has only been through presentations and a controlled demonstration of the gameplay, the inclusion of the Speed Kill combat system has sent ripples to other aspects of POP3’s gameplay, including enemy makeup. The warriors faced by the Prince this time around have a higher level of intelligence than his previous foes, including the ability to listen out for loud noises or sudden disturbances – in this way the game really does seem to have elements of a Babylonian Splinter Cell.

Aside from the addition of a secondary playable character in the form of the Dark Prince and the new Speed Kill system, the most drastic change from the previous titles has to be the inclusion of the chariot racing levels, which sees the Prince race through the streets of Babylon all the while trying to stop his fellow competitors from getting the better of him. From the demonstration Ubisoft were keen to point out that the new element had been longed for by fans of the franchise and something that they felt would add to the experience of gamers. Whilst the sequence shown at Spotlight certainly added a cinematic feel to the game thanks to the quick third person cut-scenes spliced at different points on the route, it does seem that perhaps this is one step too far away from the previous games in the series. It was a small segment of the demo however, and therefore a balanced opinion can’t be truly formed leaving us once again anticipating hands-on experience of the game in the coming weeks.