Prince of Persia, a title that makes us oldies dribble with fond memories, is back. Conveniently all but the shrewdest critics have forgotten the totally awful 3D, the first foray the Prince made in the fickle world of updates of old classics. Going back to the original, it is still a fun game, even once the rose tinted spectacles are pushed up to keep the grey hair from falling into your eyes. That's a big burden to shoulder even after the previous dreadful update. Unlike said previous version, Jordan Mechner had very little to do with this new version, is that good or bad? Well I'll let you make up your mind once the review is over.

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I was one of the lucky majority that never came across Prince of Persia 3D so I couldn't honestly begin to tell you how much better this is. But I suppose what you really want to know is how close it is to the original. Well this time the translation to the feared 3rd dimension has worked extremely well. From the style of the first game and, indeed, the franchise you would expect the game to be fairly sedate with lots of lining up jumps and cautiously running around bumping into walls. Not so. As well as going up a few hundred bits in processing power, it seems our Prince is now a fully qualified jumping jack. Bending the laws of physics to his very will by running up and along walls, jumping off walls, swinging on poles and ropes, and performing finger breaking ledge grabs; our Prince is practically Spider-Man. But without webs, wall crawling, spider-sense, web shooters or proportionate strength of a spider. Okay, so he's not practically Spider-Man. But close to practically. All that really matters is that this boy can move with style. What comes as even more of a pleasant surprise is the context sensitive controls. Within minutes you'll have the Prince acrobatically prancing around the Palace with nary a care in the world. Just as you declare yourself king of jumping and running along walls you run into those fabled bad men all videogames seem to come equipped with these days. But fear not! The Prince carries a sharp sword with which to have at them! And have at them he does, with great gusto and more of his signature acrobatics. Not a great deal like the original then.

As you have probably seen, by clicking on the screenshots button if you haven't already, Prince of Persia boasts some very fine visuals. The initial fortress and the later Palace are lush environments full of the kind of interactive goodness you have come to expect from a modern videogame. As things move on the Prince strays from interiors and moves into sewers and underground caves, nothing earth-shattering I think you will agree, but they are done with style aplomb and all look absolutely gorgeous. If pushing around so many polygons wasn't enough, there are many special effects to catch your eye resulting in some "Ooh" moments which make this one of the finest looking games to grace the PlayStation 2 of late. All the rooms carry a great sense of scale and do well to communicate the terrible peril the Prince has thrust himself into, although there is now a way to avoid falling too far and dying (more on that later) but if you suffer from vertigo, take this advice, don't look down. The Prince himself adds to the feeling of danger that surrounds each room, precariously teetering on platform edges, barely making jumps and slipping off ledges only to grab them as he falls. He does all this with some amazing animation which is incredibly fluid and looks really cool too.