“So, you found the sands of time.”

“Worse. I opened them...”

Night falls upon Persia. A gentle breeze glides between the tall buildings with a chill. The room is lit by a single candle, its flame wavering, casting dark shadows. Sitting at a simple desk, the prince holds a quill to parchment as he begins to pen a letter. A flash of battle runs through his mind, cutting his way through enemies and the quill falls from his hand to float to the table. Again he can feel a blade in his hands, determination and war gleaming in his dark eyes as he thrusts the sword through the evil foe. Now, distracted from reality, a consuming, thick mist begins to fill the room and whip up around him. Writhing in, he jerks back and knocks the pot of ink across the parchment but now the letter makes no difference to him now. Snatching his cloak, the prince flees from the building, the dark mist continuing to chase him through the streets of the city, consuming all in its path. Leaping across rafters, soon he is cornered and is forced to face the darkness. Drawing his two swords, the prince stares the monster out and prepares to fight.

The Dhaka will kill those who open the sands of time; it is a fate that cannot be escaped.

In all of my time of gaming, there has never been as good a sequel as this. There are some important points that are to be taken note of, such as gameplay, graphics and design of the game itself but only one main aspect determines if a sequel is worth credibility. Warrior Within carries on the storyline of Sands of Time perfectly and is so ingenious that you very much envy those who came up with the plot line. At the start you are chased by the Dhaka and it is then that you seek the advice of a wise and old man within the deserts of Persia. Explaining to him the dilemma, he tells the prince about the Dhaka; being a creature created solely to destroy all of those who open the sands of time. It is a fate that the prince cannot escape. Or is it?

Not wanting to wait around until death, in the form of the Dhaka, finds him, the prince ventures off on a ship to the Island of Time itself. Here is where the creature was created and it holds the key to his survival; something that he will do not matter what the cost or peril.

Warrior Within has been improved in a gameplay sense. The fighting system has not been overlooked but, in fact, improved with great attention. In Sands of Time, you had the dagger of time in one hand and your sword in another. Now, not only can you hold your main sword (which will also change during the course of the game as you upgrade and advance) but you have the option to pick up secondary weapons too. After slaying some enemies, they will drop their weapons, which you can use to cause even more havoc and destruction. These range from swords to axes to maces, etc. After you have attacked with it, the secondary weapon will begin to weaken and finally break, forcing you to find another.

Now, with these extra weapons presented to you, Ubisoft have also created a secondary attack, using the temporary weapons that you pick up. Combining these new slashing and throwing attacks, both of the actual secondary weapon you hold and also the enemies you come up against, with your standard moves, you can now unleash a fury of attacks and blows to the evil that you encounter.

However, giving you these new moves and weapons to attack with, the level of the game is also a bit harder than the Sands of Time. More than one enemy will come against you and often they will close in, encircling you. This is why you will give a sigh of relief to know that Ubisoft have carried on the use of the acrobatic like manoeuvres. Leaping off of your opponent you can jump over them or away from them, both enabling you to slash them whilst in the air. There is of course the pushing off of a nearby wall to plough through your enemies. When you are not in combat, you can also perform such feats, such as running along or up walls, edging along edges and leaping up and off of walls.

The game itself, in terms of design and working is not much different to that of Sands of Time. Warrior Within brings with it the same flavour of time warping and level shifting that you will need to master and utilise in order to solve the complex puzzles and navigate your way through the complicated and winding levels. This time shifting is down through the use of time portals that you discover near the beginning of the game. An example of this could be something as simple as a broken down bridge in the present day that then rebuilds when you go back in time or something as complex as an entire level changing. Old things become new, puzzles change and shift, enemies are scarce or flock in their tens and new areas become accessible.

Yes, in the Sands of Time, you yourself, as the prince, had time abilities that you could use to your advantage, the most prominent one being the ‘Recall’. If you had a sand orb available, you could re-wind the game to erase any mistakes that you might make. You could be attacked and killed or even fall into a trap or off of a ledge! However, so long as you keep stocked up on sand, by either killing the enemies or smashing pots round about, you will be able to use this function and stay safe. This is not to say that the game is easy and with the Recall you become invincible. As you might expect, being a new title, the time abilities have been improved and added. Along with the ability of re-wind you can also slow down things around you but you continue on at normal speed, allowing you to dispose of large amounts of enemies quickly and easily. This also comes in handy when fighting against the bosses of the game, which, although many if not all fight with pretty much the same AI, come up a lot more than in the Sands of Time.

Sadly, the one major point that pulls this game down and makes it rather monotonous, is that with all of the time shifting back and forth, it means that, although the area looks different and is changed in slight ways, you backtrack a lot. In some points it does become rather boring and with it being so open and vast, you can often get stuck on where you have to go next. The Story starts out on a very good high and, as said, is an excellent concept for a true sequel (not just another excuse for a game and to make money) but it thins down during the middle of the game, focusing a lot simply on the combat and puzzle solving side of the Prince of Persia reputation. Though, as you persevere and endure towards the end, the story then flares back up again with another ingenious plot element that will get you involved in the game was more and pull you through the seemingly endless halls, caverns, gardens and paths that can sometimes look very much alike and have you running round in circles.

In terms of visuals, it is definitely an improvement from the Sands of Time but not by much, as it was a superbly designed game that used and pushed all of the PS2’s capabilities to the maximum. All of the surroundings are amazing and truly designed within the theme of ancient Persia from the architecture to the decoration of rooms, even to the landscape and terrains that you will have to venture through whilst on the Island of Time. There are vast halls within castles, with more than one floor, flights of stairs, inventive traps that spring up and out of no where, then there are the caves that are murky and damp, shadows hiding the evil foes that lurk within them, the outer courtyards are full of trees and old roots running through the stone of buildings and rock of the island. The list is endless and although I do have enough space to go on and on about them, it would be best for you to experience them yourself, as I do not want to give too much away. Also, when you are transporting between the past and present, the run down rooms change into vivid creations of splendour before your eyes, as bricks rebuild, metal is bent and shaped and roots wither away from the stone. And, of course, the same applies for when the glorious halls and surroundings degenerate and crumble into the present day ruin that they now are.

Surroundings not being the only design aspect to such an immense platforming game, Warrior Within is filled with new looking enemies to battle it out against. With assassins dressed in red robes with razor sharp weapons at their disposal that flip and dodge and slice and cut with grace, fluid motion and sharp colour. Guardians of evil that glide across the floor on writhing clouds of smoke and mist, their ghoulish faces and bony, clawed hands. Hulking ‘Thralls’ that are five times, if not more, taller than a human being with large hands and the strength of a thousand men, wrapped in decaying bandages and rusting metal armour. All throughout this game you will see such wonders and visual splendours.

And of course, one cannot forget the prince himself, the stunning, chiselled features, dark haired and foreign warrior who, in this new title, looks a little stretched. Although when you get into the game it does not play to heavy on your attention but he does look to be rather malnourished weight wise but the opposite in height. Other than that, his facial expressions, movements, clothes, weapons and even hair-do are excellent and all work together well to create his more dark and selfish nature that he creates, as in this adventure there is only one person he is out to save and that is himself and his own fate.

Sound very much keeps up with the style of the Sands of Time but also has more of a dark hint to it, creating and enhancing the gloom and doom that surrounds Warrior Within and the prince himself. Using the rock like flavour, adding it into traditional Arab-like music, it creates the atmosphere of adventure and discovery as you journey about the island and through the quest. Accompanying those are the fast paced tracks that get your excitement and adrenaline going when you are thrown into combat against foes of wickedness and death.

The usual sound effects that you might expect are all packed in here and work well with the design and tracks that play during the game.

Another thing done to a high calibre is the voice acting. The first thing that made me very much laugh was when the prince is cut across the face by a sword wielding wench, fitted with numerous leather items of clothing and he shouts “YOU BITCH!” as the blood runs down his face. Though, this was amusing, it is not the extent of what I judge the voice acting on, as the rest of the cast, the voice of the prince, the evil leather bitch, the enemies and more characters that you encounter, are all done very well and pull you further into the magic and horror of the plot line.

Warrior Within is, as said three times now, an excellent sequel. Not only with the ingenious plot line, which carries this title along very nicely, but also the other elements that have been tweaked and improved on to outshine the Sands of Time. One thing complained about by a lot of critics is that the Sands of Time was a short game and that they wished they could have explored as the prince for longer. Well, Warrior Within will definitely take you up to or past twenty hours of glorious gameplay.

As the line becomes very fine and the quality expected of each new title being released getting higher, Warrior Within meets all expectations and not only I but also all I know who have played the game have done nothing but rave about it and some of those did not even play Sands of Time.

Unleash the Warrior Within and face your fears.

“You will go to the Island of Time? That is madness!”

“I will not stay here and wait for death to find me...it is better to try and die then not to have tried at all”