Last night at the Le Cite de la Mode et du Design, we got our grubby mitts on Gameloft’s port of Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within, the console sequel to Sands of Time.
We were told that it’s a first for a Gameloft iPhone game where all the assets are taken directly from the original game, and optimised. It also includes the original music and full voice acting from the original, so no dodgy voice voice work that we have come to expect from Gameloft.
Graphically it’s a real looker. The prince himself is high in polygons and dressed in good quality textures. The environments are detailed too, but most sections of the game levels are smaller sections that lead to others, instead of large open areas… so there is less to render at once. There’s a little fog here and there but it’s more for atmosphere than a technical limitation. Enemy encounters are more one-on-one affairs so, again, there is less for the processor to render allowing what is in view to be far higher quality in both geometry and texture work.
I was concerned for the controls, where quick reactions when leaping from ledge to ledge and performing daring platforming is paramount, but they worked surprisingly well. They felt close to something between Hero of Sparta 2 but with the context based acrobatic abilities of Assassins Creed. After a little practice I was soon wall jumping and wall running with ease… as well as backflipping over enemy bosses and slicing them in two.
The camera is an important tool in any 3rd person game like this, and thankfully it works very well. Unlike Rayman 2 it follows the Prince with the best viewpoint to handle tasks ahead. However if you want to get a better view of a particular section you can either switch to first person mode with the click of a button, and then drag the screen to look around, or, you can switch to a zoomed out side-view, useful for planning your attack on any challenging platforming puzzle.
Prince of Persia is almost complete with no doubt a few weeks more polishing, but we came away impressed with a faithful recreation of the console edition. Another strong showing for Gameloft.
PoP:TWW is out later this month (May) on iPhone, and then June/July for iPad
UPDATE: New in-game trailer released (below)
