With a Prince of Persia: Sands of Time the Movie on the horizon and the first PoP game to be released on a next-gen console due for release towards the end of this year, Ubisoft are really getting as much as they can out of the title. In the new Prince of Persia you no longer play the Prince of Persia (kinda defeats the object of calling it Prince of Persia but you know, whatever) from the recent trilogy but an adventurer who has been designed with the influence of other adventurers such as Sinbad, Han Solo and Aragorn.

Ubisoft have built heavily on the acrobatic skills of the protagonist and the “prince” is now able to jump huge distances and bend the rules of gravity. The other addition to the title is the introduction of the support character Elika whom Ubisoft seem to be very pleased with. Support AI are nothing new but, as Ben Mattes (producer) said at E3 this year “It’s been done, and I don’t mean to take anything away from the games that have support characters because some of them are among my favourite games of all time, but really it’s never been done well.” Ubisoft believe Elika will be the first well working support character that won’t get themselves killed or go wondering off during a fight. She will help with puzzle solving, special moves and acrobatics. The designers have also developed an “Elika button”, press it and she will intelligently figure out what you need a hand with. Again this is nothing new but will give Ubisoft many ways to prove Elika will actually help rather than interpret your plea for help as an order to run off a cliff or something.

It seems the support will end up being either yet another disappointment or work superbly but as Ubisoft seem to be using Elika as the main selling point for PoP, with any luck they’ll have put enough effort into it to make it work.

Labels: Hype Train, Prince of Persia

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