When we think about big action adventure games from the late 00’s there are various titles that instantly come to mind such as Batman: Arkham Asylum, Assassin’s Creed II, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots and others that are all considered to be classics. While the games just mentioned were all high profile titles during the late 00’s time period there were also others from the action-adventure that were almost as memorable. An example would be the Prince Of Persia game developed and published by Ubisoft which came out back in 2008. Prince of Persia was released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows in December 2008 and was a game that was mainly well received by both critics and fans alike. The story for the Prince Of Persia was very intriguing especially considering how the setting for the game revolves around divine concepts such as ancient gods along with the belief of Zoroastrianism. In this game players controls a nameless Wanderer called “Prince” after learning about the imprisonment of a dark god named Ahriman by Ormazd who is a god of light in the center of the city-state known as Persia.
It turns out that Ahriman was responsible for spreading corruption along conquering various countries around the world prior to a cosmic battle with Ormazd who was revealed to be his brother. Towards the beginning of the Prince Of Persia players soon discover that Elika and Mourning King are key characters within the game after they arrive in a forbidden mystical land sustained by the Tree of Life. Elika travels alongside Prince during his journey to heal the fertile grounds throughout the game he eventually learns some dark secrets regarding her past. It was revealed that Elika’s mother and the Mourning King’s wife had died shortly before she did herself. Unable to deal with the agony of losing his wife and daughter Mourning King had struck a deal with Ahriman. Mourning King had promised to free Ahriman from imprisonment in exchange for Elika’s resurrection which is exactly what had happened. After cleansing fertile lands sustained by the Tree Of Life both Prince and Elika proceed to purify a temple where they are opposed by the corrupted King and Ahriman. After both Mourning King and Ahriman are defeated Elika successfully manages to heal the Tree Of Life then sacrifices herself in order to seal the dark god away permanently. However, while Elika was alive Prince had grown attached to her leading him to undo the progress they made together by cutting the trees in the desert along with the Tree Of Life to bring her back to life. In the process the main antagonist and god of darkness Ahriman returns to life as well leaving players with a cliffhanger ending.
Even though, the plot for The Prince Of Persia seemed basic and lacked depth it was still very interesting and had pretty cool gameplay. Players had to complete their quest as Prince using aerobics, combat and puzzle solving solving skills as they traversed throughout various Persian areas within the game. Also, Elika’s magical abilities are very useful to Prince in this game because they can be used to keep him from dying and there is no limit on how many times she can do it. The open-world environment in Prince Of Persia looked magnificent thanks to the Anvil game engine which has been used a majority of Assassin’s Creed games since 2007. Since its release Prince Of Persia had managed to sell roughly around 2.2 million copies worldwide within two months. Ever since its release Prince Of Persia has been among the few action-adventure titles from ’08 that some gamers are still quite fond to this day. Despite, its level of success the game has not been remade or remastered for the PS4 or Xbox One since late-2008 and its something many people probably would not mind seeing the near future.
Gaming Hearts Collection 