8.1? Are you kidding me?
User Rating: 3.5 | Prince of Persia Rival Swords PSP
Before I begin, I'd just like to say that I haven't written a review since June 2006 so that must mean something amazing or horrific has come to my attention regarding this particular game and I'm pretty sure you know what it is already. Being a big fan of the Prince of Persia (PoP) franchise, especially Warrior Within, I was naturally excited about being able to play this game wherever I damn well pleased. So before I bought it, I naturally decided to read some reviews about it and see what people had to say about performance and any new editions to this remake. Apprantly, everyone thinks the game is amazing... so... I guess people decided not to be bothered by a complete absense of sound and/or music in parts, long load times that spring up everytime the prince transforms or enters another room, FURTHER watered down graphics and the edition of some new, obscenely rushed puzzles and chariot races that have no real place or purpose in a game that was already fine to begin with. The fact of the matter is, Rival Swords is a completely watered down mess. Possibly the worst things about it I find go something like this. During the opening parts of the game before the sands are released, Kaileena's narrative all but dissapears, the prince doesn't talk to himself at all like he does in the original, the vizier's plan can't be heard in the throne room, all that's heard throughout this entire first part of this game is the constant tapping of the princes footsteps and the occasional grunt from a guard as you slash the yellow blood out of him. I wanna know why he has yellow blood... they aren't sand creatures yet so it's obviously not sand... hmm. Then the in-game cutscenes pop up. The first one that popped up that wasn't 3-5 seconds off lip-synching... didn't have any sound whatsoever. There was even an instance later in the game where I watched a whole cutscene without any sound and after it was over... the sound kicked in... so I was listening to the cutscene AFTER I saw the damn thing and while I was trying to run across walls. Then finally it came to a point.... twice... in the same place mind you... that the load times slowed down my psp so bad the whole thing froze and shut itself off. My psp is brand new and doesn't have any problems playing any other games so that obviously something about this particular one. All these things are completely unacceptable to me in any game. What happened to the good old days when games were tested before sold? So I paid 50 bucks for this damn thing because I'm Canadian and Canadian currency has to suck and I was so disgusted by this filth that I went to trade it in and they offered me 6 bucks... 6 measly... pathetic Canadian dollars... in store credit... if I had to PAY that much to play this game then I wouldn't be so damn upset but come on! So now I'm stuck with this garbage until I can sell it so some poor soul for at least 20 at a garage sale. Do yourselves a favour and stay away from this game. It's not worth whatever you'll have to pay for it and it's certainly not worth the glitches from hell. A broken, inexcusable mess.
