What's in a name?

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee takes a look at Prince of Persia. Hang on, didn't that game come out 1989? Shouldn't he be reviewing the newest game in the series, entitled Prince of Persia: Purple Rain, or something like that? Well, actually, Ubisoft decided to drop the subtitle with this installment, and simply go back to Prince of Persia, despite the confusion it may cause. It's similar to what Tecmo did when they re-started the Ninja Gaiden franchise, except where as they waited about 10 years before they felt it safe to re-use the name, Ubisoft have been consistently making PoP games for a while now, so it's a little weird to have them re-start the series at this point.

I suppose the reason is probably because of the fresh new story. Gone is the increasingly-moody Price of the last few games, to be replaced by a brand new Prince, who strangely enough has the same ridiculous acrobatic prowess as the last one. Well, maybe everyone did back in those days. Joining him is friend Elika, who as far as I can tell is your checkpoint system, bringing you back from the brink of death every time you miss a jump. This was handled in recent adventures with the Dagger of Time, but I guess the time rewinding mechanic can only be stretched so far, and besides, putting a shapely female form on my checkpoints can't possibly be a bad thing. Aside from this difference though, it sounds a lot like the other recent chapters of the series, with the main focus being on fun, parkour-style navigation.

I haven't had a chance to play Prince of Persia yet, but I feel that I should before announcing my games of the year, as I have heard many good things about it. Besides, if Yahtzee can get through a review without tearing a game limb from limb, then you know it must be good! So here it is. As always, it contains plenty of strong language, so is definitely NSFW:

Check out the rest of his videos here.