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Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

EMAIL PRINT pc

7.5 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 29 critic reviews
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Based on 43 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Genre(s): Third-Person Action, Adventure

Players: 1

ESRB Rating: M (Mature)

Release Date: November 30, 2004

Summary

The Prince has to embark upon a path of both carnage and mystery to defy his preordained death. His journey leads to the infernal core of a cursed island stronghold harboring mankind's greatest fears. Only through grim resolve, bitter defiance and the mastery of deadly new combat arts can the Prince rise to a new level of warriorship - and emerge from this ultimate trial with his life. In order to accomplish his mission, the Prince benefits from a brand new free-form fighting system that allows gamers to channel his anger as they wage battle without boundaries. Each game fan will find his or her own unique fighting style as they manipulate their environment and control the Ravages of Time. You can dig into an arsenal of weapons that, when used in combination, create advanced arm attacks that verge on fatal artistry! Prince of Persia: Warrior Within promises that game fans will fight harder, and play longer, emerging from the experience as deadly-capable skilled masters of their own unique combat art form. [Ubisoft]

Also On Metacritic

GAMES: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Cheat Codes & Hints: Cheat Code Central GameSpot Guide

Also On The Web: ActionTrip Preview BonusStage Preview EuroGamer Interview Games Domain Preview GameSpot Hands-On GameSpy Preview IGN Preview Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Four Fat Chicks

Warrior Within is not a perfect game. In many ways, it stands as a badly written testament to exactly what is wrong with video games: sexism, teenage hormones, amateurish writing, clumsy franchise handling. But it's entertaining. It's incredibly entertaining.

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BonusStage

One of the best damn games ever, period. This is definitely at the top of my list for Game of the Year, due to addicting gameplay, fantastic presentation, some of the coolest looking blood ever in a game, and a combat system that is relatively second-to-none.

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GameZone

Really slick gameplay here folks. Strong controls with a nifty new fighting system.

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games(TM)

You get the impression that "The Sands of Time" was just a warm-up for the main event, a game that’s familiar at first but soon reveals a level of imagination beyond that of the original, and displays as little room for error as one of the Prince’s most daring acrobatic leaps. [Christmas 2004, p.100]

GMR Magazine

The acrobatics alone make Warrior Within a must-buy. Rounded out with superb character design and vast Myst-like landscapes, this Prince is another winner.

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1UP

A consequence of this darker approach is that that game loses part of what made The Sands of Time unique. Instead of a charming and almost silly character like we saw previously, the Prince here is more one-dimensional.

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Yahoo! Games

Largely an upgrade on the original, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is still one of the most polished and imaginative escapades we've played. Like a blockbuster movie, the tale delivers on almost every count from dazzling pyrotechnics to deft storytelling.

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ActionTrip

I like this game for taking the darker tone and being full of blood that spurts as your enemies' heads and bodies fly around, and when they fall to the ground, you give them the last, violent blow, piercing their powerless bodies with your mighty sword.

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IGN

Ubisoft took a gamble by taking the Prince to a dark place. I don't think it paid off as the sense of magic, seen even in the old 2D PC days, is barely present here. It wasn't the wrong decision to make for a darker story, but Ubisoft took it too far.

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GameSpot

While Warrior Within's combat and satisfyingly long campaign improve on last year's game, the now darker tone falls somewhat flat compared to the storybook atmosphere in "The Sands of Time."

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WHAM! Gaming

The game’s tone may have changed drastically from "Sands of Time" but we personally still love everything it has to offer.

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PC Gameworld

Not as pure as its prequel, but Warrior Within is still a gritty masterpiece.

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Jolt Online Gaming UK

Overall Warrior Within seems to be in something of a messy transition period, caught between the light-hearted fun of the original and some noirish violent action game that was probably more the result of mis-focused market testing than any kind of genuine developer decision.

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PC Gamer UK

The combat is a bit rubbish. [June 2006, p.96]

Computer Games Online RO

Unfortunately, the audio of the game simply sucks.

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Game Over Online

While the game does address previous game issues and is a worthy successor to the previous title in its own way, it does make you wonder what the game could’ve been if it’d straddled the line between light and dark.

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Gamer.tv

The demanding learning curve is absolutely perfect...An essential purchase for patient gamers everywhere.

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Sydney Morning Herald

Exploring the labyrinthine citadel is rewarding, although backtracking and frequent deaths can be frustrating.

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Total Video Games

Bizarrely it’s not any aspect of the game that lets the experience down but that over style – we simply don’t like the mature nature of the game compared to the delights of its predecessor. The end result comes across as desperately trying to be edgy and blatantly falls short of the mark.

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Computer Gaming World

Gorgeous and exhilarating, though needlessly gory and combatcentric. [March 2005, p.72]

GamingTrend

All and all, it just dosen't seem as fun, and that takes away from the overall experience.

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PC Format

After the beautiful, atmospheric adventuring in the last game, having your new nemesis introduce herself by slowing grinding her barely-clad buttocks in your face is about as welcome as having her suddenly fart into it. Modern? Mature? No. It's gratuitous, tacky and pointless. [Christmas 2004, p.98]

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Inside Gamer Online

Too bad that all of the “enhancements” made to the prince's fascinating virtual world are actually liabilities. We are glad Ubisoft toyed with the bits that needed improvement, but we wonder why they “fixed” the things that were never broken.

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eToychest

As a member of a series that takes a treasured place in the pantheon of gaming greatness, it is a lackluster effort, more concerned with watering down the game’s strengths to make it more palatable for the masses than in delivering more of what made its predecessor great.

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Edge Magazine

Ubisoft has taken a flawed game of boundless promise, destroyed some (but not all) of its appeal, fixed some (but not enough) of its problems, and jeopardised the whole endeavour by making the same mistake twice and rushing it to market before it was steady on its feet. Prince of Persia is strong and supple enough to survive this with many of its immense virtues intact. But it deserved so much better. [Christmas 2004, p.80]

GameSpy

Warrior Within proves that it takes more than just good combat and platforming to make a great game. Bottom line: The Warrior Within simply didn't have enough "Prince of Persia."

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Worth Playing

It shows off the dragged-out combat and its new 'rougher, meaner' attitude like a four year old happily waving around what it found in the cat's litter box, and all of the really good parts seem to go right under the radar. You have to actively work to get to the fun parts, in other words.

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My Gamer

The dark environmental settings are just not catching my eye and if I wanted this type of dark depressive art I would play an Id Software title. The charm that came with the original through its use of colors and the likable prince are now gone.

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PC Gamer

The Prince's royale style-makers may have done their job, but the programmers needed to take another run at it. [March 2005, p.64]

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 43 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

What a Game gave it a2:
This is an awful game. I wanted to kill the developers and myself after playing it for 10 minutes. Imagine Sands of Time only with everything good about the game stripped out and replaced with incredibly bad controls, camera, enemies, ambience, sounds and music, cutscenes, characters, dialogue, story. This gets a pity vote of 2 simply because it is the sequel to sands of time. This is the only possible reason I can see to give this game more than 0, unless you are 12 years old and/or have never played another video game in your life. This game will make you wish you were doing anything else more fun such as sandpapering your wrists or cleaning a sewer. I am amazed that the same people who made sands of time managed to squeeze out this turd of a game. Save yourself the trouble and pretend this game never existed.

Andrew D gave it a10:
This is one of the best games, but only for those who like chellange and have real warrior within!

panos baros gave it a10:
I have played lots of videogames and by far warrior within is one of my favourite games. Some people will say(about this game) : Where is the altruistic prince who wants to save the girl from the evil monsters the way he did in the other two games ? Well I say that this game tries to show to us the dark side of the prince.I mean, come on prince of persia is not perfect person.In that game prince tries to save himself from the sands of time and since the enviroment is dark and filled with dangerous monsters,the prince has to adapt to it,to become a monster himself,in order to survive so that the reason why.The gameplay is good,the graphics spectacular and the music is perfect(unless you are not a metal fan).So forget about the others who keep saying that this game sucks because the prince is a blood-thirsty monster .I recommend it because I finished it like 5 times and I still cant get enough of it .

[anonymous] gave it a6:
i think the game is great for someone that like fithing games. But i think that the game is boring. Becaus all the time you are in the same places. I think the best prince of presia is the sands of time ;)

warrior within sucks ass gave it a0:
This game is the definition of ratshit. Its like the creators decided to take everything that was good about the first game, piss on it to blow out its circuits, and make another superfluously gory game which has barely any puzzle solving and has a story that makes every single episode of scary movies plot look like the god father, if i could go below 0 i would. Also if i could chop off my foot to prevent this game from bieng created, well, i wouldn't do that, that's retarted, but its still a horrible game.

Paul L gave it a4:
Warrior Within is entertaining but does not live up to Sands of Time. It is a mediocre game that lacks polish. And it is very, very buggy. Very. Very. Buggy. Story - the premise behind the plot is sound, but the execution is corny and clumsy. Gameplay is identical to Sands of Time, save for a few combat features (throwing, picking up secondary weapons, new "combos", swining around vertical poles). This works well and is mainly why the game was entertaining for me. The additional combat features helped add some variety over Sands of Time combat. Graphics - you'd expect Ubisoft might put a good deal of effort behind making the prince look decent as you'll be spending the entire game staring at the guy. But no. Also, it'd have helped if the prince in the cutscenes and prince in game resembled each other. Environment and enemies are mediocre. Audio quirks (bugs?) in the game will frustrate you as music for what should be a heart-pumping fast-paced portion of the game whispers softly. Think of the problem SoT had with dialogues and apply it to music. Oh, and some dialogue may cut out as they did for me. If you are set on buying this game, I recommend you read up on all the fatal bugs (bugs that prevent you from finishing the game) to avoid doing anything that trigger them in game. The game apparently did not go through much testing. You will find that at some points in the game some surfaces turn white. This is not game-stopping, but it is disconcerting and annoying. Bugs too numerous to count. Yet Ubisoft has not released a patch for Warrior Within. This may be a testmant to how messy the code is. Or how little they think of their customers. I definitely recommend saving your time and money by not purchasing this game. If you must play this game, find a friend who has it.

Analogue B gave it a10:
Though it lacks the charm of Sands of Time, Warrior Within sports some great gameplay and absolutely incredible level / game design. Quite a bit more challenging than the first game in the series, but more rewarding for it. The first boss fight is too difficult for what is essentially a game opener, but I wouldn't have too many other criticisms. An epic game and absolutely a five star title.

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Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

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