June 4, 2007 - Is there anything sweeter than cold pizza the morning after a party? An odd way to begin a review I know, but bear with me. When Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones was released in December of 2005, it was the video game equivalent of a premium pizza. You know, the kind that has cheese that stretches for miles when you take a slice, littered with delicious toppings, and a crust so thick you can use it as a floatation device. Nowadays, The Two Thrones is one of the best bargain bin finds you can get. It's a deep, fun, incredibly well designed game from top to bottom, and it can be yours for dirt cheap. Rival Swords for the Wii on the other hand, is the equivalent of cold morning after pizza. It's still delicious, but time has taken its toll. The catch, Ubisoft expects you to pay premium price for leftover cold pizza.

By charging full price, Ubisoft has alienated most people who would be interested in playing Prince of Persia on the Wii in the first place. Why would you pay full price for a game when you could just buy the GameCube version that even runs on the Wii for a third of the price? Both games are exactly the same in terms of graphics, story, level design, audio, and even unlockables. The main difference between the two lies primarily in its use of the Wii controls in new ways.

For the uninitiated, Rival Swords deals with the adventures of the Prince of Persia and his escapades screwing with time. At the conclusion of the second title, Warrior Within, our hero has defeated the Dahaka: a demon that guards time itself, and slain the empress of time, Kaileena. The game's intro states that this isn't exactly as it happened, as the Prince begins the game on a boat with the Empress on his arm instead of having her head on a pike. No sooner than they turn the corner on the river Babylon expecting peace does the pair get an unexpected surprise. The city is in ruins, and has been invaded by an army of sand monsters. The ship gets destroyed and the Empress of Time is kidnapped. It is up to the Prince to therefore run, jump, and slash his way to the perpetrators, rescue his girlfriend, and restore peace to his kingdom.

The first thing that you'll notice about the game is the strength of the writing. The narration in the game is extremely witty, informative, entertaining, and has more literary value than most action games to ever hit a game console. There are lots of twists and turns to be seen before the game's conclusion, and the story is expertly told. What's better than one great narrator? How about three of them? The Empress and the Prince's alternate personality also get their voices heard, and never do their lines feel forced or extraneous. Rival Swords should be the first game to be pulled out when someone claims a video game can't tell a deep and compelling story.

In order to see the game through to its conclusion, the Prince must do some unbelievable feats of athleticism in order to transverse the landscape of the game. The Prince can run on walls with a push of the B button, make mighty leaps across chasms, and also spin on poles, stab holes in walls for support. The platforming sections of the game simply control like a dream, and with just a little practice, you too will be flying through the air from little platform to a pole, to another little platform, up a wall, and so forth. Some levels in particular have you committing these acrobatics hundreds if not thousands of feet in the air, resulting in an awe inspiring if not vertigo-inducing experience.

Of course, if you screw up and careen down to a hilarious or sickening death, you always have the sands of time at your disposal. The Sands of Time's main function lies in rewinding time if you fall into a bottomless chasm, impale yourself on spikes, get owned in combat, and any other fate you may encounter that is less than appealing. With just a push of the Z button, all your idiotic mistakes are erased up to a few seconds prior. Of course, there is a limit to how many times you can do this, but sand to refill your tanks is very common in the game, and can be obtained from smashing objects or killing enemies. You'll only encounter a handful of situations where sand availability is a problem. The Sands of Time has other uses too, like turning everything into slow motion to solve certain puzzles, and making what amounts to a sand bomb that kills everyone on the screen.