Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

 Xbox
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 43 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 33 out of 43
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 43
  3. Negative: 6 out of 43
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  1. KyleV.
    Dec 15, 2004
    1
    Nowhere near where sands of time was. I actually turned it off an put in sands of time just to remember what a quality game feels like. I agree that the music was misplaced and the flow was choppy, i never really noticed any sound. the fighting had a few more bells and wistles which kind of looked cool but using them in combat seems cumbersome. would definetly not buy. it gets a 1 instead Nowhere near where sands of time was. I actually turned it off an put in sands of time just to remember what a quality game feels like. I agree that the music was misplaced and the flow was choppy, i never really noticed any sound. the fighting had a few more bells and wistles which kind of looked cool but using them in combat seems cumbersome. would definetly not buy. it gets a 1 instead of a 0 because of the spin around the pole attack wich is kind of cool.… Expand
  2. HermanS.
    Dec 5, 2004
    0
    "The Sands of Time" had it all -- good voice action, sensible levels, coherent narrative, a sense of setting and adventure -- and "Warrior Within" tears it all down, with a wrecking ball. A humourless, incoherent mess set to clichéd heavy metal music and featuring the worst-time narrative scripting this side of Malice (remember that game?). (Try turning off the music; first, you "The Sands of Time" had it all -- good voice action, sensible levels, coherent narrative, a sense of setting and adventure -- and "Warrior Within" tears it all down, with a wrecking ball. A humourless, incoherent mess set to clichéd heavy metal music and featuring the worst-time narrative scripting this side of Malice (remember that game?). (Try turning off the music; first, you can't turn it down to zero; secondly, once you turn it down to 1, the cutscenes will be almost completely silent, as will the in-game voice acting.) Case in point -- the game starts with a nice, if tedious, intro with the prince running from a monster. Cut to the prince on a ship in a howling storm (except it's not really howling at all; I guess they forget to add sound effects for the weather?). What happened? Is it a flashback? Flash forward? You do some fighting, though at this point there is no sense of who the prince is, why he's there, and so on (even for a player like myself, who played through "Sands of Time" and knows the character and story, it feels like a different planet). While you're fighting some enemies, the game suddenly jumps into in-engine cutscene mode, in what is tantamount to the game ripping the controller out of your hands, and something which happens again and again throughout the game, breaking continuity and distressing the player. ("Sands of Time" often jumped into cutscene mode when you entered rooms, but those jumps fit into the continuity of the game; moreover, they made sense, whereas the cuts in "Warrior Within" merely distract.) You reach the raised quarterdeck and confront some evil, butch-looking K. D. Lang impersonator right out of Conan the Barbarian. Suddenly the quarterdeck is surrounded by a wall of flame for no particular reason, constricting your movement to within that square field. You're force to face off, five minutes into the game, with an incredibly powerful opponent. I play at "normal" mode, and I'm a seasoned "Sands of Time" player, and yet I must have spent 20 lives beating this woman. Only you don't exactly beat her. After fighting her for what feels like hours, you're suddenly kicked off the ship, and shown a cutscene where you're conversing with an old man. Is it a flashback? A dream? Coherence is not this game's strong point. You then wake up in what looks like a naval ship graveyard and enter some ruins where you continue to fight the same kind of monsters, as well as the semi-nude Conan chick. What? It's also a "darker" game, which these days means making the main character brood all the time, dressing the enemies up in leather and metal, and pumping up the bass on the soundtrack. It also means having a game loader screen featuring rivers of blood. What happened to the wonderfully evocative, Arabian Nights-style setting of "Sands of Time"? That game managed to be dark -- after all, it featured zombies and violent traps -- without invoking tired clichés. More than that, "Sands of Time" had a gripping story, about someone fighting for family and love and against time itself, and featuring fairly believable characters, all deftly established in the narrative. "Warrior Within" is an outstanding disappointment, which manages to expand on the bad points of its precursor while eradicating every bit that made the original game so good. The tedious focus on fighting, for example, is now expanded tenfold. The camera movement was occasionally a bit annoying in "Sands of Time", like the way it would position itself incredibly far away to the point where you could hardly find your character on screen; that bird's eye point of view seems to be standard in this game. I would love to see Gamespot doing a "final hours of Warrior Within" that explains how this sequel came to suck so much. I would not be surprised if it boiled down to getting the game out in time for Christmas.… Expand
  3. MichaelP.
    Jan 4, 2005
    3
    What finally forced me to send this back to Gamefly unfinished was the repetitive combat dialogue; screams, taunts, etc. Even then, I could barely put up with the back tracking, drab environments, and terrible map. This game is very disappointing, it had such potential.
  4. AB
    Dec 10, 2004
    2
    This game is an enormous disappointment. What happened? Many sequels this year turned out great. Halo 2 was great. Metroid Prime 2 Echoes was great. GTA: San Andreas was great. So why wasn't this great? The game is too difficult, the music is ruined, and the story was butchered. No where NEAR the quality of The Sands of Time.
  5. DisappointedUser
    Dec 7, 2004
    0
    Sands of Time kept me up at night, vowing with each level to turn the game off after a few new encounters. Sadly, Warrior Within is making me lose sleep as well - but only with rage at how moronic the keepers of this franchise must have been to ruin something so rare and enjoyable. Where Sands of Time was a remarkable fusion of texture, narrative, character, and combat - Warrior Within Sands of Time kept me up at night, vowing with each level to turn the game off after a few new encounters. Sadly, Warrior Within is making me lose sleep as well - but only with rage at how moronic the keepers of this franchise must have been to ruin something so rare and enjoyable. Where Sands of Time was a remarkable fusion of texture, narrative, character, and combat - Warrior Within instead offers revoltingly idiotic "dialogue," gratingly awful music (there was just SO much glam metal in arabian antiquity) and oodles of spurting blood. ubisoft, if we wanted to play doom 3, we would have, uh.... bought doom 3. PLEASE bring the magic back in this franchise and issue a sequel to WW that resurrects the Soul of PoP so evident in Sands of Time. … Expand

Awards & Rankings

29
#29 Best Xbox Game of 2004
13
#13 Most Discussed Xbox Game of 2004
29
#29 Most Shared Xbox Game of 2004

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
83

Generally favorable reviews - based on 55 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 46 out of 55
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 55
  3. Negative: 2 out of 55
  1. GMR Magazine
    90
    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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  2. games(TM)
    90
    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]
  3. Xbox Nation Magazine
    80
    This is a rightful heir, just not resoundingly so. [Jan 2005, p.84]
See all critic reviews »