Prince of Persia Rival Swords [Wii]

Of all the classic games that have been reworked for modern audiences, Jordan Mechner's Prince of Persia games are surely the most successful. Rival Swords sees the third (or fifth, depending on how you count them) in the series hitting the Wii and, for no apparent reason, getting a different title. Don't let it fool you - this is a straight port of Two Thrones, with a well-conceived control revamp and little else.

Which, on the whole, is a good thing. Rival Swords captures the familiar Prince of Persia gameplay well, giving you a series of jumped-up obstacle courses to negotiate with a variety of acrobatic (and frequently downright unfeasible) moves. Run up walls, leap from ropes, swing from bars; you name it, it's here, and although the levels present little in the way of depth or choice, the pleasure of stringing together the Prince's fluid motions into complex, elegant combinations is its own reward.

There is a plot, but even those who played both the previous games may be left scratching their heads. Suffice it to say that the Grand Vizier is back, and has managed to transmute himself into some kind of immortal, god-like creature, and spread an army of powerful soldiers throughout the Prince's kingdom. That's not the only thing on the Prince's royal agenda, however. He also has to rescue his buddy from the Vizier's clutches, and contend with a new problem - he's been infected with...some kind of...mutant sand-thing, and periodically turns into a dark, twisted version of himself. He gains extra speed and power, but must constantly replenish his sand reserves to stay alive.

Phew. Got all that? Honestly, it's pretty much irrelevant to the action, as various disembodied voices will guide the Prince through the levels. So he hears voices, he periodically changes into an evil version of himself, and he believes he can run up walls. Obviously the Prince is in need of an Ancient Babylonian head-shrinker more than a Dagger of Time.

Where do the Wii controls enter into all of this? Rival Swords uses the nunchuck stick for movement and only occasional waves of either controller element are needed to negotiate its platform puzzles. You could almost be playing it on a more conventional console, except for the way you twist the remote to rotate the camera. This works much better than you might expect, allowing you to round corners with all the fluidity you'd expect from a twin-stick controlled FPS.

Combat's a different matter. It's all motion controlled, and its combo list takes up half the manual. As with many games of this type, however, waving the remote and nunchuck up and down like an off-meds epileptic yields perfectly acceptable results. No matter; of all the Wii ports that have graced the console since its launch, this is perhaps the one where the controls feel most at home.

If only the same was true of the graphics. Rival Swords would have been a let-down running on one of the last generation's consoles. No, we don't expect the Wii to match the more expensive PS3 or 360, but we do expect it to do better than this. Low-poly models, simple, repetitive textures and disappointingly bland levels make this feel like a five-year-old game. The Wii also struggles to keep up with the comparatively simple tasks it's given, and the frame rate falls to its knees at regular intervals. In a game like Prince of Persia, where fluidity and smooth motion are part of the appeal, that's a real handicap.

But most of the considerable strengths of The Two Thrones are here. It's still a very well-paced, tightly-designed adventure, and one that's well worth playing. Nothing here warrants shelling out for the game if you played it on another console, but if you missed out (and you want to play it on the Wii instead of picking up a cut-priced last-gen copy of Two Thrones) it'll keep you busy for the 12 or 15 hours the campaign will take you.