Prince of Persia [X360]

They might not be hip anymore, but you have to hand it to old-fashioned monarchies for saving everyone a lot of time. Forget endless campaigning and painfully long-winded speeches -- if you've got the blood, you've got the job.

And despite a brave new look and total mythological reboot, the same royal blood that gave life to his critically-acclaimed forbears now pumps through the veins of Ubisoft's new Prince of Persia. You jump. You twirl. You run on walls. Occasionally, you fight and solve puzzles. Coming from a long line of vital platformers, it's got great genes, although a few key missteps keep this prince from ascending to the throne.

This time around, the eponymous star is tossed into a conflict between light and dark as the evil god Ahriman is released from his prison beneath the Tree of Life. His touch has corrupted a nearby kingdom; alongside the mysterious princess Elika, it's your job to cleanse the world of gooey blackness and put the bad guy back in the ethereal hoosegow.

Mostly, that involves jumping, sliding, gripping and slipping through over twenty levels worth of platforming mania. It's billed as an open-world experience, and in a sense, it is: based on which magical powers you choose to unlock, you will tackle the world in a different order. It's a nice change of pace from the linear approach typical of most adventure games.

It's just not as open-ended as you might think. Telltale signs point you towards certain run-able walls, which will in turn send you tumbling directly towards the right pole, which is handily placed right in front of that useful column, and onward. Simple controls make the whole thing easier than past Prince of Persia games -- you never have to press loads of buttons or get fancy with the analog stick -- but more seasoned gamers might find it plays more like a guided tour than a truly free-roaming experience.

Central to the game's plot is the relationship between the star and Elika. More goofy vagabond than steel-jawed hero, the new Prince seems to have a tacky one-liner for every situation. His nonstop flow of snappy retorts is distinctly modern -- think Han Solo meets Ryan Seacrest -- and, eventually, a bit irritating. Thankfully, the interplay between the two characters goes beyond their at-times romantic, at-times rambling dialogue. Loads of incidental animations draw the two together. As the Prince scampers up a cliff, he'll wait for Elika, gently grabbing her arm to help her reach a ledge. When he scales a wall, she'll latch on to his back. It's in these countless simple moments that the game perhaps hits its highest notes.

And it turns out the real hero is Elika, who pulls double duty as the Prince's guide and safety net. You cannot die in Prince of Persia, as Elika will magically yank you from the brink of death, even if you hurl yourself off a cliff. That might sound like a cop out, but it's really no different than actually letting you die and forcing you to retry from a checkpoint. If anything, it saves you the bother of reloading.

In another break from classic action/platforming, Prince of Persia runs light on the combat. Four main bosses make multiple appearances; toss in a handful of nondescript enemies and you've got only a few dozen fights through the whole game. The fighting system is a good one, emphasizing timing and combos over button-mashing, and some of the later boss battles are cinematic and memorable. But the aforementioned inability to die sort of takes the oomph out of the action. Get whacked too hard and Elika will pleasantly just rewind the fight back to zero.

Prince of Persia further eschews its past with a strange lack of puzzles, although one could argue that finding your way to the top of a giant tower using wall-runs and crevices is something of a puzzle in and of itself. But more concrete puzzle-solving would have worked well to break up the flow. As it stands, you'll wish there were more than the half-dozen or so haphazardly thrown into the mix.

That's because the gameplay grows repetitive. After regions are healed, 45 collectible "Light Seeds" suddenly appear. You'll need these to open up more levels, which means you essentially have to play through each area twice just to proceed through the game. Plus the game constantly reuses elements; you'll see the same columns, poles, and well-placed rings over and over again, giving the whole adventure an unfortunate sense of deja vu.

But while you might get used to seeing the same sights, you'll never get used to seeing Prince of Persia's gorgeous graphics in action. Paying homage to forgotten classics Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, the game oozes dark, quirky style. Sumptuous vistas seem to go on forever, and with zero load times between regions, you can actually run from one end of the massive world to the other. Thanks to some of the best motion-capture this side of a Madden game, the cel-shaded characters quite nearly pop off the screen. When things get moving, you'll forget you're playing a video game and think you've suddenly leapt into the boots of a Cirque du Soleil performer, randomly foreign costume and all. Kudos also goes to Prince of Persia's sweeping orchestral score, which does it part to seal the game's epic scope.

That the game sports an ending screaming for a sequel shows Ubisoft's commitment to this franchise, and to be fair, Prince of Persia's stunning delivery yields quite a few breathtaking moments. Flaws aside, credit this prince for breaking many of the rules his ancestor set forth some two decades ago. He's just not quite ready to wear the crown.