Prince of Persia v. God of War
(game review)

On the surface, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (third in the recent Prince of Persia trilogy) and God of War appear to have much in common.

Both take place in the ancient world (Persia and Greece, respectively) and feature a hero running through the burning remnants of a city under siege by hostile supernatural forces. Both involve a great deal of running, fighting, jumping, swinging and puzzle solving.

But there are some diferences.

Okay, first off, this is what the Prince of Persia looks like:

And this is what Kratos, the hero of God of War looks like:


If these were movies, and they practically are, Kratos would be played by someone like The Rock and The Prince would be played by, well, maybe Prince or perhaps an especially pensive and brooding Adrien Brody.

It's The End of the World as We Know It

Kratos and the Prince also differ in their reaction to the apocalpytic destruction of major ancient cities.

Returning home to find Babylon in flames and his girlfriend abducted by some sort of Lovecraftian supervillain, the Prince spryly springs about the city, reminicing bittersweetly about the old woman who used to sell candied almonds in the now-demon-infested streets of the market.

Kratos, assigned by Athena to drive her brother Ares out of the streets of Athens (Ares, by the way, being a ginormous "Shadow of the Colossus"-inspired boss monster), Kratos commandeers a ship by killing the dragon that ate the captain and climbing down the dead dragon's slime-covered esophagus to find the still-living captain cowering and thanking the gods for his salvation. After taking the key and kicking the screaming captain into the gullet of the giant lizard, Kratos retires to the captain's quarters where he beds not one but two improbably-endowed harem girls (to, you know, improve his health rating.)

That pretty much sets the tone.

In Prince of Persia, the main game mechanic is mincing about the streets of Babylon, jumping and swinging from one convenient "Gymkata-eque" spring-loaded wall-mounted launcing platform to the next (why would someone put a spring-loaded launching platform between two windows, two storeys up the side of a builing in ANCIENT BABYLON?!? Oh, I don't know, why would someone put a pommel horse in the middle of an alley way in Yugoslavia?)

The cool power in Prince of Persia is the "sands of time" which allow you to take do-overs. And you'll need them, since the tougher levels consist of puzzles like running along a wall, jumping at the right moment to grab a rope and swing to a crossbar which lets you jump to a collapsing platform which you have to run along before it OH DAMN! okay, backup to the crossbar and FUCK! fall to the ground and rewind again and oh hell, just put God of War in already.

In God of War the main game mechanic can best be described with two words: smashy smashy. Run into a room and...smashy smashy. Climb a ladder and then...smashy smashy. Along the way, you encounter gods who give you more and better smashy smashy powers. Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you keep on smashy smashying and the enemies don't seem to be going away or dying, so you have puzzle out which way you need to smashy smashy things to make them go away or die. That's using your noodle, Kratos.

Prince of Persia: 3 stars, Jason Bob sez it's worth a rental
God of War: 4 stars, Jason Bob sez SMASHY SMASHY!