God of War and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within are both action/adventure games based off the same kind of mechanics. Both games are rated M for Mature. God of War appears on the Playstation 2 and Prince of Persia on all three major consoles. Both contain violence and blood, but God of War contains brief nudity at the beginning as well. This will be rated on the usual 5-star scale.

Story:
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: *** 1/2

In this game, the prince finds himself shipwrecked on an island after being attacked at sea. After a flashback to an old man telling him of the fact that he is as good as dead as the Dahaka is coming, the prince sets out on his quest to beat time itself.

The game's story has serious potiential and, despite the way things seem to occur at the beginning of the game, the story is just far too rushed to take anything higher. Plus, the ending is a major cliff-hanger and who likes those?

God of War: *****

Kratos's story is too much for the prince here. The plot goes like this: The game begins with Kratos diving headfirst off of the highest mountain in all of Olympia to end his nightmares before going insane. Just three weeks earlier, Kratos had served as champion of the gods for ten straight years just to stop the nightmares of the horrible things that he has done that plague his mind. After chatting with one of the gods over it, Kratos learned his final mission to free himself: kill the God of War, Eres, and he'd be freed of his nightmares. Kratos agreed and set sail.

This game's plot is well drawn out and things progress naturally. Kratos's story is a rather serious, traumatic life and the game offers tons of extra movies going further into detail that you can unlock, including one that's entire basis is on the fate of a character who's little more than a prop but still plays a relativly large role in the story. Talk about being dedicated to the plot.

Winner: God of War

Graphics:
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: ****

The graphics are pretty good in this game. There are, however, some major complaints people can have. Whenever you do any of the major kills (like cutting enemies in half, removing heads, etc) the blood shoots out everywhere into the air for a few seconds, rather than coming out of the side like it should, and doesn't look realistic. Several enemies could also look a little bit better. As it stands now, the most common underlings look like those guys from Oddworld.

God of War: **** 1/2

The background graphics and many of the characters from God of War (including Kratos) would look right at home in Prince of Persia. What gives this game a higher score is the cutscenes which. Though these are also of high quality in Prince of Persia, the ones in God of War are some of the best looking cutscenes I've seen.

Winner: God of War

Sound:
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: **** 1/2

The game's sword, knives, grunts, and other sound effects are all extremely good. The reason this is not a full rating, however, is because of the fact that none of the background themes are catchy or sound all that different from each other. I do like the fact that sometimes the music will stop, leaving you to just the sounds of the prince and enemies, but it still gets old after a while.

God of War: ****

God of War has great background music but the Chaos Blades make barely a sound when they hit, leading to a basic complete opposite of Prince of Persia. The voice acting in the game, however, is extremely good and just about everyone seems to be really deep into their parts. Due to the sounds of hits connecting being more important than either of these, it gets a lower grade than Prince of Persia.

Winner: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Weapons:
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: *** 1/2

Prince of Persia has some very good weapons (and some ridiculous ones like the Teddy Bear and Pink Flamingo) and has a lot more than God of War. However, most of the weapons don't do anything major and you'll usually only use a sword a few times before you get another one in its place. Also, the swords you get from enemies tend to break after just three hits. Very rarely do they last longer than this.

God of War: ** 1/2

God of War has two weapons in the entire game, one of which with tons of moves and the other with just about three or four. Why a 2-and-a-half then? Simple. The weapons in this game are upgradeable, giving them slightly different feels. It's still not enough to save this category for God of War, though.

Winner: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Bosses:
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: *** 1/2

There are hardly any bosses in this game. Basically the bosses go like this: Girl, Crowmaster, Golem, Girl, Crowmaster, Crowmaster, Crowmaster, Crowmaster, Crowmaster, Crowmaster, Crowmaster, Crowmaster, Crowmaster, Crowmaster, Golem, The Empress, Sand Griffen, and The Empress or Dahaka, depending on which sword you have. In other words, you get real used to fighting the Crowmaster.

God of War: **

There are a total of five bosses in this entire game. At least each of those is different in battle. Still, the idea of only five bosses make me lean toward Prince of Persia, especially since it at least has the same fights become more difficult as the game goes on.

Winner: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Extras:
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: * 1/2

Sure, the idea of having the promotional music video of Godsmack's "I Stand Alone" that was used to promote this game is cool, as are all the hidden swords and such, but there isn't anything major you'll ever get your hands on.

God of War: *****

God of War has TONS of extras. It has extra modes, an extra difficulty level to go along with its other three, videos of characters' pasts and futures, videos talking about the monsters and the ideas behind them, making of videos, E3 promotional things, five new outfits that actually change your stats as a whole, preludes to the sequel, and more.

Winner: God of War

Mini-Games:
Prince of Persia: (no stars)

This game has no mini-games whatsoever. Pretty sad when the original had the first ever Prince of Persia on it...

God of War: *****

God of War has a few great mini-games like the Challenge of the Gods but it also has a few short mini-games that are worthy of being called some of the greatest mini-games ever in a game (right behind Dungeon Duos). In particular is a mini-game that you can do in his boat before you reach Athens.

Puzzles:
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: *** 1/2

The vast majority of this game's puzzle involve either moving blocks around in order to hold down things or spinning levers in certain matching orders to lead something to somewhere like the Waters and Gardens mission. Still, the other puzzles it does have are quite enjoyable and unique.

God of War: * 1/2

This game has very few puzzles compared to most of the genre, and some of them are just plain stupid. For example, in one you have to push a large mounted crossbow all the way from one huge room through a hallway to another, open a door and kill the enemies inside, and then push the bow onto a circular section of the ground, flip the switch inside, push it off the circular section, rotate the circular section again, then put it BACK on and rotate it again. In other words, some of the puzzles are really stupid. A few are pretty good, but hardly any.

Winner: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Battles:
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: ** 1/2

Typical battle: Slash, slash, jump, behead. At least the battle system is rather non-linear, allowing for you to use the environment in the rare instance that there is anything to use. The saving grace here is the fact that enemies are a bit tougher than those in God of War, giving this an extra point.

God of War: **** 1/2

Typical battle: Pop into the air, jump up, stab with Chaos Blades, throw at another enemy, land and turn, pull another enemy into the air, do a 700 hit combo (seriously, you can do that), land, grab another enemy, impale him, and use the body to knock all of the other enemies to the ground. Yeah. The battle system is very deep but, except for a few enemies, most foes fall in just a few hits.

Winner: God of War

Fun Factor!:
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: *** 1/2

The game's battle system hurts the Fun Factor considerably, but the puzzles and ability to do things like wall jump, run on walls, and the like really helps the adventuring. It's a fun game, but not the most fun around.

God of War: ****

With this game's excellent combat and good adventuring, this isn't surprising. God of War's only real flaw is the puzzles, but not everything's perfect so... anyway, God of War is a very fun experience with wild interaction. Another thing I forgot to bring up: the game is only ten hours long. At least it is highly replayable.

Winner: God of War

Overall:
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within: *** 1/2

This is an enjoyable game but isn't quite great. I'd buy it though for the experience and because it is a lot longer than most games of the genre, especially God of War. This game had serious potential but since they were so determined on making this game come out the year after its prequel, the final product was rather rushed, making it more like a graphically enhanced version of the original than anything else, with extra swords and some blood and new moves added in.

God of War: **** 1/2

God of War is a very enjoyable game, but what do you expect of a game that, counting all the prep work, has been in development for six years? Well, certainly to be longer than ten hours, but hey, what can you do? God of War is a very enjoyable game that I highly recommend buying.

Winner: God of War

Want to review a game yourself? Email me!
Go back to Lemmy's Reviews.
Go back to my main page.