The Prince of Persia CD Collection

WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ MAGIC LAMP

A Review of The Prince of Persia CD Collection

by Gary Almes

The original Prince of Persia was one of the first games I ever played on a

Mac, back in the old nine-inch-black-and-white-SE days. I was younger then,

too, and my fingers moved more nimbly over the keyboard, and my young Prince

moved much more athletically across the screen.

In playing the game, along with its sequel, Prince of Persia II: The Sword and

The Flame, packaged together in a new CD offering from Broderbund, I’m reminded

that great games never go out of style.

Prince of Persia, I’m happy to report, is still a delight. Oh, it’s challenging

as &*%$#@, especially for the keyboard-impaired who cannot keep up with the

pace of the action, but it’s still a hoot. In the first game, you are

imprisoned by the evil Vizier Jaffar, who has taken over in the Sultan’s

absence and decided to marry the Princess, your betrothed, himself. In the

sequel, having defeated Jaffar’s plans once, you are once again put upon to

overcome great odds to defeat the Vizier’s nefarious schemes. What this means

is that each game is filled with plenty of jumping, running, crawling, leaping,

falling, and swordfighting to fill any great action movie.

The plot is thin, but who cares. This is visceral excitement. Both games

splendidly capture the feel of those great “Arabian Nights” movies like Thief

of Baghdad, among others. The graphics, which never were state-of-the-art (and

never should be, in my opinion) are nicely evocative without overdoing things.

The music is kitschy-dramatic, which captures the atmosphere perfectly. The

Prince is handsome, the Princess is beautiful. What more can you ask?

Oh, I have a few squabbles. The game is maddeningly hard at times, and the Save

Game feature on both games restores the saved game at the beginning of the

LEVEL you saved the game at, not at the exact point of the save. So if you save

a game just before the end of Level 3, the game will restore things at the

*beginning* of Level 3. I don’t know if this is a bug or not, but it’s very

frustrating. A “try that again” feature which takes you back just a few seconds

prior to death would be a godsend. But, at least, you have unlimited lives

(albeit not unlimited time) with which to complete your missions.

Be forewarned: the game will frustrate you until you get the hang of the

controls, and even then things will be annoying if you have to keep repeating

certain areas. But the action is quick and fun, and the challenges endless.

Prince of Persia and its sequel are must-haves for any fan of action games.

Gamer’s Zone Scorecard

Product:	The Prince of Persia CD Collection
Company:	Broderbund Software, Inc. 500 Redwood Boulevard P.O. Box 6121 Novato, CA 94948-4400 (415) 382-4400 Fax (415) 382-4582
Cost:	$29.95

System Requirements:

Prince of Persia: Any 256-color Macintosh, System 6.0.7
or higher, CD-ROM drive, 4MB of RAM with 2.5MB available, hard drive with 15MB
available (option to compress to 13MB).

Breakdown:

Fun Factor 5
Graphics 5
Sound 5
Interface 4
Replayability 3

Overall Score: