Long, long ago when there were still American arcades that were not dominated by emo Dance Dance gangs and broken down Street Fighter machines, I remember stumbling across Dragon’s Lair. I was a child, and therefore not terribly bright, but I remember being completely transfixed, staring at the demo screens for ages before dropping in the previously unheard of fee of two quarters to play. It didn’t matter that the game was the equivalent of navigating a modern day DVD menu, it was a cartoon and I was in some loose control of what was going on. Flash forward many years; still not being terribly bright, I had purchased a 3DO at full price along with Dragon’s Lair. It was the same game, but the luster of animated pseudo interaction was gone; I was not in control of anything, only guiding Dirk along a set path with little actual input. Unfortunately, this is exactly how I felt playing the high-def rebirth of Prince of Persia: it was beautiful, but I was having precious little impact on what was actually going on.

Making a direct comparison between Prince of Persia and Dragon’s Lair or Space Ace is really not fair. Prince of Persia has a tremendous new art style behind it, looking like the beautiful bastard offspring of Okami and Tomb Raider. The prince himself has been re-imagined as a wandering thief whose royal heritage is missing right along with any of the pointless brooding or split personality disorders of the previous games. The sands of time and their accompanying mechanics are gone, but they have been replaced by a cute flying girl who rescues the prince from all sorts of dismal endings without fail, input or effort; something of a middle eastern Tinkerbell in tight Capri pants, if that were possible. Prince of Persia has absolutely everything going for it in the looks department; it is only when actually played that the seams start to show.

The prince and his new glowing sidekick move effortlessly through the levels in both look and execution. Every bit of animation, from scampering upside down in a pure affront to physics to just running over the sand as shadows play across the dunes, looks almost perfect. To accommodate this, however, the vast majority of the prince’s actions have become either automatic or have such huge timing windows that no skill is involved, and if a jump or handhold still manages to be missed, the rescue call-girl is right there to drop the prince back on solid ground. Huge chunks of platforming can be pulled off with single button presses. All the painstakingly accurate movements through beautiful environments feel disconnected not from each other, but from the player. I felt at best like a casual observer, at worst like I was playing through a quick time event that would make the fight scenes from Indigo Prophecy jealous. There was no danger or risk of failure, so there was no emotional connection with what was happening.

This is Prince of Persia for the casual gamer. Levels are chunked up into small areas with the next checkpoint sitting conveniently just behind the ledge the prince fell off of. Combat is now a completely one on one affair that offers the same safety net as everything else; it’s not that there is no death penalty, it’s that the player cannot actually die. Even the storybook presentation of Sands of Time has been completely removed. There are very few cut scenes explaining what is going on; instead the player has the option of telling the prince to talk to Elika. Most of these interactions are forgettable, even if some of them were worth seeing. Aside from the visuals, the whole experience feels watered down for the masses, but really, who can blame Ubisoft for doing this? The first three Prince of Persia games were never exactly difficult, but the new Prince is designed to hold just about anyone’s hand right on through to the end while hopefully keeping them just engaged enough to buy the next one. Prince of Persia, the franchise: love it or leave it. It’s a wonder there is no version of this that supports waggle controls.

I was surprised by how lazy the ‘no death’ mechanic made me. It spite of the path through any level being laid out as plainly as possible, I still managed to need rescuing quite often, mostly because I had stopped paying attention. Why bother lining up a jump if you can’t fall? Imagine playing through Bioshock, which also has zero death penalty, with a big daddy following you around and killing most things for you on sight. Without even the illusion of challenge, maintaining interest becomes difficult. It’s like playing Dragon’s Lair with unlimited credits: eventually anyone will get to the end, even if it is by chance.