A pack of cards? 

That’s right. The ‘Battles of Prince of Persia’ gaming structure revolves around playing cards and essentially you will control your army on a small gaming board. You will be have 30 cards in a pack all of which have a number which will determine how many orders you can make when using that card. Some cards will also have special abilities such as increasing a units defence or attack. You must choose whether you want to use the card to make orders or use the special ability.

Beat your opponents and you will win a selection of their special cards which can be used to either create an advantage for you or a disadvantage to your opponent. All cards are also rated in accordance with their rarity. So some may be Common while others, if you’re lucky, may be Ultra Rare (personally “Ultra Kill” springs to mind every time).

Not so basics:

Each army has a general who naturally, will be able to withstand much more punishment than of any “normal” unit. A general will also have special features such as; multiple attacks, ranged magic or super strength. If you kill an enemy general you will reduce the moral of the rest of your opposing army – which means they are more likely to fill their pants and run for the hills. You will also be more likely to receive rarer playing cards with more damaging special abilities.

There is no consistent scoring system in Battles of Prince of Persia, with each level presenting a different challenge. There will be a target score with the first player reaching it crowned the winner (ooh more cards). However your target score may not be the same as your opponent – an easy way for the game to increase the difficulty. Also you may not be awarded the same amount of points for defeating an enemy unit as your enemy will receive defeating one of your units. How unfair.

There are certain levels where you won’t score anything for killing an enemy and in cases there may be a different task – like just staying alive, or reaching a destination. The annoying thing is you aren’t told what the scoring rules are before a level starts which means that you can’t plan ahead with your choice of cards or the way you deploy your army.

 And talking of which, when you deploy your army you will be told what units you will have in your army and also what areas you will be allowed to deploy them, so you can’t pick your units… You won’t know what types of units your enemy army will have, nor will you know where they will be located. Fair enough, however it’s pretty obvious that the computer knows where you will be.  

Board game DS: 

Visually you will enjoy a rather uninspired 2D birds eye view of the level, divided into squares which will regulate movement of your units. Each unit is shown as a coloured square and distinguishable by a symbol although they are not always that clear so the best way to understand what the unit is, is to click on it.

Details will then appear on the upper screen of your DS along with a picture. You will be given their defence and attack capabilities, along with movement, moral and % attack and defend efficiency. So for instance you may have a unit with a high attack rating however if they have been zapped with magic, their attack efficiency may only be 50%, therefore you’d be better to throw a wet haddock at your enemy than use that unit to attack.

Each time a battle occurs between 2 units, a movie sequence will comment showing your units and your enemy having a good old scrap. These don’t look that bad in comparison to the monotone map you’d normally be looking at, however after 10 hours of playing I’m sure that you will grow rather weary and turn this movie sequence function off.

Sounding off: 

As will pretty much every single DS game, you cannot hark about the sounds. However with Battles of Prince of Persia they are seriously poor. The music is unbearable and there is a strange lack of any kind of battle noises. Shame on you Ubisoft. What’s worse is; I’m hardly surprised.

Story: 

It appears that the story was an afterthought in Battles of Prince of Persia and when reading each part of the plot I felt consistently patronised and fobbed off. Ubisoft have tried to create a magical land during a time long forgotten however there’s no real substance at all. There’s no real introduction and the only thing that you’ll grasp after a few levels is that there is a box containing 1000 warriors souls which everyone wants, despite the danger associated with it.

Often something will be dragged into the plot completely out of the blue and will disappear just as swiftly leaving only my growling and grunting in its wake.

Generally speaking: 

Throughout the game you will play as many different generals and often will need to kill the same general you played with in the previous level. This is a great way to get use to all the different units within the game (however there aren’t really all that many) yet it really doesn’t allow you to develop a gaming style nor enjoy any sort of comfort zone. This inconsistency also reduces the pick up and return factor of this game.

Multiplayer features: 

As well as playing the standard Campaign, you can also play a Skirmish against the computer. This will allow you to choose your general, win more cards for your collection and decide which map you play however, infuriatingly, you can’t pick which units you take into battle! Makes my blood boil..! Ok, maybe not, but it did make me shout “cock” in public (apologies to all those present).

You will also be able to play against one human, either by passing a single DS to one another (hot seat style) or via Multi-card link. Again you can choose your general and the map however the only other choice you can make in relation to the content of your army is whether it is big or small. Once again, this is baffling.

The final multiplayer element to this game is the wireless ‘Trade Card’ function, where you can swap cards won with your equally nerdy friends. Ubisoft obviously wanted to cash in on the Pokemon playground fad and to be honest, it’s something that would encourage me to keep slogging away at these levels and winning more stuff.

There is a strong feeling of lacking substance once you reach the 10^th level whereby you want to understand about your units in more detail. If you propose to attack an enemy you will be given a chance of victory, ranging from the best, “Overwhelming” to the worst, “Awful”. However I want to know exactly why? What attributes give me the advantage or disadvantage? I know what my attack strength is, and what their defence is. I also know what terrain we will be fighting on and if it has any attack or defence advantages or disadvantages, yet I craved more. Weight, height, fear, speed etc. Unfortunately it dawns on me that there is no more detail running behind the scenes however, thankfully you aren’t very often surprised by a battle result and rest assured there isn’t too much of a random element in this game. It’s just after about 10 hours, it’s just the same old thing repeated with a few more cards thrown in and a slightly different level task.

Despite all of the above, it’s strangely addictive and collecting battle cards which you can then trade with other nerdy humans isn’t a bad idea, however if you win cards when fighting with one general you won’t have access to those cards if you then fight with a different general – an obvious ploy to bump up the lifespan a bit. Also the collection thing is hardly original which seems to be another norm for Ubisoft.

When playing the Campaign mode, I didn’t lost a single battle until I reached level 17 of the 23 you must get through. Naturally, this is mostly due to my advanced gaming skills however the option to change the computer difficulty would have been yet another plainly obvious feature Ubisoft just haven’t bothered with.

Despite its shortcomings and the often shallow feeling to this game, the system works without glitch and it’s much more about forward thinking and strategy rather than blind luck.

The Scores: 

Gameplay 8 / 10 - It really does work. The computer doesn’t cheat much and it’s a game you can sink your strategy minded teeth into. You may be left wanting for more detail though.   

Sound 4 / 10 - You’re not even treated to the sound of swords clanking and people screaming. Shame on you Ubisoft.

Lifespan 7 / 10 – You’ll want to see a battle through, so prepare to miss the start of Neighbours. Collection of cards helps, however the Campaign could have been harder.

Multiplayer 7 / 10 – 2 player is all but the same as single player – However why oh why can you not choose your units!?

Story 4 / 10 – Ubisoft, fire the writer responsible and bring me in at £40k a year. Let me show you how it’s done. Alternatively; a room full of monkeys, chain them to typewriters and wait a few months.

Rating: D

Review by Ben Heron