If there’s one developer that can give justice to movie tie in games and ports, Gameloft would be it. Can they continue their streak?

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within ($6.99)

Let’s admit it. The first movie inspired by this franchise was bordering on horrendous. This game however is simply pure magic especially if you played this exact game on other consoles.

Presentation

There’s not much to say about the graphics. Warrior Within was originally released by Ubisoft for PC, PS2, and XBOX. So the quality of the graphics and the models are top notch. Everything from the console version was ported over to the iPhone one, it’s a complete port. So you can be really happy, this literally is a PS2 game (and runs like one) in the palm of your hand.

Controls

Controls are what make or break a game, especially when porting a console game meant to be played with a physical controller to a small touch screen device. And once again, Gameloft nails it. On the left you have your normal joystick, push a bit to walk, further to run. On the side you have a serious of buttons, sword, jump, etc.

Some of these change as you’re near somewhere where you can perform an action (like wall run or drink water to recover health). On the bottom corner is a button you can drag up to throw a sword or knife. You can drag around the screen to change the camera, which is just enough, not too much to get you away from what you want to see, but certainly better than some we’ve seen on some Gameloft games. it’s perfect for this game.

Gameplay

The gameplay is what tears this game apart. Being a direct port of the console version, it has the same weaknesses the console version has. Don’t get me wrong, for an iPhone game it has a lot of great stuff. The platforming part is rock solid, and is the closest thing I’ve seen to date to Tomb Raider on iPhone. Wall runs, pole swinging, epic fights using poles to swing around, everything is there, and surprisingly fluid on the iPhone.

You also acquire special skills, such as slowing down time, rewinding time, etc. These come pretty handy later on when you need to get somewhere quickly, or just need the extra edge of the harder enemies. To use these powers you must acquire sand, as they’re not unlimited. The problem with the gameplay is that here’s a lot of backtracking, and in many instances place you in a different time period when you backtrack (making for a new experience), there are several times where you will revisit the same rooms, pass the same traps, defeat the same enemies.

These repetitive moments really screwed my navigation up, as I would pass a few familiar traps and think, “No, I must be going the wrong way, I’ve been here before.” Either way, it’s still a very impressive game for the iPhone, and although the gameplay is half baked, it’s still a pretty solid game.

Suggestions

I would suggest iPhone 4 graphics, but looking at the description I noticed Gameloft updated it to say it has iPhone 4 graphics, although it doesn’t. Which probably means an update has already been submitted bringing this.

Conclusion

If you’ve ever wanted a Prince of Persia game, or something close to Tomb Raider on your iPhone, this is the game for you. It’s pretty neat seeing a console game translating so nicely to the iPhone, and although the gameplay is a bit half baked, I’d still recommend you check this one out.