The Pince of Persia series has always tickled my fancy, and the next instalment in the series didn't have me as confused as some of you no doubt will be at the artistic and gameplay changes made. Sands of Time was a great game, and I can't imagine that given enough of a chance this next-gen go at Prince of Persia wouldn't be an easy enough transition if you let it.

You find yourself thrown into a religious battle of the classic Good Vs. Evil variety when out in the desert searching for – of all things - your donkey. In an attempt to save a beautiful and somewhat mystical woman from impending father issues, you're caught up in the middle only to find that the world is in jeopardy from the long imprisoned Dark God Ahriman. This Prince of Persia doesn't take off from the last game nor does it include the previous characters from former titles. Instead it focusses on a new prince and an additional character Elika, the woman you save at the start of the game who becomes your companion throughout the campaign.

It's interesting while playing Prince of Persia how much it feels like they've taken Assassin's Creed and utilised the Free Running system that was in place but giving the player more to do this time around, which is great as it's what I wanted in Creed after all. You now make your way around what initially seems like a free-roaming environment with Elika in toe, who can not only help you make jumps over large distances, but prevents the Prince from ever dying. Now, you might think 'oh crap not that again', but this isn't Too Human - it's like getting a gameplay slap on the wrist for messing something up. The only danger being that messing a section up you find particularly tricky will lead to repetition, which in turn can lead to frustration. Each time you're saved you'll be taken back to the last place your feet touched the ground and sometimes that can mean going quite a ways back, but is that any different to a checkpoint?

Elika tells you that in order to undo what her father has done by breaking the seal that had Ahriman trapped all this time is to heal what she calls fertile grounds. Areas that Elika can utilise to heal the surrounding area of the dark plague that has gripped her kingdom, so it's over to you to cart her around to these locations through an environment which is somewhat free-roaming as mentioned. I say somewhat as you get to choose which locations you go to first for the most part, but you have to visit them all anyway and while you're there you'll pretty much have set routes to take to make your way from one side of the level to the other.

There are initially four locations to head to, then a further 4 down each of these routes and finally an end area once you've completed all the previous levels down that route. To get to each final stage you'll need a power which Elika can buy at the temple spending Light Seeds she finds in any area you've healed. These powers are activated by finding plates on the walls of an area you're in. One power might shoot you off in a direction, another might make you fly through a section of the level. They all function with the same aim – to get you to a section of level you couldn't otherwise reach.

So at this point we're looking at making our way through 24 levels plus an end level to finish the game. Each level requires Elika to get to the fertile ground to heal it, grab some collectables that are scattered around this now clean area to purchase powers allowing you to gain access to all areas in that section and head over to the final battle. The two things done to slow you down are the boss challenges and the collectables. Unlike the previous Prince of Persia titles you'll only ever face one boss mob at a time, unleashing combos that rely on timing your button presses and mixing up your various skills and magical abilities (thanks to Elika) to extend the combo and do more damage.

They've also thrown in the added bonus that if you manage to knock an enemy of the edge you'll kill it instantly. Generally speaking the boss mobs aren't anything to get your pants in a twist over, so in step the collectables. In order to purchase powers you'll need to get Light Seeds, which can be found in sometimes tricky to reach places as well as simply scattered around the levels. Each time you get a new power, the cost to get the next one increases. Seeing as you've already made your way around an area to finish it, having a good old explore to grab the Light Seeds is great – for a bit. However, when you have to collect a hundred of the blasted little balls of light just to unlock a power that'll no doubt take you to a 5 minute boss fight it can't half be deflating. That combined with the fact that regardless of how badly you do at said fight, the worst thing that will happen is he'll get some health back and you'll be stuck in this endless loop until you stop playing the game like you have an entire hand made of potatoes and finish him off.

OK, so you get the idea. The games a little on the easy side. I felt that generally while that was the downside to the game, the artistic style, epic score and fluidity to the game more than compensated. Seeing as I was playing this on the PS3 I should also bundle into that equation the added bonus that the framerate didn't take an almighty graphical dump on my TV. This no doubt relates to Ubi's idea to go all cell-shaded with this Prince of Persia, an apparently artistic decision after the concept guys drew up some artwork for the game. It can look quite odd at times, particularly with the black stroke outline to all the artwork, but more often than not in really allows them to open up the scenery for some very pretty backdrops indeed.

The score comes into it's own with composers Inon Zur and Stuart Chatwood, the guys who created the music for some of the previous titles. It wouldn't be out of place in a film. The Northwest Sinfonia play their hearts out for some truly memorable themes and atmospheric compositions. They only reason one of the tracks got on my nerves was that it was so damn catchy I found myself humming it incessantly overnight until I picked it up the following day. The sound department too have done well with the sound effects and voice acting in the game. While the script might be a little ropey, I felt the character development through the game progressed well towards it's climatic finale nevertheless.

I thought that perhaps, upon playing Prince of Persia that it would beat Assassin's Creed on a score front because of it's more fantastical approach level design and how the Prince could make his way around the environment with a helping hand from Elika, over a more roaming-around-town approach. The truth is that the game ended up being too easy for my tastes and so where Assassin's had issues with monotony this merely has issues with its challenges. While I think for the most part people will enjoy making their way around the game, a lack of any real challenge might lead to boredom.