A WOLF in sheep's clothing, Battle of Prince of Persia is the most pleasant surprise of this year's holiday season releases. This is a serious WARGAME set in the PoP backround pitting the armies of the Persian Empire vs. the Indians and an army of demons called Daeva.
The play mechanics borrow heavily from traditional miniature wargames of ancients and medieval conflicts such as Wargame Research Group's classic De Bellis Anitquitatis and Ancients. A very deep, yet clean system rewards proper use of troops and punishes the thoughtless. Pike armed infantry can defeat even tough cavalry, elephants are death on cavalry but vulnerable to the lightest infantry and missiles etc...
The command system is the real gem though, they use a collectible card approach to allow you almost infinite possibilities in tactics. Each card can be used to order a number of your ready (unused) units to move and some cards have an alternate special power. This can be bonuses, activating an already used unit for a second attack, calling up a desert wind to make the enemies archers helpless etc... Clever combinations will make themsleves aparent to anyone who has played Magic : The Gathering or any other such game.
Fans of Advance Wars or Fire Emblem should find this to be the next step towards serious wargames from the child's videogame. Unit types are semi-historical such as Ghulam cavalry, Saka nobel cavalry and the massed Indian peasant archers and elephants with howdahs and mahouts.
If you want and action game, this is emphatically NOT it. This is strategy, pure and strong. If you think Advance Wars was too complicated steer clear. But if you want a deep, subtle, and emminently replayable wargame this is a gem in the desert.
The terrible reviews are from people who just don't get it. One clown actually cited the pushing back of a defeated unit as a 'new feature' thus betraying the fact that his game experience consists solely of Nintendo and other console fair. PC wargame with resolutions of 1600x1200 to work with still have to use small icons to represent combat units so it should shock anyone that a tiny LCD screen would do so as well. The graphic are crisp, clear and show everything you need to know as general of the armies of the Empire of Persia. Or India, or the Demon hordes from the Wounded Lands.
Until Europa Universalis and Age of Empires make their way onto the DS this is one of the 2 top strategy titles along with Advance Wars. The wonky interface takes getting used to but you
will.
To sum up, no jumping puzzles, sword fights, or time rewinding daggers. Lots of charging lancers crashing into lines of pikeman while clouds of arrows blot out the sun overhead. Elephants stomping through routing peasant fighters while catapults batter the gates of Babylon.
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