From the mists of time...

The Prince of Persia series is a gaming franchise that dates way back to the late 1980s of DOS gaming. It combined amazing animation for the time with ingenious puzzles, traps and constantly presented new concepts to the player to keep things fresh. After Persia's first outing on the Apple II/DOS platform, the series crawled its way into the land of the forgotten and was, well, forgotten.

In 2003, the game development company named Ubisoft revived the series with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on the Nintendo Gamecube, Sony Playstation 2 and Microsoft XBOX. It arrived on the scene with stellar ratings across the board, and anyone who played it agreed on one thing: it was an amazing game. Building on the success of this revival of the Persia series, Ubisoft decided to create two new entries in the series. Both of these new games received the same critical acclaim as Ubisoft's first Persia game.

But it was the third that serves as the basis for this preview. Prince of Persia: Rival Swords is a remake of 2005's The Two Thrones with new controls designed ground-up for the Nintendo Wii. The new controls completely change the gameplay and create a Prince of Persia experience unlike any other before it.

Saving the princess... again

Prince of Persia: Rival Swords chronicles the story of the prince after the events of the previous two games. After saving Kaileena (The Empress of Time), The Prince returns to his home town of Babylon along with Kaileena. Upon his return, The Prince makes a startling discovery - his precious Babylon has been devastated! Ravaged and burned by the effects of war... Kaileena is then taken as prisoner, and The Prince is left to figure out what happened to Babylon and to save Kaileena.

Swinging your, eh, Wii

As was said, Ubisoft's decision to incorporate the Wii Remote into Rival Swords will change the gameplay mechanics twofold. For starters, instead of hitting a button to swing the prince's sword, the player will instead swing the Wii Remote to perform such actions. There is a lot of potential that can go into this, especially seeing how well it was pulled of in Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Prince of Persia was always about performing amazing acrobatic maneuvers, weaving your way in and out of enemy lines, using stealth to sneakily fell a foe. If Ubisoft manages to make the Wii Remote work well with this game, they could end up making one of the definite 'must-have' games for the Wii.

Players will also go through all the hand motions of the sword techniques, which will make the player feel as if they're actually doing something. There's not much better feeling than stabbing your Wii Remote like a sword, and watching your sword on screen plunge through the chest of another hapless victim. Not only that, but it will make players feel much more involved.

Ubisoft has confirmed that they are hard at work developing a seamless Wii Remote integration to immerse the player like never before. Using the Wii Remote to swing the prince's whip and control his every move makes Persia fans everywhere salivate with giddy anticipation. It's really up to Ubisoft, however, if they can make the controls feel more intuitive and less forced and tacked on.

Good old looks need no improvement

Graphically, Rival Swords will probably not differ at all from the game it's originally built on. Aside from that, however, the game looks positively breathtaking. The lighting and character models are finely detailed, and every environment fits the setting perfectly. Ubisoft may decide to add a few graphical enhancements or tweaks, but there's nothing definite. They seem to be focusing all their time on the controls aspect, which is good because that's what really matters.

A few fans are upset that Ubisoft is delivering a remake with Wii functionality instead of a whole new game. I see two sides to the story. First, the Persia series is pretty under-appreciated. A re-telling of the previous game in the series will help rake in new fans which means more people to buy the later games in the series. What Ubisoft is doing now is kind of alienating old fans by bringing out a rehash instead of a whole new adventure. The Two Thrones, however, was an amazing game and the Wii controls should help make it even better.

My opinion is that fans of the previous games should definitely keep an eye out for Rival Swords. As I said, the Wii Remote has amazing potential, and the Prince of Persia series is a perfect way to bring out that potential and it may end up making the series even better. Likewise, gamers who have never played a Persia game should also be on the lookout for the Rival Swords.

All in all, Rival Swords is shaping up to be another must-have for Wii owners. Even more so for gamers new to the Persia series. So, mark your calendars - Rival Swords should be on store shelves sometime in March!