‘Prince of Persia’

December 21, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

‘Prince of Persia’

(Ubisoft) for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC

Action-Adventure; Rating: T

Grade: B-

A week after reviewing the latest “Tomb Raider” game, and seeing what a fiasco that was, it’s interesting to then pick up the newest “Prince of Persia” game, which marks the prince’s first foray onto next-gen platforms. There is a distinct difference between the two franchises, and one can quickly see how “Persia” has made the best of the technology while “Tomb Raider” is stuck in the past.

Running, jumping, wall climbing and more await you, though the “more” is just really more of the running, jumping, climbing stuff I just mentioned. There is a loose story about catching and punishing an evil god, but you’ll lose sight of it quickly once you start playing. You have a wonderful helper named Elika, and she’s great at saving your skin from enormous chasms and fares well in the occasional battles you’ll find.

The game features one of the best cameras you’ll find in modern gaming today, and when you see it in action you’ll realize how much a game can suffer from a poor camera. Combine that with the beautiful cell-shaded graphics, and from a purely visual and aural sense, “Prince of Persia” is perhaps the best-looking platformer to date. If anything, the look and sound of the game are almost too rich, and overshadow the action.

One major complaint: There is little combat or diversity in the gameplay. One person’s platforming joy may be another’s peril, so be wise before committing yourself.

You probably won’t find a better-looking game for the PS3 in 2008, but a lack of follow-through with the gameplay itself keeps “Prince of Persia” from reaching its full glory.

‘Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories’

(Square Enix) for PlayStation 2

Genre: Role-playing; Rating: E

Grade: C-

Just when I thought I had moved on from PS2 games, Square Enix comes out with another “Kingdom Hearts” game, and I just had to give it a shot. The mixing of “Final Fantasy” and Disney characters has always been interesting and fun to play, and while “Chain of Memories” does some things really well, it also gets hung up by all the secondhand content from previous titles.

Anyone who had a Game Boy Advance will instantly recognize this game, because it debuted on that handheld many moons ago. Otherwise, you’ll probably enjoy the adventures of Sora and his crew as they travel through various Disney locales and do some basic enemy battling and dungeon exploration. This system worked really well on the GBA, but is much too choppy and repetitive on the PS2.

While fans await the next full iteration of “Kingdom Hearts,” they can be quelled by this mash-up of previous titles, though they may best experience it as a rental first.

‘Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon’

(THQ) for Xbox 360

Action-Adventure; Rating: T

Grade: F

Before I thrash this game, I must qualify it by saying that the original “Destroy All Humans!” was human-zapping fun for everyone, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But the subsequent two franchise entries have degraded the quality to substandard levels, and, furthermore, this third game just stinks to high holy hell.

A quick Google search will find that THQ shuttered the developer of this game shortly before this was released. Perhaps THQ saw what it was publishing and decided it was best to close the doors before angry villagers (or the Chinese government) decided to throw a fit.

Yes, many games pump up stereotypes to a sickening degree at times, but this is truly offensive. I miss the original game and its campy humor of frying humans because it was funny. In “Path of the Furon,” everything is a retread and less entertaining by the minute.

—Chris Campbell, Scripps Howard