Thursday was a good day. I returned to my desk after a meeting to find a copy of Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within waiting for me. Nice! Since I was away all weekend visiting Moms in MI, I didn’t have a chance to play it until tonight.

First off, holy blood batman! The slow-motion hacking people in two at the mid section, and the decapitating, and the slicing down the middle, and the slitting of throats… man! That’s a lotta blood! No wonder there’s an age verification on the site.

Anyways, The Prince of Persia is back, but this time he’s not all charming – walking you through the story of his life as he’s reading you a bed-time story. He’s been told he’s going to die and is pretty pissed off about it. In turn, he’s more violent and is often shouting and taunting his foes as he hacks them to pieces.

The game starts you out on a spooky ship that is quickly taken over by ghost pirates, lead by some hot chick in a leather/metal thong. Once you get off the ship, you find yourself marooned on an island and have to find your way around, beating off vultures with a stick until you find some weapons. And when you do, let the blood shed begin.

The puzzles and action are strewn together seamlessly in this installment of the POP series. You’ll find yourself running across a wall then sliding down a curtain, straight into battle with a half-dozen henchmen that have been watching your every mood. I felt the two were a little more separated in the first game and am glad to see they’ve found a happy medium.

There’s some new features that are pretty cool. Like Halo 2, you can now duel-wield weapons. Throwing your secondary sword and impaling enemies and any given moment. The combat is greatly improved giving you many diverse combos. There’s also a combos menu to help you out, which is a nice touch. Fighting a handful of enemies at a time is even easier and more fluent than it was before. Being able to swing around poles and taking a swipe or kicking enemies is also pretty satisfying if you pull it off nicely. They’ve added some new capabilities that help you solve the puzzles as well. A couple include rope swinging and balancing on beams.

I’ve only put a couple hours into the game at this point, but am thoroughly enjoying it. Definitely worth a rent, if not a buy.