Nathan Davis jumps a time portal and says g'day to fate.
If you liked the original, you'll love this baby. Drinking water, which heals you, has been enhanced as it's now almost instant. Dual weaponry is also now a larger part of the game, with the ability to use an enemy's weapon and slash with two meat dicers. Or peg it at them. The combat system has been significantly enhanced. There are now complex combo moves available.
As the game progresses, you get given improved swords and superior combos. You learn some of the basic combos in the first level - which is the demo level of your ship being under siege by freaky sand zombies and a chick in spandex. Repeating this level a couple of times is recommended, not only to see the evil babe in shiny black again, but also to get used to the combos.
Throughout the game you find these chests that - when filleted with your blade - unlock decidedly unexciting concept artwork for the game. Interesting addition, nonetheless. The audio selection used is great, but the music used is, well, a weird choice. Its predecessor used a slightly less heavy style and personally, it was more appropriate with middleeastern flavoured tunes.
In the Warrior Within, the soundtrack has a small hint of Arabian in it, but they've almost entirely obliterated that and gone all out to make it more thrashy - it's nothing less than heavy metal. This music is played mostly when fighting, but it really doesn't work in the setting of this game with beautiful maps, awesome lighting, slowing down time and other soft effects.
Unfortunately the camera problems seen in the original still exist, with sometimes a 'floating free' camera hovering behind you and others, a fixed camera from another angle. This can really screw things up, particularly when the camera changes angles, because your directional controls alter according to which way the camera is looking. Luckily you don't instantly change direction, but it remains disorienting. Your time-reversing button will be used often here.
A niggling problem that comes with the 3D view on this game is direction and where you're headed. There are mazes of poles, landings, ropes and the like to use to get somewhere, but this 'somewhere' isn't always apparent. Before entering a new level, some of the time a camera will sweep the level and show you what's in it or a cut scene will provide some info, but it's not always obvious. The introduction of a waypoint system would have solved this problem.
Overall, it's all about jumping through time portals - trying to escape the beastly ugly manifestations of fate itself - gutting sandy zombies and puzzle jumping. It's a worthy successor to Sands of Time and more of the same goodness with nice enhancements and a new story, all pasted in a beautifully created environment.
If you loved the original, this is on the table for you. Otherwise, if you want to dabble around with a decent action/adventure game, look no further.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012