Prince of Persia: Revelations is an updated version of Warrior Within, a big hit on PS2 & Xbox last Christmas, a sequel to Sands of Time and the middle game in a trilogy - and I have to say it works surprisingly well on the PSP. With the series’ trademark flowing platform leaps, rolls, swings and combat moves, above all else PoP games demand responsive controls - and thankfully you immediately realize that you get those. This means you can get straight into the action and you soon think you know exactly what the Prince is going to have to do, and that you know how to do it. A pleasant surprise then this, because despite some really pretty PSP games having already appeared, I wasn’t really expecting Revelations to either look or play as well as it does.

Always a problem in 3D platform adventures, the camera in Revelations keeps up with the action pretty well, and on the odd occasions that it does falter it’s surprisingly easy to control with the aid of the L button and a trigger to rotate the camera into the desired position. The view can quickly be centered back behind the Prince too, by tapping the left button on the digital pad, and an aerial view can be called up with a tap of the “up” button.

And despite a promising start, the combat in the game is also far from what I’d call fun. More combos and some flashier-looking moves are one thing, but there’s still far too repetitive button bashing/repetitious hacking and slashing, and the gameplay feels imbalanced on that score – in my humble opinion you should be figuring out how to get to a higher or lower platform or avoid traps or enemies in a PoP game, not bludgeoning your way through countless look-alike enemies until your thumbs are sore. Unfortunately the glossy looks sometimes fall down with occasional silly looking glitch and the PSP’s Achilles heel – too frequent and intrusive loading pauses and some dodgy sound don’t exactly add to the overall effect either.