The third and final game in the Prince of Persia series is here and overall, except for the slight hiccups of Warrior Within, the concept of the original series and what draws gamers back to it has remained nicely intact throughout the 3 games. The first game reintroduced us to the Prince, kicked off the new series in style and with the games original creator, Jordan Mechner, on the Ubisoft team, it was no surprise that it was as good as it was. Unfortunately the second game, Warrior Within took a slight nose dive losing the middle eastern charm, music and feel that gamers loved about the series and tried to make things darker and edgier to perhaps widen its appeal, unfortunately to its detriment.

There was no denying Warrior Within's good points though. The combat was a huge step up from the first game, the detail on the baddies and levels enhanced and the ability to hold two weapons, swing around poles and slice off heads in slow motion were just a few of the highlights. It's a shame that the terrible voice acting and generic wuss rock soundtrack through the game were so glaringly out of place. Ubisoft aim to correct some of the past mistakes with the third game and end the series on a high, no doubt before it's inevitable launch on the Xbox 360 sometime in a year or so from now (Tomb Raider needs some competition after all doesn't it..).

If you're familiar with the normal ending of Warrior Within but never saw the alternate ending then the start of The Two Thrones (from now on TTT) may leave you scratching your head a bit. If you don't remember how it ended, then it's probably for the best anyway and TTT can be enjoyed solely as a stand along game anyway regardless of your familiarity with the series. The Prince is sailing home to Babylon with the lovely Kaileena but before he can even feel the sand between his toes his ship is attacked.

After washing up on Babylon's shore Kaileena is promptly captured and after a brief introductory level to familiarise you with the controls, the story kicks into high gear. It soon becomes apparent that the Evil Vizier is behind everything once again and after some great cut scenes to move the story along, Kaileena is gone, Babylon and the Prince are infected with the Sands of Time and to make matters worse, you even start hearing a mysterious voice in your head!

Before too long this voice is giving you advice, paying you out a bit and unfortunately, taking your body over and turning you (without warning) into the alternate character of the Dark Prince. This alternate character works pretty well giving you the normal Prince of Persia character to play as, but also the darker, moodier and even stronger Dark Prince who (and isn't it always the way) even has a snazzier hair-do. Sure, the Prince has to spend the entire game from then with some freaky multi bladed sword embedded around his arm and a nice unhealthy looking glow appearing from cracks in his skin, but the trade off is a bunch of new moves, a cool weapon and enhanced strength that lets you take on multiple foes that the regular Prince would probably have trouble dispatching. As you switch between the two Princes and as the story progresses, the ulterior motives of the Dark Prince become more and more apparent and some tension between the two characters ensues.

As the Dark Prince was created from the Sands of Time, you must replenish your health from either killing enemies or smashing baskets and urns littering the levels. Once killed or smashed, sands are released that will top your health up. Now while the extra strength and cool 'chain-sword' weapon the Dark Prince offers are great, the need to constantly charge your health back up becomes annoying as sometimes you also have to negotiate puzzles and traps in this form. The tension rises quickly as your health is dwindling and sometimes you cannot, for the life of you, work out just where you have to go next. Naturally while you're standing around, rotating the camera to check out where to go, you'll drop dead and it's never fun when a game seems to be deliberately working against you. Exploring the levels as the Prince has always been one of the enjoyably parts of the series and as the Dark Prince you're forced to fly through them much too quickly. Luckily you aren't forced to replay areas for more than a few minutes and your progress can be saved at the water fountains as per the past games but you do always feel as though you're being pushed along too quickly during the Dark Prince sections.

As you hit the points in the levels where you revert back to the Prince's original form (water seems to trigger this although it's never explained why), you'll breathe many a sigh of relief. It's not that playing as the Dark Prince isn't fun, but the health runs down too fast for my liking and creates needless frustration. Saying that though, that aspect of the game was one of the only few gameplay issues I came across the whole time. TTT offers up the best of everything from the first 2 games and finishes the series on a high note with great action and one of the funkiest endings ever. There are also a few other new features in TTT with the coolest one easily being the 'speed kill' system.

Adding an element of stealth to the game, the Speed Kills reward you for sneaking up behind enemies and as the edges of the screen blurs, you hit the 'Y' button to initiate the speed kill sequence where you need to press the 'X' key each time your weapon flashes blue. The speed kills look great but you need to get the timing just right as the window of opportunity can be very small and if you miss it, the enemies perform a counter move and prepare to fight back. It can be quite challenging when taking on 4 or more baddies as the regular prince and I found myself using the Sands of Time to rewind back if I missed opportunities during the Speed Kill sequences. The Speed Kills can take anywhere from 2 to 5 'X' presses depending on the enemies strength so you really have to pay attention. The Dark Prince can also perform them but they're simpler to perform and rapid pressing of the 'Y' button is all that's required. One thing I did notice is that the Australian release has no decapitations which are pretty common in the gameplay footage that's available. It doesn't sound like much but when you see footage of Speed Kills from the overseas video reviews, the ones in our version of the game look quite tame in comparison.

The other new feature to TTT is the Chariot sequences that you get to take part in. They can be fun, but make sure you have your sand tanks charged up because even the slightest crash will see you killed. You can steer left and right, but unfortunately you can't change your speed and while exciting, it's 'on rails' action at it's finest (or worst depending on your own opinion), something I thought we'd moved past as getting through these parts is sheer trial and error. An interesting addition, but the chariot sequence ends up being one of the weakest parts in the game. Luckily by the first chariot stage you've regained your Time Control ability and crashes can be easily rewound, unless your sand tanks are empty.

The graphics and audio in TTT are of a very high quality. Sometimes you'll come across some low-res blurry textures but their always on inconsequential parts of the scenery and never distract. The levels, from the rooftops of Babylon, right down to the sewers all look fantastic and the character design of the enemies is great also. Compare some screenshots from the first game and you'll see what I mean. The detail and the polygon counts on the characters appear pretty high and being a Prince of Persia game, the animations are silky smooth and blend together exceptionally well. There were a few glitches to be found such as some clipping issues and also the occasional weapon or corpse floating in mid air and on one occasion, the whole textures in one area of a level disappeared making it impossible to work out where to go. Re-loading the previous save game fixed that problem, it's disappointing to see glitches in a series where almost none existed before.

TTT is a purely single player affair, and unlike Warrior Within, even the Live Aware feature has been discarded which is surprising. I've been of the opinion ever since Xbox Live launched that every single game should be at a minimum, Live Aware, so to see it included in one game but then not the next is pretty strange. Perhaps one day Ubisoft will bless us with a true co-operative experience, but until then, we'll just have to make do with the great single player experience of TTT which goes along way to putting the series back on track, pity it's supposedly the last game!