Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (GC)

I'm really, really getting annoyed with this game now. Mainly the bugs (more on one of them in a bit), but also with the irritating way you have to redo large sections of the game for a second, and even third time. Even more if you count the Past and Present "versions" of areas. Who decided that would be a good idea?

So a minor couple of bugs at first. Well, I say minor, but they're actually game destroying fall-in-pit-don't-die-quit bugs again. Joy. Once past them, there was a mammoth trek through almost all of the play area that I'd been through previously in order to get back to the throne room, then on into the present, all around the map again, back into the past, through the prison, library and then the Water Tower, and back to the Central Hall. Again.

From there, it was back almost to the Water Tower entrance again, where another bug repeatedly appeared. On the path from the Hall to the Gardens, you have to trigger two switches to make parts of the floor appear. For each switch, you then have to slow time so you can run across the floor before it disappears again. The second switch is up a wall, and you have to swing round a pole, jump off, hit the switch and then jump back. Slow Time before hitting the switch, and you miss. Slow time afterwards, and you land on the pole again, where you have to drop down which loses you a couple of seconds. Hit the button, slow time, then land on the pole and reverse time, like I did several times, and the switch stays in and the floor stays out. Forever. "Great!" you might say. "That makes things easier!" Except it doesn't, as the floor is impossible to stand on. You just fall right through. And you can't hit the switch again, as it is already activated. So you have to kill yourself and try again. Hurrah!

Got back into the Present in the Gardens (finally) and found my way to the Mask. That turned me into the Sand Wraith, who has two special powers: he has infinitely regenerating sand, and best of all, he has the power to get rid of the can't-use-sand bug. I seemed to be able to use it constantly. It certainly helped when it came to the huge outdoor section, where you have to jump around a crumbling ship, leaping from mast to mast. Especially since when jumping from the first mast to the second, you have to jump out of the screen, even though the second mast is clearly behind the first. Escher-tastic!

There then followed a huge underground bit, not unlike the underground bit from the first game, and after fighting in the mist, killing a huge Griffin and running from the Dahaka yet again, I eventually found myself... back in the Clockwork tower. For the tenth time. Or so it felt.

Eventually, I made it back to the Throne Room (losing my mask in the meantime - hope I don't need sand any more!) and dragged Kaileena into the Present with me. The Prince-from-Before seemed to vanish for no reason too. Very odd.

And then. Another fight with Kaileena. She seemed to be much easier than before, mainly due to having no strange black ghosty things. I managed to kill her without too much trouble, and then a cut-scene kicked in, with me stabbing her through the chest. "I'm sorry", said the Prince, "I didn't mean this to happeBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT".

And the game crashed. Gah.