Quick plot check: Upon his return to his hometown, the Prince finds the city in a state of civil war, and the king, his own father, blames him for the carnage. The Prince is then captured and sentenced to die, but his beloved Kaileena unleashes the Sands of Time and frees him (sacrificing her own life in the process). Now a fugitive, the Prince has many questions, chief among them: Who is this mysterious Dark Prince that threatens to possess him?

Our hands-on begins in a quiet Babylon alley.

The One-Move Stealth Kill

We first take out two guards and pick up a fallen scimitar. We then wall-run to a square patch in the wall and stab the scimitar into it, which allows for another short wall-run and a leap to the parapet ahead. Next, we carefully sneak up to the clueless guard, get in proper range, and toss the sword for a lovely head-lob. After a few more leaps and some pole-spins, we find our Prince situated between two buildings. We slide him down until he is just above two more guards. In one careful button combo, we have the Prince jump on top of the first guard and cut his throat, then twirl around to the second guard, whose neck the Prince locks with his legs. Both guards go down in a spectacular shower of red.

The Dark Prince

You may have heard a little about the Prince's evil doppelganger, the Dark Prince. Visually, he's an exact opposite: white hair, gray skin, and empty eyes. He also packs a chain as his primary weapon, which is deadly effective at short range. While he jumps and moves the same as the regular Prince, the Dark Prince's combos and the aforementioned weaponry add an intriguing dimension to the Prince as we know him. The Prince's dark side has potential.

Bonus: In the Dark Prince sequence, we got a glimpse of the vast and open cityscape that is Babylon. We could see rooftops seemingly for miles, and the best part is it's all playable game space.

The Chariot

In a gameplay addition that may raise a few eyebrows, the Prince pulls a Ben Hur by taking the reigns of a chariot in order to get to another section of Babylon. Along the way, he suffers attacks from enemy chariots, which he can either fight hand-to-hand or force to crash. He's also the target of various ranged weapons. It's an intense sequence, as the Prince must negotiate his chariot through streets, past obstacles, and across broken bridges--you'll be hurling yourself desperately across chasms (much like Sandra Bullock did with a bus in Speed). While it's exciting, let's hope Ubisoft doesn't decide to do a Prince of Persia racing game.