Prince of Persia Classic: C

The Prince of Persia is back, for more adventures in buying blue carpeting and gold curtain rod.\nOK, maybe he's after a princess, but it would have been a lot more fun if this remake was based off that recent "South Park" episode.\n"Prince of Persia" has always been something of a thinking man's platformer.\nWhile Sonic has been all about speed and Mario about bouncing on the heads of as many freaky enemies as possible, the Prince has been about methodically making his way through a labyrinth of traps and enemies that take real strategy to beat.\n"Prince of Persia Classic" is a remake of the 18-year-old PC game using the same layout and 60-minute time limit, but with graphics similar to the modern "Sands of Time" trilogy.\nThat easily makes this one of the best-looking games on Xbox Live Arcade. But underneath the shiny new coat of paint, this is the same old game, just more frustrating than classic.\nThere's a reason other mascots like Sonic and Mario are much more recognizable today than the Prince -- it's a lot more fun to blast through a level as quickly as possible than die every two minutes on a bed of spikes that popped out of nowhere.\nAnd while the Prince's enemies might take strategy to beat, strategy easily turns into frustration when the same cheap bastard cuts you down with his scimitar 20 times in a row.\nDespite these issues, and maybe because of my masochistic nature, I still found myself coming back to the game, which is actually only about an hour long and doesn't offer much replay value beyond the nostalgia factor.\nIf this game were longer, or a little bit easier (like the "Sands of Times" games), it would be a lot of fun, but as it is you'd be much better off downloading that episode of "South Park" where the Persians take over the lesbian bar instead of spending your points on this.