Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

Gameloft is one of the best mobile developers in the universe and the company continues its mastery of the platform with a bite size version of Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. I'm not calling it the best adventure game on a cell, but it's still pretty damn good, albeit a bit on the short side.

Much like the console game, Two Thrones casts you as the young yet frazzled prince and charges you with saving his land (Persia, I'm assuming) from hordes of ugly monsters. But the catch, aside from the fact that it's a 2D game, is it allows you to play as two different forms of our hero, the good natured and handsome prince, and his alter ego, the evil dark prince. Several times during the game you'll come across these bizarre looking idols, and they'll transform him from good to bad and back again.

Similar to classics Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi, this game is a 2D side scrolling beat-em-up where you slice and dice your way through all sorts of dastardly henchmen, though its controls are much more simplified than the games its creators drew inspiration from. For most of the adventure, all you really need to use are the directional arrows to move the prince and the Home/Ok key, which causes him to slash like mad. But during the course of the adventure other keys come into play, and the developers keep things easy by letting you know what you're supposed to press, so if, let's say, you approach an enemy while sliding down a rope, the number 5 (which also attacks) appears, so all you have to do is button mash and watch the action unfold. And unfold it most certainly does! You'll leap across chasms, swing off poles, and run up poles.

While the game isn't particularly fast, Gameloft's crammed a lot of cool stuff into it that makes playing through it extremely worthwhile. Not only do you get to perform devastating finishing moves on your opponents, but you'll also battle a dragon, ride a giant wrecking ball, steer a chariot, and navigate through a series of killer traps. The entire experience as a whole is quite refreshing, if not a little short. It'll only take you about two hours to beat the game, and aside from Survival Mode (where you just battle wave after wave of enemies until you die), there's very little reason to come back after you've seen everything, other than to play through it again.

Thankfully, Prince of Persia is worth checking out at least a second time, and Survival Mode is actually pretty cool. And it's all made better by the video and audio package that the developers have put together. Not only does the game look pretty on even the most basic of phones, but the music is outstanding.

When it comes to adventure games on cell phones, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones ranks among the greatest ever made. Because of the way it's designed, it provides near instant gratification with very little effort, making it the perfect game for weary adventurers that are searching for some action while waiting at an airport or for grandma to get out of the bathroom. Buy it without hesitation.