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Who'd trust a politician? Unfortunately, the Sultan of Persia did, and now he's looking at some big problems. While the Sultan is away victimising his people, his Prime Minister Jaffar has seized power, in spite of opposition from the Sultan's adoring citizens. To make his coup bona fide, Jaffar now plans to marry the Sultan's beautiful daughter (she wouldn't be an old boiler, would she?) and assume her birthright.

It's at this point that the boyfriend turns up to save her, only to get caught and locked up by the evil PM. Fortunately all is not lost, and before you can chant aggressively "Jaffar! Jaffar! The girlfriend snatcher!", the Prince (who doesn't actually have a name, but you can call him Keith if you like) is back on the trail of the evil Jaffar.

Beginning in the dungeon, the Prince must make his way through twelve levels, finding a sword, tackling Jaffar's henchmen and avoiding fatal traps. The Persian's struggle is made all the more hectic by the fact that he has only an hour in which to rescue the Princess before she gets hitched. So unless he wants to suffer a tedious best man's speech, cheap plonk and an empire sunk into totalitarian darkness, it's pretty essential that he makes it to the church on time!

Originally out on Amiga and PC, Prince Of Persia has been converted to just about every computer and console format going!

Guide the Prince through twelve platform levels in his attempt to find Jaffer and rescue the Princess. This involves much swordplay and making his way through a maze of traps in order to get to the next level.

Because our Persian hero is obviously going to come up against some of Jaffar's unfriendly sword-wielding minions, he needs to get his mitts on a sword of his own if he is to avoid being reduced to slices! The first level is therefore devoted to hunting down the sword.

Once the Prince has his hands on it, he tackles the guard that stands between him and the second level. Easy!

Climbing up and down platforms is something the Prince does a lot of in this game. To achieve this, press up or down on the directional pad. Just to hang on though, use the A button. If the Prince is falling through the air, keep your finger down on the A button and he might just grab a ledge. Who knows?

Our Persian chum is quite a Bob Beamon when it comes to jumping. Leaping from a static position he is able to cross most gaps, but for longer chasms he needs to take a run up. Getting a running jump right requires a good sense of judgment in order to save our turbanned hero from a deadly plunge.

Like any normal human being, Princey boy gets tired with all his climbing, leaping and slashing. Luckily for him, there are bottles of energy rejuvenating liquid for him to quaff on his journey. Should he find a large vial of liquid, the Prince is be given a further life bottle. He starts with three.

Beware of bottles with different coloured steam though because they take away life rather than supply it.

This is really a precision move, allowing you to position the Prince right on the edge of a platform to prepare for a jump, or to climb down or up. It is also useful in wary situations, like moving from one screen to another, or making his way through deadly spike traps when caution is the order.

During his journeys, the Prince inevitably bumps into some rather nasty fellows. It is at moments like these that good control over your sword is a must.

The A and C buttons slash to the right and left and the B button blocks attacks. The guards that turn up early in the game are pretty stupid and easily disposed of, but later levels introduce tougher opponents, and it is here that good attacking and defending skills really pay off.

It was only a matter of time before Prince Of Persia appeared on the Mega CD, but unfortunately it doesn't generate the excitement it should. Sure, the famous animation is perfectly reproduced, but it really gets in the way. You want to jump when you hit the button, not sit there watching the Prince prance about like a cabaret tap dancer for half an hour.

The rest of the graphics are truly uninspiring, they wouldn't cause a stir on a regular Megadrive cart, let alone a CD. The gameplay is still as challenging as ever, although that has quite a bit to do with the awkward control method, and with all that memory it couldn't have been to hard to put in a few more levels.

Prince Of Persia really seems like a bit of a rush job, and as such it loses a lot of the appeal the other versions have. There aren't that many great CD games, so if you've got a unit and you're desperate for some new software, give it a look, but don't expect too much.

Prince Of Persia has undergone so many conversions, I wouldn't be surprised to see it turning up on watches and pocket calculators. The reason it proves so popular is that it is one of those definitive games that sets standards rather than follows them.

The animation is renowned as some of the most fluid and realistic you'll find on any games system. Here the Mega CD doesn't fail to impress, with the Prince's movements when climbing and running looking totally convincing.

Graphically the Mega CD conversion is disappointing. In spite of its vast memory, it fails to produce graphics that would look particularly impressive on the Megadrive. There is little variety in the backdrops either.

The game's control method has always taken a bit of getting used to, but for some reason the controls are especially awkward here. Even though I got used to them, it remained a frustration with moves failing to come off now and then causing unavoidable death or injury.

Prince Of Persia remains a very challenging game on the Mega CD, but I felt that there was the potential for more than twelve levels.

What these criticisms really mean is that, while this is another pretty good conversion of the game, it could have been substantially better on the Mega CD.

The most impressive aspects of this conversion are the sound, which faithfully reproduces the familiar tunes, and the title sequence which provides an epic opening to the game and includes some brilliantly realistic speech - if I could only understand it. To sum up, Prince Of Persia is good... but not that good.

Presentation 85%
P. Epic opening sequence and plenty of options.
N. Frustrating restart points.

Graphics 74%
P. Excellent animation.
N. Uninspiring graphics, with samey backdrops.

Sound 82%
P. Atmospheric music and realistically reproduced speech.
N. Low on sound effects though.

Playability 70%
P. Good range of moves with good response.
N. Awkward control method.

Lastability 75%
P. Twelve challenging levels.
N. Frustrating controls are perturbing though.

Overall 72%
While this is another good conversion of what is, to a lot of people, a very good game, the programmers have failed to fully utilise the memory at their disposal, leaving Mega CD Prince Of Persia more like an okay Megadrive game.