Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Fans of the original series rejoiced when Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was released by UbiSoft. Until that point, not many people knew much about the series, and despite the influence it had over many later games like Tomb Raider, not many people had even heard of it. Unlike the original games, Sands of Time takes place in three dimensions, and the transition was a seamless and impressive one that took the games to new heights.

The story centers around the unnamed prince, who narrates the story as you go along, occasionally saying things like, "No, no, that's all wrong," or, "That's not not how it happened," when you die. As the story opens, we find the prince fighting his way through a fortress and killing soldiers along his way to obtain a treasure as a gift for his father. The prince's father's vizier coerces the prince into using an item he found, the dagger of time, to open a huge hourglass, and from there everything essentially goes to heck. The Sands of Time are unleashed, granting the vizier their power, transforming the prince's father and his army into hellish sand creatures, and just generally messing up the prince's day. He sets about searching for survivors and meets a young woman named Farah, who joins him in his efforts. Over the course of the game, the two will interact with one another and form a relationship that is one of the more plausible video game love stories amidst a sea of rather trite love plots.

You'll be doing a great deal of exploring in Sands of Time, which is great news, considering exploring usually consists of high-flying acrobatic moves through a series of Arabian locales, palaces and caves included. You'll do everything from the traditional running and jumping to spinning around poles and running up and along walls to climb ledges and cross gaps. And of course, there are a lot of traps as well; saw blades, darts, spikes, and pitfalls will be actively trying to keep our hero from reaching every one of his destinations, and this will result in a good deal of deaths or near deaths. It's a good thing the controls respond very well and only seem to slip up where human error is concerned. Even then, the interface is often very forgiving; if you fall over a ledge, the prince will automatically hang on, and if you press the release button, he'll automatically pull himself right back up unless there's a safe spot below.

Despite being a pretty challenging game, you shouldn't actually spend much time dying, because the Sands of Time give you the opportunity to go back several seconds in time to avoid a fall or death at the hands of a horrible monster. Using the Sands of Time obviously requires sand, and you start off with three sand tanks on your dagger of time, each one letting you skip back a few seconds. When you kill sand creatures, you can execute a finisher with the dagger to absorb their sand and refill tanks. Moreover, save points refill all of your tanks. And believe me when I say this: you'll be using the Sands of Time liberally, because the main reason they exist is to test your luck with an attempt at getting past a particularly tricky jumping segment. Of course, flash forwards at the beginning of each segment will also help to give you an idea of where to go and what to do before you even reach the areas in question, giving you a helpful nudge in the right direction with some of the trickier bits.

Another large part of Prince of Persia's various levels is puzzle solving. Most of the time, the puzzles are kept fairly simple, such as a block puzzle here and there, or something along those lines. Occasionally, you'll happen across a more complicated puzzle that involves more thought, such as moving a platform along a sort of maze and fitting several huge pegs into holes while following a specific path. (Yes, it's about as complicated as it sounds, but it's actually not too bad once you get moving.) Mostly, though, the puzzles themselves are the actual levels, and half the fun-and indeed half the challenge-is just getting through them to find out what'll happen next.

Prince of Persia's combat is pretty good most of the time, and you can execute a lot of really nice-looking moves, of course using the environment to leap off of things and brutally shove your weapons into just about any monster you encounter. Still, despite looking nice and having a nice flow to it, the combat never really seems to improve or change all too dramatically, and often times, you'll be oblivious as to how far into the game you are, simply because you only so often gain new abilities, and they're mostly just health and sand meter increases. Now, you'll occasionally meet new enemies as you advance, whose fighting tactics make them impervious to some of your own repertoire of moves and will require you to vault off of them or guard and counter, or occasionally kick off the wall, but it really doesn't always matter, because after a while, you'll be mobbed by a large number of enemies and the combat will eventually get repetitive. In fact, the idea that you only seldom gain a new ability or face a new sort of obstacle is arguably the only thing taking away from the game at all, despite how occasionally detrimental to the game it can be. Even with this taken into account, the combat is a lot of fun, and the controls are very responsive.

One of the most easily-noticed things about Prince of Persia is how undeniably pretty it is. The game opens with a gorgeous cinematic of an Arabian kingdom's skyline, translucent curtains fluttering in the cool night air, soft, warm light emanating from windows all around. After that, you're eased into the regular graphics of the game, which are quite nice as well. The sharp textures are among the most detailed any title on the platforms it was released for have to offer, and the color, though often limited to a few in select areas, lends itself perfectly to the atmosphere in every aspect. Courtyards at night are bathed in a warm orange glow, and ambient light from torches casts dynamic shadows onto the walls. There was attention to other minor details as well, such as leaving footprints behind after stepping in water, or small clouds of dust kicking up around the prince's feet as he walks. Even poles the prince uses to leap to distant areas move a bit with him as he swings around them.

Character animation in Sands of Time is a sight to behold. All the prince's actions are agile and swift, and even as he's defying gravity, running along a wall for several feet at a time, you're never given the impression that such feats aren't at least plausible. His high-flying acrobatics and agility are impressive, without a doubt, but most of his actions-no matter how over-the-top-are animated so well that look like they could all be possible, even though a few of them are best left to people starring in "wire fu" films.

The voice acting and narration are both strong, and most every voice fits its respective character perfectly; prime examples of this are the game's two protagonists, the prince and Farah. Their exchanges are sometimes pretty funny to hear, and the dialog never seems to be overdone or melodramatic, which is an issue many games' otherwise decent voice talents are dragged down by. The sound effects are equally good; grinding stone, crackling fires, footsteps against various surfaces, weapons clashing, soft breezes blowing-Sands of Time has nary a sound effect that isn't masterful.

For how little you hear any music played over the course of the game, it's excellent. You'll hear some Middle Eastern-themed sounds, as well as orchestral scores and rock and roll beats, sometimes all at once. The three wildly different sounds almost always combine for an excellent and original sound that complements the fight sequences perfectly. Still, it's a shame that the rest of the game lacks any music to support it. Often, the lack of music, replaced only by the soft hum of the breeze, is somewhat refreshing, but there are times, particularly in the non-combat action situations, where it seems music would enhance the experience.

In the way of unlockable content, there isn't a ton to get, but you can gain the original Prince of Persia as an extra game to play, for those interested in utterly frustrating difficulty. Other than that, there isn't much motivation to actually replay the game, apart from the superb production values. Even if you do replay it right away, the outstanding gameplay and interesting story will captivate you just as much as the first time.