Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a highly accessible game thanks to its forgiving difficulty, great story and top-notch presentation.
ACTION-ADVENTURE
Release Date: 11/30/2003
Published By: Ubisoft
Developed By: Ubisoft
The original Prince of Persia is regarded as a classic by many gamers. It was known for its awesome puzzles, the protagonist's incredible acrobatics and unforgiving difficulty. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the latest offering in the Prince of Persia series developed by Ubisoft Montreal keeps the puzzles and acrobatics intact but greatly reduces the level of difficulty and now the game is accessible to almost anyone, even if he/she is not already interested in this type of action-adventure gaming.
The first thing that has to be said about Sands of Time is how immersive the story is. In the beginning of the game, the prince (whom you will be playing as) steals the Dagger of Time apparently for honor and glory and the evil Vizier tricks him into using the dagger to unlock the Sands of Time which is a huge hourglass which spills all its sands into the castle and turns everyone into mysterious sand zombies. The only survivors are you, a young girl called Farah and the vizier. Your aim is to undo the wrong you have done in unlocking the sands of time and thwart the vizier's plans. The game opens up when the prince says something like, "Sit down and you will hear a tale like none other" and from then on the whole story seems like the prince is retelling it to someone and this kind of narrative technique keeps you gripped from beginning to end and needless to say, the story is very good.
The aforementioned dagger of time has a variety of uses that are neatly integrated into the gameplay. The most important of these is reversal or rewinding of time. The dagger allows you to rewind time when you have made a mistake in the game. For example, if you mistime a jump that leads to your death or some of the enemies take a chunk out of your health, then you simply rewind using the dagger to a safe position and replay the game from there. This is very important because some of the battles and puzzles can get frustrating at times. However, there is a catch; the amount of rewinds is not unlimited. You have a number of sand tanks that start emptying when you rewind. You have to refill these tanks by collecting sands from your enemies' dead-bodies or sand holes that are placed on the ground at often convenient locations using the dagger. The other use of the dagger is to slow down time which makes your enemies slower but I found myself using this trick quite sporadically throughout the game but it can be a life-saver when surrounded by enemies and in some of the game's harder puzzles. Apart from these two tricks you can also the use it to freeze enemies during combat and then kill them, which is especially helpful later in the game.
Combat in the game controls very well using a standard keyboard and mouse combination and is very rewarding early on when you are getting to grips with it but later on it just becomes monotonous and can lead to some frustrating moments but is still good and well implemented overall. Apart from the dagger, the prince has a very big sword which is used to kill enemies. The prince's breathtaking acrobatics is also put to use during combat, you can vault from walls onto your enemies or vault over them and the combination of these two moves is quite effective and leads to some satisfying kills. Farah is present at most times during combat, though she is more of a liability than a help and while she has a bow and an unlimited supply of arrows herself, you will find yourself trying to save her more often than not because the game automatically ends when she dies. Your primary enemies in the game are the sand creatures though they vary in sizes and also carry different weapons; they are basically very slow and often converge on you in groups but still can be easy to take out because of the aforementioned acrobatic skills and speed of the prince. The sands have to be removed from these sand creatures otherwise they will come at you again. That is where the combat becomes frustrating and repetitive later on in the game where the larger sand zombies will basically attack you in large numbers and killing them and retrieving their sands can become frustrating and you will want to just beat them and move on and this saps out the fun you get from combat early on in the game.
The puzzles form the brunt of the game and are its most rewarding portion also. The game starts off with standard puzzles where you pull the lever in one place and reach the door in another place after overcoming a variety of obstacles but become increasingly difficult as you progress through the game. The reason for the obstacles being the fact that the prince helps in setting up the castle's defense system quite early in the game and this system is unforgiving with its set of spikes, rotating knives and so on. The prince's acrobatics plays a major part in the puzzles; you will vault from wall to wall, cross holes on the floor by running across walls and reach places that are normally out of reach and as you progress through the game you will find newer ways of putting these tricks to use to overcome the puzzles. Farah is more useful during puzzles than combat and she can go through cracks in the wall which you cannot reach and pull levers to get you to other places and so on and this kind of co-working between you and her makes some of the puzzles more interesting and you will feel really satisfied when you actually figure out some of the harder puzzles in the game.
The Sands of Time scores above all other games especially because of its presentation. The graphics are very middle-eastern and the whole game has a yellow glow which reminds one of the fact that the sands of time has engulfed the castle and left an yellowish haze on it. Even though you traverse the same castle throughout the game the environments are really diverse and well detailed and you will move from corridors, to caverns with lush green grass and amazing waterfalls to tombs and what not. Though some areas do repeat, all of them look great on the eye and that is great given that the game is almost 4 years old now. The character models all look great especially the prince, the vizier and Farah. Little effects like when you see the prince come out of water, it will drip all over from his dress help in making the game more enjoyable. You will get used to seeing the same model of sand creatures after some time into the game but these are also greatly done. Most of the in-game cut-scenes are presented using the graphics engine but a few more important ones are done as great videos and these do a wonderful job of helping in story progression. In spite of a few rough edges here and there in the form of some clipping issues and repetitive enemy models, the graphics really get the job done in adding another level of immersion to the game.
Audio and sound presentation in the game is as good as the graphics if not better. Sounds of footsteps when you run across walls, metal clanking when you hit a wall or meet an enemy sword and enemy sounds are incredibly detailed and wonderfully done. The music is really awesome and, though like the graphics is very middle-eastern, it is great to hear and there are a variety of tracks that never get repetitive. The high-tension music that kicks in during a few difficult battles deserves special mention and you will feel your pulse quicken because of it. The voice-acting is top-notch especially for the game's main characters of the prince, Farah and the vizier. The prince has a soft yet powerful voice which you immediately relate to his nature and the vizier packs an evil voice and overall the voice acting is really well done. The amazing voice talent also lends a lot of personality to the game and some of the dialogues between the prince and Farah really help establish the tension in their relationship and the prince will sometimes mutter to himself and overall you will find yourself caring more for the prince as you move through the game.
The game follows a basic pattern of puzzle - combat - save and this pattern continues till the end. Even when you die in the middle of a puzzle you are not ported back to the last save location instead to only the beginning of that portion of the puzzle and this reduces the frustration one would have felt otherwise. Each save location also gives you minor visions of future puzzles and combat and how to tackle them and makes the game quite easy actually. If you are stuck in a puzzle, all you have to do is replay the vision to see where you go wrong and again speaks of the game's high accessibility. Even though sometimes these saves are very near and sometimes quite far, it is still a really well implemented system.
The only major gripe one can have with this PC version of the game is that the camera can be a pain sometimes. The standard third person perspective is well done and it switches to a kind of isometric perspective during the puzzles but sometimes during combat when the screen is really crowded you will have to fumble with direction keys to get the prince to point in the right direction and this can be hindering at times and is a minus in an otherwise highly polished game. The other things one can nitpick about are the repeating enemy models and how later on, tons of enemies will be thrown at you to increase the difficulty level but these in no way reduce the quality of a truly outstanding game.
It will take you about 12-16 hours to finish the Sands of Time depending on your skill in grasping all the techniques and implementing them in combat and puzzles. The game does not have any replay value at all since by the time the game ends all your skills will be well honed and there are not enough special extras to keep you coming back. Still, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a lesson in action-adventure gaming from Ubisoft with its wonderful story, awesome presentation in both the graphics and sound departments and forgiving difficulty and should not be missed by anyone at all.
Posted on: 05/12/2007 by Balaji Sivaraman