Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
[Xbox]

The Sands Of Time are indeed flowing silky smooth. No other game has ever left me feeling so empowered (take in to consideration, I have yet to play Ninja Gaiden). The Prince pulls off some totally mind blowing aerial maneuvers...and his fighting skills aren't too shabby either.

The basic premise of this game revolves around puzzles and the bland story that really didn't do anything for me as it's way to cliche, but there is something to follow for those who are looking for that. The Prince always finds himself in a situation that looks unescapable, but then he remembers he's the freakin' Prince Of Persia *lightbulb* He can run along walls, leap from one wall to another, run up a wall and backflip, etc...You get it? He can manipulate the hell out of a wall. The best thing about these moves is that they can be linked together to get where the Prince needs to go.

Now to answer your question. "Do all these things feel comfortable to the player and more importantly, look good?" Damn right they do. Amazing controls and visuals. The fighting is seemless and the camera maintains a pretty good grasp on the action. You'll be whippin' up on 4 to 5 foes consecutively on most occasions. All of them require different strategies as well. My only arguments are with the L trigger which is used for all of the time manipulating tricks. Different variations of way that the player presses the L trigger offers different moves. Sometimes you don't get the move you want, but it's rare. The other bicker is with the wall maneuvers. Sometimes Prince decides he wants to backflip instead of run sideways resulting in unavoidable death. "But wait" you say, "can't the Prince rewind time?" Yes, indeed he can. The rewinding of time is based souly upon your time meter though. If you're not careful you'll end up not having enough left of your time meter to save yourself, which will then send you to your last save or checkpoint.

Some other things people need to know is that Prince Of Persia isn't set up like most games with power-ups littered throughout the stage waiting to be picked up by you. Prince gains health by drinking water, and he gains sand for his sand tanks by draining it from his fallen foes. His leveling up is a mirror of the Legend Of Zelda games, going to a fountain occasionally to build up his life bar and his sand tank capacity. The unlockable Nintendo Prince Of Persia's are looked upon as extra replay, but I dont see it as anything more than a novelty because they're just way to frustrating and behind in times. Some might find them as fun, but most won't find any entertainment here. As far as play time, Sands Of Time lasted me a solid 10 hours, give or take an hour. I seriously doubt you will only play through it once though. It's way to fun.

9.5/10

---Frayed