The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Wow!

You know, occasionally, people decide to make a sequel to an ancient game, that was popular back when your grandparents were still popular, just to see if they can cash in on an ancient success, because they're too lazy to think of something themselves.
Prince of Persia was a very enjoyable 2D game released in frigging 1989 (yes, it HAS been that long), which did get a couple of other really crappy sequels, INCLUDING in fact, a Prince of Persia 3D, which sucked Horse-balls.
Once in what is almost a lifetime though, people manage to create a 3D sequel to an old 2D game, that TOTALLY manages to capture the wonderful feeling and gameplay of the original, and even expand and improve on it.

So several years later, the Ubiquitous Ubisoft decided to pay an hommage to this classic of old and release an officious sequel, called Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Gone were the simple dungeon environments with a rather shabby looking prince



And in came the luscious 3D environments, both inside and outside, of an Arabian Palace filled with traps and conveniently placed ladders and poles. Yeah, that makes sense: "Hey Ahmed, as soon as you're finished installing those spikes and rolling blades, make sure there's a ladder and a couple of nice ledges around, to avoid them!"
Logic notwithstanding, the environments were created brilliantly. Not only do they look spectacular, but every room is like a puzzle, in that you have to look closely and think about how you're going to get through, making use of every pillar, every platform, basically anything you see.
To help you out, or perhaps just to impress you with its visuals, the designers offer you a landscape camera, that can be activated by pressing right on the control pad (in the GC version at least). The camera will pan out and show you a VERY WIDE view of your surroundings, so that you can find those elusive ledges and poles, you need so desperately.
It's a good thing the Prince is so agile cos you won't believe the acrobatics you have to pull off in some parts. If he's ever fired from being a Prince, he can always get a job as a pole dancer at some sleezy bar. He'd have to put away his knife though. Probably.

The story is that the Prince (I don't think he has a name) of Persia is tricked by the Evil Vizier (is it EVER anyone else in this kind of story!?) to use this nice little dagger he found in a treasury somewhere on that odd-looking Huge Hourglass and see what happens. Yeah, very clever.
The hourglass contains the Sands of Time, and as soon as the Prince unleashes them, everyone around him is turned into a monster, so it becomes your task to set everything straight again.
The developers were aware of the fact that the story wasn't very interesting in itself, so they decided to make it more appealing by having the Prince tell it in retrospect, which leads to some very amusing dialogue and voice-overs during the game. Especially when you are joined by Farah, a snobby (but Hot) slave girl who knows what's going on and helps the Prince in his quest.
The conversations between the two are delightful, and its especially funny to hear what the Prince really thinks through his voice-over comments. They gave the Prince a nice cocky attitude, slightly self-centered and spoilt, but a nice guy nevertheless. Voice acting is generally very good, and the course of the story has some nice surprises in store as well. Ubisoft have done a great job at making an otherwise meager story into something really fun and interesting, just by presenting it in an unorthodox way.

But what is most fun is the actual game itself. If you're a platform game fan, you won't easily find a game that does platforming better than this one. Let's face it, most platform games aren't really platform games nowadays. They're collect-a-thons for all kinds of stupid items, and they have very little to do with platforming anymore.
PoP: SoT however, goes back to its roots and introduces gameplay that is completely centered around REAL platform jumping, wall running (I LOVE wall running), pole swinging, wall jumping (is Metroid really the only series on earth that sucks at wall jumps?) and what have you.
Most rooms are built very intricately, and sometimes it can be hard to see where you need to grab on to, which is where the Sands of Time come into play.

When the Prince is in possession of the Daggers of Time, he can rewind time to suit his needs. So that means that, should you plummet to your untimely (literally!) death, one press of the L button will whisk you back in time for a couple of seconds, to retrace your steps and try something else, like not dying.
This is a great and very original addition, which makes the game an extreme amount of fun to play, because without it, you would have been dying CONSTANTLY.
You get sand tanks that determine how often you can use these powers (can't have you using them all the time, right?), but generally speaking, there's enough to go around.

But a Video Game wouldn't be a Video Game, it seems, without something to ruin the fun. In this case, the Uberpeople at Ubisoft decided that only platforming would be too boring (would've been fine by me!), so they throw in some really annoying battles. Every once in a while, you have to ward off these Sandy Monsters, but it's just no fun at ALL. Usually they come in HUGE groups, not so much with lots of them at one time, but just an endless string of enemies that'll bore you long before it's over.
Fighting is simply not interesting, despite some nice moves the Prince has, and some "stylish" slow-motion here and there, and it breaks the otherwise brilliant pace of the rest of the game. Also, when you defeat an enemy, the small time indicator at the top left of the screen will reset, so you can't rewind, presumably to avoid enemies regenerating. The problem here, is that you have to deliver a deathblow to every enemy to finish him off, and delivering such a blow will ALWAYS leave you open to attack. When an enemy hits you, he'll usually be able to get several hits in and do major damage, meaning you'll be dead without rewinding options, a little too often.
A damn shame, because even when the fights don't pose a problem, they're still boring and uninteresting, and they really spoil this game from being absolutely fantastic.

As it is, it's "only" really insanely good. Really. Ubisoft have firmly imprinted themselves as a great quality company, despite the fact that they're Canadian, meaning they speak bloody FRENCH, but they have started delivering quality on almost Japanese levels, which is about as big a compliment as you can get from me.
It made sense to me that they're Canadian though, cos a USA company could never have made anything this good.
A 9+ for this one, with a definite "Try this Out" staple.




Incidentally, yesterday was a VERY nice day for me.
I acquired a new student, eager to learn the Japanese language, and, not unimportantly, a great gamer! I'm not ashamed to admit my superior when I say that he TOTALLY kicked my ass at Street Fighter III, but he compensated by lending me a whole SHITLOAD of his games, so I foresee some slight delays in the project.
He lent me a bunch of games I was dying to play, most prominent of which was Shadow of the Colossus.

I think I'll post a nice review of it once I finish, but let me already give you a slight indication of what I think with these four words:

Oh.

My.

Fucking.

God.

I was playing with my jaw on the floor for almost the entire time, this game is INSANE. In a GOOD way. I have never ever EVER been this awestruck by a game, or at least, not in a long long time. It looks absolutely FANTASTIC, and the size of it is impossible to comprehend. You won't believe it until you see it. Pictures do not BEGIN to do it justice, this is a game you have to FEEL. Awesome.
More as it happens!

posted by Ingen! @ 11:02 AM