Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

"Possibly one of the most frustrating games ever..."

I bought this game when it first came out for the Gamecube (back when EB ran that "get a free copy of Splinter Cell when you buy Prince of Persia" promotion that lasted about a week), admittedly more for the free copy of Splinter Cell than PoP. I had seen my friends play it and I thought it looked okay but I wasn't really interested in owning it right then. At any rate, I played it and I kinda liked it. The only problems I had with the console version were that it was short and the enemies were waaaaay too cheap. Other than that, it was a solid game. Time warp one year later. I get a new graphics card for my new computer and what games come free with it? Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and Prince of Persia. "Hey," I thought to myself, "free games to try out my new card!" So I installed them both and began to play. That's when everything went wrong. That's when UbiSoft started raping my memories of this game...

Graphics - 8.5 (Nice... but not that nice)

I have a wonderful new machine. It runs every new game on full resolution with no slowing. This game was no exception. It's sharper and clearer than the console version. Utterly fantastic... but... not quite "oomph" enough. Sure, it's sharper and clearer than the console version, but so what? There just isn't anything to set this apart or make this stand out, especially when you compare it to other games like Thief: Deadly Shadows (it came out 6 months later), there's just no flavor here. Good, but alas, not a 10.

Sound - 5 (Par for the course)

The music is forgettable, but not annoying. The SFX are accurate. Nothing really spectacular here, but nothing to complain about. Blah.

Story - 6 (At least it's more interesting than the sound)

To put it bluntly: you're not going to play this game for the story. Boy causes cataclysm. Boy and girl survive. Boy tries to fix cataclysm with girl. Hurray. No big twists, no surprises, and only one major paradox that you have to suspend your disbelief for. Blah +.

Gameplay - 2 (GRAAAHHH!! Hulk smash!)

Now we get to why this game got a 4. This is by no means a hard game. It is, in fact, quite simple and formulaic. The game even holds your hand by SHOWING you what you need to do next every step of the way (by the way, this brilliant little feature is found at the save points so once you finish a tricky area, you get to see what you're going to do next. Isn't that lovely? I suppose you could just turn your head until the sounds stop though...). The reason it's frustrating though is for two reasons:

1. The camera is impossible to position correctly (and KEEP it in a somewhat appealing position).

2. The enemies are dead CHEAP.

Reason one basically explains itself. It seems as though every 3D adventure game has had this problem. The console version is much better than the PC version in the this regard though. This game has the tendency to replace the camera for you, as though it knows which way it's easiest for you to see and you don't. Once the camera got replaced inside of a tree in the middle of a battle. I saw nothing but bark for several seconds. Thank goodness I'm a good gamer and I was able to not get hit during my bark-viewing time. The other thing about the camera is that you're constantly wrestling with it. I say wrestling because it's as though the game is fighting you for control of the camera. You try to angle it behind yourself and if there should be an object in the way of the camera, it jerks the camera back to where it was. Keep in mind that your directional controls are in relation to the way the camera is facing. Isn't that fun?

Reason two is the reason the Rewind function was included in the game. I'm 100% positive of that. No, it was not the other way around. This is how the enemies fight you: three or four surround you and wait for you to attack one of them. You attack one and he blocks. While you're reeling from being blocked, the other three attack YOU. You can't help but get hit because you can't dodge after you've just blocked. You don't like getting beaten to shreds for being blocked once so you Rewind. You go back to before you swung your sword and try to jump out of the circle. You jump out and wrestle for the camera until you can face one guy alone. The enemies TELEPORT behind you and surround you instantly and before you can say "WTF?" you're in the same position you were ten seconds ago. Oh, and if you should happen to get knocked down and you don't get up fast enough, the enemies can hit you while you're on the ground. The enemies can also hit you when you're trying to draw sand from one of the other fallen enemies, then block you so you can't finish off that one you just got prevented from finishing off. In other words, you are this game's punching bag and you will quit the game a number of times before you finish it.

Control - 4 (Thank the camera for your low score, control)

The controls are only tolerable. The control scheme works wonderfully on an analog control pad. On a digital keyboard, it suffers horribly. Want an example? Here are two! You're on an edge (as you often are in this game) and you want to drop down and hang on. You tap forward, so as not to go flying off the edge in a full sprint. You step up to the edge and do that "ack! I'm about to fall off an edge!" reeling back thing (you know, like Sonic did in his games, only you step back afterward so you're right back where you started). You have to hit it just right or else you'll be Rewinding again and again. The other example is this: you're on a very narrow platform and you want to turn. You don't just face a new direction. You go forward and turn slightly until you're fully turned. Lastly, as I stated in the score blurb, the camera really hurts the controls. You're constantly having to move the camera out to one of the eight directions (Up, Up-Right, Right, Down-Right, Down, Down-Left, Left, Up-Left) so you can have half-way decent control. Annoying is a good word for it.

Overall - 4 (as stated, not an average, either)

Compared to the console version, this game is seriously lacking, to say the very least. Compared to other PC games, it's merely okay: not something you'd want to spend your money on, but if it comes free with a graphics card, hey, why the hell not play it?

PROS:
- Looks sharp and clear.
- Might come free with your graphics card.
- Disc 1 doubles as a coaster while you're playing.

CONS:
- Camera, controls, and the all too common fights are unbearably frustrating (shameful, really).
- Might come free with your graphics card (instead of a better game).
- Graphics lack flair and style.
- Might result in you needing to buy a new keyboard and mouse due to fatal frustration wounds inflicted upon them.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/05