"Now, If only I could re-wind time in real life..."

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is Ubi-Soft's most recent dive into the console world, and it sure is a great one. This is quite possibly one of the funest games I've played. EVER. It's not perfect, but it sure does come close.

STORY - 10/10

Wow. Just... wow. The nameless Prince is tricked by the Vizier of the kingdom to release the sands of time contained within a giant hourglass, effectively changing everyone in the kingdom into Sand Zombies, minus the Prince; Farah, a princess-turned-slave; and the traitorous Vizier.

One of the things that makes this game incredible is that this game is being told by the prince the whole time. If you die, the Prince will say something to the effect of ''No, No, that's not what happened.'' When you save, the Prince says ''Fine, I'll start the story from here next time.'' At different points throughout the game, he'll start talking about what has previously happened, or what he thinks of Farah, etc. It's a really cool story, with an even cooler ending. Let's just say - I was amazed with what Ubi-Soft did with this game's story at the end.

GAMEPLAY - 8/10

There are pretty much two different parts to gameplay - puzzle-solving and combat. Puzzle solving in this game is AWESOME. There's no other way to describe it. There’s no getting lost – at each save point, the Prince has a premonition which tells him what he should do next. Most of the game is navigating through mazes. The Prince can do so much - from running across the wall, to wall jumping up (and down!) huge chasms, to swinging on poles. All of the Prince's acrobatics are incredibly easy to do, so there's no fumbling with buttons to get a move off. But say you do mess up, and start to fall to your death - That's where the dagger of time comes in. You can actually rewind time in this game. Let's say you make a jump, but miss the platform. No problem! Just hold down the rewind button, and VOILA, you watch everything you just did in reverse for 10 seconds (or until you let go of the trigger)! As long as you have filled sand tanks (which you can fill by killing enemies, or by finding sand wells), you can rewind time. Basically, this is a platformer without constant falls to your death, which is the bane of ANY platformer fan. However, this also makes the game really easy - You never die, and you find out what doesn't work very quickly. Another problem is that, for the most part, it is very obvious on what you have to do to continue on / solve the puzzle. Pretty much, everything lines up perfectly, and it's very obvious. Also, one of the moves in the game is so overused, after a while, you end up using that move when you don't know what to do - and you usually end up being right. However, besides these three flaws, the puzzle-solving is perfect.

And then comes the combat. It's defiantly the worst part of the game. For such a world class acrobat, you'd think the Prince would have more combat moves. Sure, his moves look fancy, but after a while, they become boring and repetitive. That happens because battle itself is boring and repetitive. Monsters keep warping in for no real reason. In the second half of the game, the Prince seems to have to get lucky to hit an enemy, and Farah has a habit of hitting the wrong target. She dies very easily, as she is not a melee fighter - you have to save her often, and it's very annoying. What IS cool about the combat is the fact that you can manipulate time during battle. If you get hit, you can re-wind and actually gain the health back you lost. You can also slow down an individual enemy, or slow down everything to see what’s coming your way easier. You can even speed up yourself and destroy monsters before they even have a chance to react. But in my opinion, the coolness of the time manipulation used in battle is totally offset by the fact that combat is horrible.

GRAPHICS – 10/10

This game just looks good. From the Prince’s moves, to the different character models, to the water effects, the game just looks great. I especially like all the clouds of sand lying around all over the place.

SOUND – 9/10

I really like the music and the sound effects also. The sound effects sound realistic for the type of surface the prince is running/walking on. The sword clashes sound realistic too, which adds to the depth of the game. The sound effects are really well done. Same thing with the music – That’s really well done, also. My only complaint is that there should be more music – I really like the re-mixed Arabian music.

MISC –

You can actually unlock and play the original Prince of Persia, which only adds to the replay value if you ask me. I beat the game in about 10 hours, the perfect length for this game. It sounds kind of short, but by the time you start to get sick of the puzzles, the game is over, which is very nice and adds replay value to the game.

Rent / Buy – I defiantly recommend this game to be purchased for the Gamecube, and I can imagine it’s just as good (if not better) on the PS2 and X-Box. Don’t miss out on this gem.

AVENGER’S ANALYSIS (NOT an average) –
STORY – 10/10
GAMEPLAY – 8/10
GRAPHICS – 10/10
SOUND – 9/10
FINAL SCORE – 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/03