Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

"This is getting ridiculous, can Ubisoft actually make a bad game?"

INTRODUCTION
Love them or hate them, you have to admit that Ubisoft have this knack of consistently producing high quality titles. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is no exception to this fact. Some may say this game lacks longevity, but what you can't deny is that this game provides some compelling and challenging acrobatic adventuring.

GRAPHICS
Prince of Persia looks very crisp and detailed. The Prince animates smoothly and fluidly. He can jump, swing, climb and do many other actions all with the flawless motion you would expect from this kind of title. The many enemies also animate pretty well, but they do seem a bit rigid at times. As for the environments... they are as grandiose as they are original in their design. The whole game takes place in and around a Persian palace. This being the case, the areas are far from uninspired. Each new section you will get to adds to the anticipation of continuing further into the game. The developers did an excellent job of designing these often complicated and ambitious environments so that an acrobatic character can successfully negotiate them.
While there isn't much instances of spectacular lighting in this game I must say this; there is no pop-up, no frame-rate jumps and definitely no bland or uninspired textures. Graphically the whole game reeks of high production values. Trust me, this is one of the best looking games on Gamecube

GAME-PLAY
The Prince can do many highly skilled actions. For instance he can hang off ledges and jump backwards or run along walls and then jump off them. However, it's not called the sands of time for nothing. Without giving anything away, the Prince is lucky enough to be able to reverse time. As a result, if you have enough sand tanks left you can, in theory, fall to your death and then reverse time and promptly, well, avoid falling to your death. It's a great concept that allows the game to give the player a certain amount of forgiveness if they make a blunder. Rest assured though, make too many blunders and run out of sand in your sand tanks, you will die. Reversing time not only works for falling to your death but also for combat.
This is the one sticking point I have with this game. It's not that combat isn't fun, it is. Its just sometimes getting past certain combat stages, of which there are many, is very hard. Close to the end of the game I was on the verge of throwing my controller across the room because killing off this seemingly endless stream of enemies kept getting the better of me. You see, combat isn't random... you don't encounter an enemy, kill it and then continue on with your acrobatic endeavors. What actually happens is, you will explore a level and then suddenly get to a point where you have to kill a whole bunch of enemies to proceed. You can't run away, you simply have to grin and as they say, slice the living daylights out of those monsters. Combat for the most part is pretty intuitive. The Prince can jump over enemies; block attacks and perform counter attacks. You can use your special powers to reverse time and avoid getting killed and you can also slow down time, which is a big advantage. As well as this you can freeze your opponents too which, add the ability of mega freeze, makes dispatching those troublesome monsters just a bit easier.
As you progress through the game you can gain power ups to increase your health and also to increase the amount of sand/power tanks you have. It's a nice touch which does tend to compel the player to explore everywhere if they want to get a timely health bar or tank capacity boost.
Like most games available these days, you can only save the game at save spots, this is where those troublesome combat situations can get the better of you. If you die at the hands of a whole bunch of goons you have to restart at the last save spot. Don't get me wrong though this saving setup suits the game and its dynamic very well.
Added to the game-play mix is the fact that the Prince has a companion during the majority of his adventure. This means that sometimes you have to protect your companion during combat, which puts a fresh spin on things. However, you also have to co-operate with your companion to solve quite a few puzzles too.
Unfortunately, Prince of Persia is quite a short game. You may complete it within 7 or 8 hours. Also the final stand off between the prince and his arch rival is as anti climatic as it is challenging. This being so, there is still plenty of bang for your buck to be had. The game is fun and you can also unlock the original Prince of Persia to play at your leisure.

SOUND
The aural qualities of this game are reasonably good. The Prince sounds convincing and his constant arguments with his companion and with himself are as humorous as they are revealing. The music is okay and the sound effects during combat and acrobatics are pretty cool. When you reverse time, the game sounds get reversed too. Whether or not this is how the effects would sound in real life, you can only guess. However, Ubisoft makes reversing time sound genuinely realistic.

OVERALL
If you are willing to overlook this game's reasonably short life, the sometimes frustrating combat and it's lackluster final battle between the prince and his nemesis, I can't recommend Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time enough. The character development that occurs during the adventure is quite exceptional, and the ending will leave you lamenting what could have been for our unlucky protagonist. As it turns out the story and its ending are quite sad and you never once question the Prince's motives. He is as honorable as he is cool.
Well done Ubisoft, you have delivered another exceptional game to everyone who owns a Gamecube. Feel the love Nintendo loyalists.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/07/04