Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

"Its not the best game of all time as some of said....but its very close."

INTRODUCTION:
Many people have considered this game to quite possibly the best game ever...well its not the best ever but it sure is close. I've always wanted to play this game once I saw previews for it but just never went out to get it. I just happened to play it when a friend brought it over, and I couldn't stop playing it until I beat it...

STORY:
The Prince of Persia steals the Dagger of Time from a rival king of his fathers. When he gets the dagger he soon realizes that it holds astonishing powers. The King's Adviser (I guess that is what you would call him) convinces the prince to unlock the sands of time, and turning all of the people of the town into sand people. Eventually, the adviser tries to take the dagger to rule the world. The Prince teams up with a girl, Farah, to try to fix what he has done.

GRAPHICS: (8/10)

Now don't shoot me for giving it an 8. There are reasons I didn't give it a 10. But first, let me start by saying that this is one of the most beautiful games that I have ever seen. The character models look superb. The environments look amazing, the video sequences were great, everything was wonderful. But you may be asking yourself...If I like everything then why is it an 8? Well the graphics are great....but I also include camera in this section as well...and well..in my opinion it could have used work. During a lot of the times, for me anyway, the camera was a bit awkward. Especially at times when I had to jump from a wall to a thin pole...I looked even but when I jumped off I wasn't even close. So they should have had a way to move the camera in a better way to see. Now this was a rarity, but it did happen some of the time. Other than that there is nothing wrong with the graphics at all.

SOUND: (10/10)

Ahh...the sound....freaken amazing. The voice overs were some of the best that I have heard on any game....not the best, but some of the best. The music fit the type of game it was going for perfectly. The sound effects were amazing...there really isn't more to say, everything was superb I couldn't find anything wrong with it.

GAMEPLAY: (8/10)

The gameplay in this game is basically a giant flashback, it is a story told from the point of view of the Prince of Persia. He starts out by starting the story of how he found the dagger and so-on. In the game if you die a menu will load up that will let you start over like in about every game, but when you die the Prince says something like "No wait...that didn't happen" or "No wait, let me start over" or something like that. I personally liked that and it adds to the gameplay's story driven, action-adventure style gameplay.

The gameplay itself is quite good. The prince's dagger can rewind time when you have enough sand bags at your diposal. Also when you rewind time, if you are with Farah, she will sometimes mention that 'this seems familiar', which I thought was very good, it adds a little bit extra to the gameplay. At time to time the prince's dagger can get upgrades after beating so many enemies, or after collecting a certain amount of "sand clouds" that you find floating around. The upgrades range from more sandbags to the ability to turn enemies into stone. Also you have a sword for regular purposes and that can get upgraded too. Well not necessarily upgrade but after certain special puzzles you can get better, stronger swords.

The controls for the game are excellent. It is mostly a few button combos to execute moves. The prince has special acrobatic abilities that he can use to jump large gaps or get to high places. The prince can run on walls for a short distance to get across a gap in the floor that you couldn't jump over. He can run up walls and jump backwards to get on a pole or something higher up that he couldn't reach. He can swing on poles, and can shimmy up them too. He can also, if there are two walls directly across from each other, jump from one to the other until he reaches the top. All of these special moves come in handy in various spots in the game.

During the game you can find these special holes in the wall that will lead you to a long bridge with a fountain in the middle, he will drink it and then his eyes will go white and he will wake up right infront of the place where the hole used to be. He will then mention that he feels stronger, (His health will then increase a little bit), this adds a bit to the gameplay because it can allow you to hunt for these special places in a given area and help the prince get stronger. After something important happens you can find this swirling sand tornado(don't know exact name) and you can step into it. The prince will then have a flashfoward look at what he will be coming to in the future, this is also a save spot.

In the game there are tons of spots where you have areas that you have to figure out what to do, and are certain 'puzzles' I guess you would call it, where you have to figure out a certain way to obtaining something. This is quite enjoyable at times, but sometimes it can be very frustrating. For example there is this one area where you have to run through a certain pattern of doors to get out of the area and find Farah. If you go through the wrong door you get sent back to the beginning and you have to start the pattern all over again, this takes quite some time and is very frustrating.

The fighting itself is quite fun, but it can get a little repetitive, but most of the time it isn't. During battle the prince can use his acrobatic moves, such as, he can slice the enemy with his sword and can then jump over him with a backflip and stab him in the back to finish him off. If next to a wall he can slice the enemy a few times and then jump off the wall and lunge forward with his dagger killing the enemy. Once you get an enemy on the ground you have to stab him with your dagger to fully defeat him, but doing so you will refill one of your sand bags, so this is a good thing.

If you get injured in battle you are going to have to hunt down a fountain of a lake of somesort, because in the game if you drink water your health bar fills up. The combat can be challenging at time and some times very easy. Some of the creatures you can't attack directly because they will block it, but if you vault over them you can quickly attack them from behind and that will work just fine. But some enemies, if you try to vault over them they will knock you to the ground, so you have to come up with other means off attacks. Most of the bigger foes, an easy way to take them down, if you get close to a wall and jump off it lunging forward at them it will easily knock them down and you can finish them off with your dagger, the fighting style ranges from different monsters.

The game isn't that hard, and the big problem is that the final boss is the easiest thing in the entire game. Most of the time he will multiple and disappear and reappear in different areas but you can easily take him out.

REPLAY VALUE: (8/10)

In Prince of Persia there really isn't much to unlock. You can get a code to unlock the original Prince of Persia game in 3-D, which is quite good in its own rights. But just because there isn't something to unlock doesn't mean there is no replay value. The Prince of Persia is such a fun game that I could play it all the time if I owned it...but I don't.

OVERALL VIEW:

The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is a classic. Everyone should play it atleast once in their life. The environments are beautiful, the characters are great, the sound is superb, the gameplay is awesome, there are very few things wrong with this great game.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?:

GO AND BUY THIS THING!!!!!!! Matter of fact, right now it is only $19.99, and when Prince of Persia: Warrior Within comes out (November 16, 2004) go check that out to, im sure it will be great.

SCORE:
GRAPHICS: 8/10
SOUND: 10/10
GAMEPLAY: 8/10
REPLAY VALUE: 8/10
AVERAGE: 8.5/10
GameFaqs Score: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/11/04