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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Review for Xbox
Posted on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 @ 08:41:35 pm E.S.TUbisoft has been on a hit streak lately. Starting with last year’s superlative Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, they’ve had a string of big releases—some good (Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 and Beyond Good and Evil), some passable (Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Island Thunder and XIII). With Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Ubisoft has cemented their presence as a major player in the gaming business. A few falters notwithstanding, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is an eminently enjoyable and absorbing game that’s easily recommended to just about anyone.
Seemingly taking its inspirations from such a diverse range of sources as the Matrix, Aladdin, and most manifestly SCEA’s critically acclaimed Ico (like it or not, comparisons to that stellar game are unavoidable), The Sands of Time is nothing if not extremely stylish. Its intriguing tale of time distortion, treachery and the threat of eternal damnation is told outstandingly, with high production values and great voice acting. The graphics and art direction are top-notch, and the animation is some of the best you’ll see in any game this year. The Prince may do some impossible physical acts, but the animation definitely makes it look believable—and damn cool.
Yikes, that looks like it might sting.
The lavish visuals are backed up by extremely fluid gameplay, with a control scheme that’s highly intuitive. The Prince can do a lot of different moves and actions, but pulling them off is never complicated. Similar to Ico (you were warned), the crux of the game is in puzzles involving the environment, which is to say that you’ll essentially be figuring out how to utilize all of the Prince’s moves to get from point A to point B, and then try to put that plan into action. While that might not seem like enough to build an entire game around, excellent level design makes each new environment a thoroughly and consistently compelling challenge. The game starts out simple enough, with an awesome opening (which has the Prince infiltrating a palace while a large-scale battle is occurring elsewhere in the distance) that acts as a tutorial, teaching you the Prince’s myriad of moves. As the game progresses, the level design and challenges steadily become more ingenious, complicated, and of course, difficult.
It helps that the Prince is almost as athletic and maneuverable as Spider-Man. He can run up walls, run across walls for a short distance, climb and swing from ropes, and quite a bit more. But his most powerful ability is his control over time. Early in the game, the Prince comes into the possession of the Dagger of Time (a weapon that’s as central to the game’s story as it is to its gameplay), and with it he will eventually be able to slow time down, speed it up, and most importantly, rewind it. While speeding up and slowing down time is useful in the right situations, it’s the rewind ability that you’ll use the most. Thought your leap would be great enough to carry you to that far-off cliff, but the results ended in catastrophic death? Hit rewind and try again. It’s a well-implemented mechanic that essentially replaces, but puts an original and intriguing spin on, the standard “extra lives” gameplay device. And the ability is kept from being abused by the fact that your time-altering powers are fueled by the titular sands of time, represented as a bar of individual sand tanks, each allowing a single use. Die with empty sand tanks, and it’s game over.
Another Ico similarity (you don’t say?) is that the Prince is saddled with a princess for most of the game. Unlike in Ico, though (whose girl’s severe indolence was just a few steps shy of being completely comatose) PoP’s Farah is actually useful. Being smaller than the Prince, she can crawl through cracks to reach areas (and switches) that the Prince can’t. (Why she even needs to bother with cracks is called into question, since Farah also seems to have the uncanny ability to teleport to places that takes the Prince great acrobatic feats to reach.) Although you never have direct control over her, the capable AI ensures that she always goes to where she needs to go, and does what she needs to do. She even pulls her weight in a fight, using her bow and arrows to attack enemies, although not necessarily from afar—sometimes forcing you to protect her in addition to yourself.
Besides traversing insane terrain like a circus acrobat, the other portion of PoP’s gameplay is fighting sand zombies, scarabs and vultures. Like so much else in the game, the combat certainly looks very cool and stylized—think of a fight scene straight out of the Matrix, except with a lot more scimitars and spears. The Prince can jump off of walls, deftly dodge attacks, block and counter, flip over his enemies (often in slow motion), and easily fight off three or four attackers at once. For the most part, the fighting is just as fluid as the platforming portions—fending off multiple enemies is as easy as pointing in their direction, and the Prince will auto-target them.
That's one big bird-monster.
Ultimately, though, the combat portions of PoP are not exactly masterfully conceived, and are in fact where the game stumbles a bit. Throughout the course of the game, no new elements are ever really introduced, which makes fighting eventually feel very repetitive. You do upgrade your sword a few times, but only the very last sword that you receive at the end of the game really makes any difference in a fight. There are also a couple of exploitable moves (hopping over your enemy or wall-jumping over them) that you end up using over and over. The biggest problem, though, is in the pacing; most of the combat set-pieces last way too long, and just when you think you’re finished, another batch of sand zombies spawn in. At a certain point, it almost feels like fights are unnaturally dragged on to artificially extend the game’s length a bit.
The worst offender in PoP, though, is the clumsy camera. Ubisoft opted for an adjustable third-person view, which can sometimes be a little constrictive even when it works, but is even worse when it gets caught up on objects in the game or when said objects obscure your view. A fixed yet mobile camera that you can pan around, like in Ico (last reference, honest), probably would have worked a lot better. There is an option for an “environmental” perspective which fixes the camera and gives a pretty good view of your surroundings, but it strangely cannot be panned around—only allowing you to zoom in and out on the Prince—which makes it sort of useless.
But while the occasional camera hiccup or repetitive fight can be annoying, they’re ultimately forgivable considering how much PoP gets right. While not quite achieving classic status, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a superbly crafted game that has plenty to offer. With excellent gameplay, inspired level design and a great story, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is both worthy and deserving of your time and money.
Review By: Kris Pigna - 4685 Reads
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Review Scores for Xbox :
| Gameplay |
| 9 |
| Graphics |
| 9 |
| Sound |
| 9 |
| Replay |
| 7 |
| Overall |
| 9 |
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