outlet

This has to be one of my favorite games of all time. Thats saying something seeing as how i own over a 100 different video games across about 5 systems.

This game has everything in it. It has action, platform, and puzzle sections. The action gameplay was my personal favorite, although sometimes it was a little overwhelming. The enemies keep coming and they dont give you time to recover, but i still had the most fun with these segments of the game.

The platform levels are fun. You have your basic set of platform moves, and the prince also has multiple wall running skills which i think would be impossible in real life. The thing about the platform levels that pissed me off was you had to have PERFECT timing. You dont know how many times i died because i jumped to early. The developers give an easy solution to this problem by alowing you to turn back time and correct your mistakes. Without this feature, the platform sections would have been extremely fustrating.

The puzzle sections were challenging, yet not to hard. I got most of the puzzles quickly, without running around the same room for 50 minutes with nothing happening. I hate when that happens, yet that never seemed to happen with this one.

This is almost the perfect game. The only problem is its length, i found it to short. I didnt want it to end. I got wrapped up in the story and just wanted it to continue. I'll be waiting dilligently for Ubisoft to come out with the sequel to this amazing game.

These days, finding the perfect balance of graphics, play control, and plot in a game is like finding a needle in a haystack. Often too much focus is put on one aspect of the game while everything else remains seriously lacking. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time manages to bring a fairly equal balance while adding in a little bit of nostalgia for those of us who remember the original.

The story goes like this: there's this giant hourglass that contains "the Sands of Time" (therein lies the title), the hourglass can only be unlocked using the Dagger of Time. Both are considered treasures, but few know the horrors that will be unleashed if the hourglass is ever opened. Enter the prince...of Persia (and the rest of the title becomes clear), who through the treachery of the Vizier, mistakenly opens the hourglass and releases the Sands of Time turning the entire kingdom into a wasteland filled with sand zombies. Now it's up to the Prince and the Maharajah's daughter, Farah, to stop the zombies and return the Sands of Time to the hourglass.

The story seems a little simplistic, but it's well told. The entire game plays through the Prince's perspective as he narrates the story to someone. If you find yourself dead and needing to continue from a previous save, you'll hear the Prince correct his narration flub by saying "no, no, that's not how it happened", or "I didn't fall there". The narration also helps move the story along while the dialogue between Prince and Farah adds a little humor.

If you've played a Prince of Persia game before, you might as well ignore your previous experience because it won't do you much good here. Half the things Prince can do weren't even dreamt of when the original game was made. Throughout the game you'll have to rely on running, jumping, swinging, tight-rope walking, wall-walking, and combat just to progress further in the game. At times you'll be forced to run along a wall to reach a distant ledge, only to have to leap from the crumbling ledge to a stalactite that's about to fall, leap to another, then another, and finally to a safe ledge. There's little room for error, so enter the Dagger of Time. Using the dagger you can rewind time after you die. Missed that last jump? No problem, just rewind and do it again. Unfortunately you can only do this a limited number of times, and you can only go so far back in time. The dagger also allows you to slow down time, or stop it entirely while giving Prince a speed boost to quickly eliminate enemies. The drawback is that all of this requires sand tanks, sand you can acquire by defeating the numerous sand zombies.

The game controls well, there are few complaints there. Controlling time and numerous save points keep you from getting too frustrated, while cutscenes at save points also give you a glimpse of things to come and provide hints on how to solve puzzles or make your way through an area. If I were to nitpick about anything it would be the fighting. Most of the time you find yourself surrounded by three or more enemies and it becomes difficult trying to defeat them, especially when you have to deliver a killing blow using the dagger to prevent zombies from rising again.

Graphically, the game is gorgeous, and coming from a guy who never uses the word "gorgeous", you know the graphics are good. The lighting is perfect, the game is filled with well rendered locations, and even simple things like realistically moving cloths on the walls make the areas seem almost alive. To top it off fog-like sand covers some parts of the ground adding to the game's atmosphere. The downside is the Prince, Farah, and the zombies aren't rendered quite as well as the backgrounds, but they're impressive.

If there were any glaring downside to the game, it would be the sound. Often the sound makes it feel like you're playing the game with a bucket on your head. It's a shame too, because the voice acting, music, and sound effects are actually decent.

The game isn't long, and it's not all that hard either. There's a fair amount of difficult gameplay that will have you repeating some tasks, but by the time you get really good at the game, it's already over. But the question many of you are asking is "is it worth my precious, hard-earned money?" Well, if you ask me, it is. But I'm still going to recommend renting it first, just to get a feel for it and see what it's all about before you shell out the cash for it. Even if you don't end up buying it, I promise you'll at least get something out of this excellent game.

Let me tell you this game just plain out rocks! Having played my fair share of Ps2 games...this game stands far and wide as one of the best...To be honest it might be one of the funnest games Ive ever played. It starts off like a platformer type game but then some heavy combat comes into play...my girlfriend
and I split up the playing....(since I had rented it)...
we beat it in 7 days,.....she was floored by it...as I was..the graphics are far above most games....smoothe and clear...and his movements are amamzing...you never fall off ledges or die too easy...and the rewind thing is soooo cool!...Im a 37 year old gamer so its really incredible to find a game that just plays so well.
Buy this game...rent it!!! Damn I cant say enough...
you will not be let down my friend....