"Time is an ocean in a storm", certainly a poetic way to start a story, one that attracted a lot of gamers some time ago, back in the late eighties. It was a tale about a young Persian prince that had to overcome odds and save his kingdom from falling. It's diverse innovative gameplay with challenging puzzles and the main character's acrobatic actions made it to an all time classic. After the 3D debacle a couple of years ago many fought the gallant warrior would die a silent death but Ubisoft had other ideas, developing a high budget title with the intention to bring this classic to a whole new level.

Dagger of Time:

Being tricked by Vizier, a devious sorcerer, our prince unleashes the sands of time by using a newfound magical dagger (dagger of time) on an hourglass, a glass that holds the evil gold-coloured sands. From that moment on pretty much every citizen of his fathers empire has turned into some kind of zombie, seeking out to destroy everything in his or her range. One of the few survivors, the charming princess Farah, becomes the sidekick of our hero and together they will try to get things back to normal, to undo the cursed state that the empire has fallen into.

 

The dagger of time, key item in the game, holds great power; he who possesses it can turn back time, slow it, freeze and accelerate it. This way nothing is definitive, should you make a lethal crash, rewind the time, should you be overwhelmed by foes, freeze time and eliminate them easily. Time, so to speak, is literally in the prince hands.

A majestic world:

As you can witness in the little making-of movies of the game, the prince started as a 40-pixel character in the original. A meagre contrast to the prince that stars in the sand of times who is a multi layered polygon character with no less then 750 animations to make him move smoothly. And although the animations of the prince are fluent the character models aren't really that impressive. But not to worry, they have a truly amazing picturesque world in which the adventure takes place; a kingdom with huge palaces, rich gardens, bathhouses and even a royal zoo with exotic animals. All of the visuals were inspired by a lot of Middle East art and French painters.

The rooms that the prince has to cross are a little exaggerated for gameplay and level design convenience but they remain authentic nonetheless. For the musical score Ubisoft hired some expert Middle East vocalists, mixing it up with raw guitar riffs to give it a bolder, more modern edge. And watching the little developer's movies you'll understand why the sfx sound so crystal and realistic.

 

Wall-running:

Our noble prince is more agile than ever, we're talking about Spiderman abilities here. He can jump from wall to wall, vault over enemies, salto his way from pole to pole and run walls both vertically as horizontal, all of this at great pace and with the occasional bullet-time effects. Ubisoft Montreal really put a lot of emphasis on the princes arsenal of moves, also because this was one of the original title's trademarks.

Also typical Prince of Persia game elements are the infamous booby traps; in this game they are often linked to time triggered objectives. This usually means you have to pull some lever that opens a door on the other side of a room, in which you have to cross the room and avoid the spikes and gaps before time runs out and the door closes again, the classic time eating and 'i must do this!' type of thing.

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Hack 'n Slash:

Roughly the gameplay can be categorized in three sections. You have the before mentioned time triggered objectives with the booby traps. Then there are a couple of spicy puzzle elements in the game. Normally these puzzles consist of getting from A to B with the help of certain objects. Now if you think practically and observe the rooms properly you should be able to solve them because its all logically solved. They may be a little hard to see sometimes but certainly not too farfetched.

 

And last but not least there is the hack and slash gameplay in which you have to eliminate a number of fiends. This is where you're dagger comes really in handy. Throughout the game this will probably be the most frustrating part, fighting multiple enemies will sometimes result in not doing what you want your character to do. Also you will have to watch Farah's back, because if she dies, the game is over. Usually a level ends with this slaughter feast, after that you'll be able to save and continue your quest.

Quality over quantity:

Prince of Persia has a medium difficulty level, meaning that the casual gamer could find the game a bit complex and hectic at times while the true die hards are thirsty for more each time they finish a level. They might even be disappointed because of the relatively short time in which it takes to finish the story (about 8-10 hours).

 

However the enthusiasm that the Montreal team had on developing this game can be seen and heard in every detail. Each level is carefully designed and as balanced as possible, and the environments keep on changing so you won't get too bored with the same theme. Anyone with a little sense of videogames cannot deny that this is a title of high quality.

Final say:

Besides a couple of camera issues every now and then and the game's short length I can't say a lot of bad things about this game. The gameplay is solid and easy to learn, the controls are intuitive, it has a wonderful atmosphere thanks to the fine art and music and, above all, stays true to its roots. Prince of Persia: Sand of Times is without a doubt one of the best 3D platformers of its generation.