Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time(IMG:
http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/images/2003/all/boxshots2/589719.jpg)
TITLE: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
PUBLISHER: Ubisoft
DEVELOPER: Ubisoft
DATE RELEASED: November 12, 2003
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 1
XBOX SYSTEM LINK: No
XBOX LIVE COMPATABLE: No
HDTV Support: 480p
5.1 Surround Sound: yes
GENRE: Action/Adventure
PLATFORM: XBOX, Playstation 2, GameCube, PC
ESRB: Teen
Retail Price: $49.99
Overall, a great game, one that you should rent/borrow and play non-stop til you finish it.
This is a third person adventure game, with about 60% puzzles / %40 combat. Puzzles including all that awesome jumping and swinging around that you need to do.
The Controls:
The controls are the typical left stick moves, right stick views (changes camera angle).
White/black changes camera perspective to Scene, and first person, respectively, and both are very useful and very cool parts of the game. You will need to learn to change your perspective to see the scenery properly. (That and hitting the Scene perspective to admire the graphics is a good move.)
The first thing that you will notice is the amazing graphics and scenery from Persia. Often times during the game I had to stop and just admire the view. They really outdid themselves. Really. The game is worth getting for this alone, but it has so much more to offer.
Another very awesome part of the game is the movement. You can run along walls, up walls, swing from trapeze, climb ledges, scale along walls by your hands, leap from wall to wall. So many times in other games I came to a point and said, 'Why can't I just climb that fence, or jump down the wall, it doesn't look that far', well here you can. You can jump down almost anything.
Something very new they added to my delight was the 'Sands of Time'. You can rewind the game (up to about 10 seconds) when your dagger is charged up. This makes it easier to try things that result in your death, and makes combat (which is always about 10 or 20 to 1) possible too. Other powers of the Dagger let you slow down time (which looks damn cool), and freeze enemies.
Combat is awesome. Not too crazy difficult, not too easy, and very entertaining. The moves Prince pulls off are amazing-looking. He has alot of special maneauvers that are easy to pull off, and even in regular attacks he pulls off sweet-looking maneauvers. Firing yourself off walls, running up an opponent, leaping over his head and killing him on the downswing is just pure killing glee, and they do cut-scene slow-mo's at times too which makes it even cooler. (and the cut scene slow-motion is smart, too. After the first few times it decreases in frequency so you don't get annoyed).
After you kill an enemy with your sword you have to suck out his soul with your dagger. This charges the dagger, but more importantly adds another level to combat. Killing the enemies is not good enough anymore, you have to suck their soul, and you are temporarily vulnerable during that time, so you need to keep your wits about you as well.
The puzzles are fun and not terribly difficult, the voices are excellent, and the story is good, if short.
The game overall isn't very difficult, I finished it in under 12 hours. However that is some of the best 12 hours I have ever spent.
The downsides: The only thing that got me annoyed with this game is the same thing that gets me annoyed with any 3rd person fighting game. The camera autoshifts to what it thinks is proper perspective and often that is a flawed view. You can easily fix it with your controller, but still, annoyances.
Because of the short nature of the game, I suggest renting/borrowing. But definiately get it. You will not be disappointed.
Overall: 9.2/10
This post has been edited by DuDeR MaN: Jan 24 2004, 04:40 AM
Author
Topic: Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time - Ntsc (Read 209 times)