Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

[GigaPepsiMan]

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

With the Prince of Persia franchise you are always sure of two things, “realistic” platforming and instant Death Traps.

The realistic platforming really needed working on because before The Sands of Time the best realistic platforming going was in the Tomb Raider games and look how they turned out. That old style of platforming was outdated and it nearly killed the Tomb Raider franchise so Ubisoft had to start from scratch. What we got in the end was gameplay that would look right at home in a Wachoski Brothers Matrix flick, the Prince has gone from being slow, clunky to fast, fluid and slick. Oddly enough this style of platforming was so effective that Tomb Raider went and copied it. Since this change the series has followed the formula of run, jump and climb. In all the Prince controls like a dream, the gameplay in this area has been balanced to the point where it feels almost completely fair.
The death traps were always going to be the cause of frustration, players needed an alternative to restarting the level constantly, because of this “The Sands” were introduced to the gameplay giving you the ability to rewind time and fix mistakes such as taking a nasty fall and dying. This mechanic is brilliant because it lets the game keep the risk and reward gameplay while getting rid of the frustration. It also adds some humour to the game allowing you to drop 60 feet and then watch in amusement as you jump straight back up. If you don't like the Prince then you can just drop him in a spike pit over and over again.



The thing I dislike about the likes of Mirrors Edge is how you get a game over whenever you die. This breaks the flow of the game, get rid of that flow and the enjoyment factor just plummets. When you consider that the game is about fast paced, well thought out platforming the last thing you want is for it to be a chore.
The only aspect of the gameplay that can be criticised is the combat which in comparison to the rest of the game feels slow and cumbersome, it is another case of hit the enemy when they are not attacking and block when they are, you can jump over enemies and use a variety of attacks but most of the foes are unaffected by these special moves so you are left having to use the hit and run method which is just dull.

Not to give the game too much credit it does have a few annoying moments with the best examples being a door puzzle that is really nothing more than a guessing game and the fact that the bosses are total pushovers.

I'm not a fan of ratings but they seem to be an unwritten rule of gaming so I give the game 4 1/2 camel heads.

[Hatta]

The thing I dislike about the likes of Mirrors Edge is how you get a game over whenever you die. This breaks the flow of the game, get rid of that flow and the enjoyment factor just plummets.

I dunno, I like dying when I fail. Silly gimmicks just remind you it's a video game. I liked Mirrors Edge because it felt like an 80s platformer. It was never particularly frustrating, because there were checkpoints everywhere. It seems to me if you never die and get sent back, there's little reason to think about what you're doing. That's a big part of the fun of a platformer to me.

[GigaPepsiMan]

The thing I dislike about the likes of Mirrors Edge is how you get a game over whenever you die. This breaks the flow of the game, get rid of that flow and the enjoyment factor just plummets.

I dunno, I like dying when I fail. Silly gimmicks just remind you it's a video game. I liked Mirrors Edge because it felt like an 80s platformer. It was never particularly frustrating, because there were checkpoints everywhere. It seems to me if you never die and get sent back, there's little reason to think about what you're doing. That's a big part of the fun of a platformer to me.

I know what you are saying but the big gimmik for mirrors edge was that it flowed really well. It didn't, the mall stage is the one that made me stop playing because you have that roof jump and the cops shooting at you meaning you can't make the jump.
After a while knocking out a cop, climbing a ledge, taking a leap of faith and dying get boring.

[Hatta]

I mean gimmicks like the sands. There's no fun if there's no risk.

After a while knocking out a cop, climbing a ledge, taking a leap of faith and dying get boring.

Well I did liken it to an 80s platformer. They do get repetetive, they force you to memorize a path, and you do die a lot. But it's still great fun, at least for me.

[GigaPepsiMan]

I know what you are saying but we are far past the age nwhere we would have lives in games. Mirrors Edge is a bit like sonic, you want to go fast but have to stop evey now and then and slow down. This is all well and good but when that slowing down involves doing the same thing over and over then I just find it to be a chore.

[arion]

How do you open the clock back ?

[jfrost]

I recently played Sands of Time as well (for the first time, actually, and I played it after playing the more recent Forgotten Sands).

And, boy, is the combat horrible. Horrible doesn't do it justice. It's beyond horrible. Forgotten Sands's combat is bad too, but nowhere near the awfulness to be found in Sands of Time.

The camera is pretty shitty as well. It often got in the way while playing, and I couldn't even blame it on the game trying to get me a good jacking off angle like in Tomb Raider: Anniversary.

Forgotten Sands improves the camera dramatically. People bash on it, but if you look at it as a remake, I think you'd enjoy it more than Sands of Time (the story is worse, but who cares?).

[pakopako]

I actually liked the simple combat in SoT; the sequel, Warrior Within, made combat more complex than I am used to.

Sands of Time emphasizes hit-and-run, but combat looks great when you're knocking enemies into each other, or torpedoing through them (Psycho Crusher style!) with a rebound attack, or just using the Sands to slow everything down (or speed everything up).

[Gamerforlife]

I thought Sands of Time had one of the simplest, most elegant combat systems I've seen in a game. It was poetry in motion and everything was easy to do for me. Things only got a bit annoying when you had to protect your annoying partner

[jfrost]

You really can find a fan for anything at Racketboy. I thought that combat system was mind numbing.

"Come on, I've already killed 167 skelletons, and there's more?!"