Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time : Web Wombat : Games

Today's prince drives a fully-appointed, V8-powered BMW X5 with satellite navigation, while the prince of a bygone Persian era got by with a supercharged camel and the stars over his head.

Today's prince is often completely boring and void of any substance, while yesterday's prince (and in particular the Prince of Persia) was a sword-fighting maniac, who was just as happy to spill the blood of his enemies as he was playing backgammon with his father, while drinking Lap sang Soo Chong tea.

Which leads me to this point - I'm glad they decided to make 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time', rather than 'Prince of Wales: Will He Marry Britney'.

From the get go, Ubisoft's new action adventure game is utterly playable. Beyond the amazing visuals that give the Prince his three dimensions, the gameplay is strangely reminiscent of the original Prince of Persia games, circa 1990, which is a very good thing for those who never had the chance to check out Borderbund's thought-provoking title.

Back then, it was all about jumping across deep spike-filled pits, figuring out how to get past the magic mirror and fighting off evil henchmen with your sword. Though the midi-music is gone, and the resolution cranked up beyond 320x240, plus another dimension added for improved depth, the feel, or the vibe of the game is still very faithful to the original.

He's like the 790 A.D version of
British super spy James Bond 007

In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PoP), the majority of your game-playing time will be spent sprinting around the place at excitement inducing speeds. You see, he's an athletic dude, this Prince, who during three other outings (Prince 1, Prince 2 and Prince 3D) has honed his skills and has heaps of moves at his disposal.

The game is played from a third-person perspective, or over the shoulder, but the floating camera can be manipulated in a number of ways, and rarely gets snagged or glitched into an irrevocable situation.

Anyway, from this third-person perspective, you can make old Princey jump, run vertically along walls to avoid perilous falls, swing around on horizontal flag poles like a Russian gymnast and generally defy gravity.

There's also a nice array of combat moves too, one of which involves doing a straight-bodied forward flip over you foe, and just when you're poised vertically above him (halfway through the flip), you strike down with your sword, landing in a crouched pose. It's very Matrix, but most won't care when it looks this good.

Level design is, by and large, very impressive. Beyond all the physical puzzles you must solve, such as getting past spike traps, avoiding harmful obstacles and jumping across huge crevasses, there's a lot to like.

Plenty of old-world Persian architecture is in there, and while it may not please the draftsmen of downtown Istanbul with it generic nature, most will be more than happy with what's on offer, and it helps lend the game a more authentic flavour.

Old Princey decides to quit the 'save the world'
caper for a starring role in Pirates of Penzance

There's also a lot of levels that have been cleverly designed to make the most of the Prince's huge array of moves. For example, you may enter a room and the camera will seamlessly pan across to a treasure that you must retrieve. Let's say a gold-plated Llama wearing a kilt.

You must figure out how to get there, which usually involves edging your way along the walls, by hanging precariously from the ledges, avoiding Indianna Jones-esque blade and crushing traps, only to have to run and then dive for another ledge after finding a solid platform, and perhaps running vertically along another wall just for good measure.

Actually getting the Prince to perform all these crazy moves is surprisingly easy - the control scheme is well sorted, and despite the high number of moves, many are context sensitive to the action button, which helps reduce confusion.

The camera is also a tasty piece of work, with easily configurable angles and a panorama view, which frames each room from a unique perspective.

The combat, while fairly straightforward, is quite cool, as you battle mostly demonic sand beasts. The story reads that your and your old man, King Sharaman of Persia, decide to take on the Indian Maharajah and steal all his treasure.

This stage of the game makes up the tutorial, at the end of which you recover a priceless dagger and a massive hourglass.

The Prince shows off his
vertical wall running trick

The two items combined can give their possessor immortality, which only the devious Vizier knew. Instead, you unwittingly unleash The Sands of Time from the massive hourglass upon Vizier's request, which turns almost all of the Kingdom's inhabitants into sand freaks hell-bent on eating your entrails and slashing the hooves of your supercharged camel.

So, with the Dagger of Time you must put a stop to the evil that was unleashed, and hopefully make Vizier pay for his treachery by pulling his arms from his sockets.

With dagger in hand, you get to slice and dice many a beastie - large and small, but mostly slow. Combat looks great, as you can really whip out the combos quickly thanks to you quick pace, and blocking works well too.

You actually fight with two weapons - your trusty Persian sword and the Dagger of Time, allowing for some twin-weapon Soul Calibur-inspired moves.

Furthermore, you'll need to impale each and every sand freak with the Dagger of Time to completely rid them of the material world, which tend to look somewhat reminiscent of a fatality, such is the flamboyant manner in which the Prince stabs them.

For each baddy you impale with the Dagger of Time, you get a boost to your time meter, and with this time 'currency' you can perform some rather outrageous moves, though thankfully not the Funky Chicken.

Firstly, there's rewind, which is good if you jump into a pit full of dogs that shoot bees from their mouths when they bark. Or, failing that, it's useful if you die.

When Persians get cold, they hug trees

You can also slow down time, freeze enemies in a temporal limbo, speed up the effect of time on yourself (allowing you to slice and dice at an incredible rate), and lastly you have an ability to see visions.

The manipulation of time adds a fascinating element to the game, opening a huge number of possibilities for any one obstacle - and the rewind feature alone makes for a far less frustrating game.

I reckon all action adventure games should have a Dagger of Time. It'd be tops, and I'd have far fewer broken controllers.

The moves and actions your hands will be in control of will make your eyes bulge, and then finally explode in a mess of ocular fluid - which can be quite painful. The Prince is one very fine looking nobleman and at first glance, I instantly thought of a Disney movie (Aladdin).

The animation is exceptionally smooth, and the Prince moves so fluidly and lithely it's uncanny. A high frame rate helps, but also some exceptionally detailed animation, where developers from the Ubisoft Montreal studio have painstakingly modelling frame after frame of princely prancing, the end result a stylised and immersing visual feast.

The Prince himself isn't the highest poly character you've ever seen, but the texturing is cartoony cool, and combined with the fluid animation it makes for what is one of the best looking games to come along in quite some time. The physics engine is also pretty good, allowing you to go a little crazy, while still adhering to the basic rules of gravity.

There's also plenty of particle effects for those who love sparks, dust and sand, and together with the unorthodox visual style, akin to that of a cartoon, it works brilliantly in this instance.

Something about two birds and one idiot?

Soft volumetric lighting is also used to good effect, lending a game a wistful, almost magical look.

The game's shelf life is pretty good too, and though some will be able to finish it within a week, most will play for far longer, and there's also the original Prince of Persia games hidden away in there too (see the cheats page).

The atmosphere and setting that Ubisoft Montreal has created - combining music, ambient sound, gobsmacking animation, Middle Eastern culture and grandiose architecture - is sublime, it really is.

And a Prince of Wales just wouldn't work with all those scandals. Maybe in a few years?

This game blew away all my preconceptions and is, thus far, my favourite game this year. Though there could have been more attention paid to some extra outdoor levels, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is hard to fault.

I'm no great fan of these action-adventure games, but this one's the dogs bollocks, as my old man would say. It's easily one of the most creative, engrossing and wholly fun platform games I've played in this 128-bit era, and I can't wait for the next PoP game.

Game: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
System: Xbox
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Distributor: Ubisoft

Rating: 95%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is on the shelves now.

	Announcement