Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Preview

The very first Prince of Persia title appeared back in 1989. Back then, the Arabian prince took the PC gaming community by storm, literarily changing the nuts and bolts of game development. A whole new gameplay concept was introduced and the industry saw an incontestable breakthrough in character animation. Prince of Persia was the first game to pioneer characters animated over a video sequence, in order to convey a realistic sense of movement and hand-to-hand combat. The man directly responsible for this revolutionary achievement was one Jordan Mechner, who shortly after that got accredited as one of the industry’s leading game designers. It didn’t take too long for Mindscape to publish a full blown sequel, which also met with a huge response. Finally, in 1999, Ubi Soft developed Prince of Persia 3D, striving to evoke the ever-popular spirit of the original in fully rendered 3D surroundings. Regrettably, its unveiling never measured up to the success of the first game. Almost fifteen years after the release of Prince of Persia, Ubi Soft decided to treat us to another incarnation in the legendary franchise. Closely collaborating with Jordan Merchner, Ubi Soft Montreal developed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time for next-generation consoles and PC. The recently launched console version already received excellent feedback from gamers and critics alike. We take the time to rehash the advantages of the game, and offer you a foretaste of the upcoming PC version, which is scheduled to arrive on December 2, 2003.

Wow, did I do that?

Argh, you smudged an entire volume of Shakespeare!

Before we go any further, players should know that apart from Jordan, Ubi Soft also relied on the same team that brought you first-rate titles like Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six 3. Judging from the console version, this definitely brought some pleasing results.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time represents a fresh start and is in no way connected to any of the previous games. The Arabian Nights style story takes place in medieval Persia. Defeating the mighty Maharaja and looting his great palace, a king and his son stumble upon an ancient priceless treasure. As fate would have it, in this pile of treasure lie hidden two extremely powerful items: a swanky-looking hourglass and a strange gleaming dagger. These two magical artifacts have the power to turn their owners into immortal gods. Unaware of their powers and betrayed by an old Vizier, the prince at one point releases the Sands of Time triggering the destruction of the kingdom. The Sands of Time also turn every living soul not into immortal gods, but vicious daemons (bugger! I hate when that happens). Believe it or not, only three characters manage to survive this ordeal: the Vizier, the prince, and a young woman named Farah (now ain’t that convenient). I’m assuming you can speculate how the plot goes from here on. The prince must attempt to set things right and restore the once glorious kingdom. The entire plot unfolds as a narrative, being told by the prince himself. If you die, you’ll hear the prince saying: "No, that’s not how it happened!"

Prominent gaming sites and magazines have been praising the game for weeks now. It appears that, as far as the console versions are concerned, Ubi and Jordan created a worthy continuation of the PoP license. Generally, the game was characterized by many as having several action elements and a look similar to the renowned PlayStation 2 title, Ico. Throughout the game three key components help perpetuate a dynamic and addictive gameplay: navigation, puzzle solving, and, most naturally, combat. Navigating through the areas is actually an excellent gameplay component, reminiscent of the original. Each time players enter a new area, they must carefully consider their next path. All crucial points, such as levers, doors, and passageways, are demonstrated via swift camera fly-throughs. The straightforward puzzles are intermingled excellently into the rest of the game. Puzzle solving involves the usual routine found in many action/adventures nowadays, such as pulling switches and levers, activating certain mechanisms, etc. You won’t be burning any brain cells trying to solve them, but you’ll simply find them to be a well-balanced component of the gameplay. There’s one feature, however, that makes puzzles a bit more interesting. To make his survival and progress easier, our hero can sometimes count on Farah’s slick movement and skills with the bow and arrows. Working in synch, they will open passageways for each other and successfully circumvent any traps or puzzles along the way. You know what they say; it takes two to tango. (Or, it takes an all-girl threesome to get me going! Wait, no, that’s just me. - 2Lions)

So, what makes Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time unique? To begin with, our nimble prince has the knack to pull off amazing stunts and exceptional combat moves, the likes of kung fu masters Sonny Chiba and Jackie Chan. The lead designers were obviously encouraged by Hong Kong action movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. When it comes to gaming, the team claims to have been inspired by titles like Shinobi, Devil May Cry, Tomb Raider, and the Onimusha series. To make things even more exciting, you’ll be able to use wall-running and jumping to avoid traps and perform lethal combos and finishing moves against enemies (slightly similar to what we’ve seen in Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy). In addition to being very agile, the prince gets to wield a powerful dagger, which earns him the right to respawn, or rather, "rewind" time and continue playing after he dies. Actually, each time you continue playing after death, you’ll consume a so-called "sand tank." These can be collected throughout gameplay, but even if players run out, the game will always load up from the most recent auto-save location. Besides having useful magical powers, the dagger comes as an excellent weapon in combat, often convenient for freezing enemies so you can perform cool finishing moves on them. Hm, quite a useful little gadget, this dagger, don’t you think? But that’s not going to be the only weapon in your arsenal. The prince uses a variety of swords and scimitars. When actual swordplay commences, you can issue a series of deadly blows towards foes and you can use a few neat blocking moves to boot.

Now’s not the time to be combing your eyebrows.

Damn, where’s Lara when I need her!

We were pleased to discover that the console versions received excellent feedback from a majority of gamers and critics, with almost no complaints whatsoever. For that reason we hope that the approaching PC port will be appropriately tweaked, unlocking higher resolution modes, and an intuitive keyboard/mouse control system. Generally, stuff like controls and camera movement are handled pretty well, so we expect this aspect to be managed with equal precision and diligence in the PC version.

As far as the visuals are concerned, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has already been declared as an absolute winner. Special care was taken in making the prince, and his foes, move and fight realistically. Well, from what we’ve seen that’s no lie. All models move more convincingly than in any other game seen thus far. Running across walls, jumping, and rolling, demonstrates some significant improvements in 3D character animation. It seems that a great number of gaming editors consider this to be as much of a revolution in game animation as the original was in its time. (That’s no lie, The Sands of Time features the most natural and fluid character animation I’ve ever seen in a game. When the prince jumps it almost seems like every one of his joints and muscles is in motion. - 2Lions) In addition to top-quality character animation, gamers are treated to first-class ambient lighting, exceptional artwork, and assorted architectural styles exhibited throughout the levels. The environment also features realistic geometry, destructive objects, and high level of interactivity - structures will be blown to bits, bridges will fall down, and so on. Due to these features, players can expect to experience a potentially immersive virtual world. Ubi Soft recently uncovered that the PC port won’t be different from the console versions in terms of gameplay and content, save a few minor details, which players will be able to discover for themselves. In terms of visuals, however, we expect to see sharper level geometry and more neatly packed texture patterns. Of course, we only hope these benefits won’t come at the expense of decent frame rate as good frame rate will be crucial to properly experiencing the fluidity of the animation.

The audio doesn’t seem to falter either. During the game, players can hear expert voice acting, authentic sounds of battle (the clang of steel against steel, that sort of thing), and various ambient noises in the background. An understandable addition to the atmosphere is the high-quality soundtrack, with moody tunes composed to correspond with the game’s Middle Eastern motif. Some themes were flavored with a few nostalgic elements from the good old original.

To summarize, this game developed into a success on next-generation consoles and, from what we’ve gathered, the PC version holds equal promise. Thanks to Jordan Mechner, and the creative minds behind Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six 3, (Well some of them anyway, as some left Ubi Soft to join EA. - 2Lions) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time turned out to be an addictive action/adventure. PC gamers should be looking forward to a similarly rewarding experience.