Game: Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft
Genre: Action Platformer
Price: $59.99
Verdict: Rent it first
Pros: Nice “old school” feel of the PoP series, tests your timing skills
Cons: Bad first impressions, button mashy combat, the Prince’s bland face
As any guy (or mother behind him) will tell you, first impressions are everything. When I popped in this latest PoP iteration, I was not initially impressed. This is not a good way to kick off my experience with the Prince. However, now that I’ve finished the game, I feel quite different about the entire experience. Let me explain.
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is the latest chapter in one of Ubisoft’s most well-known franchises. The game’s story bridges the gap in time between the Sands of Time and The Warrior Within. You play (naturally) as the eponymous Prince, on your way to visit your brother, Malik, in his kingdom. Upon arrival, you find that Malik’s palace is under attack by an unknown army; they are apparently after the treasure that is buried deep within the palace itself. As you make your way through the different rooms of the palace, you meet up with your brother. Malik is convinced that the only way to save the treasure and his kingdom is to unleash King Solomon’s Army. The Prince disagrees, to little effect: Malik finds that they he has unwittingly unleashed a worse legion upon the Earth then he could have ever imagined.
Behind the sealed door of Solomon’s treasure is an army of evil, lead by Ratash. Ratash is one of the Djinn –A race of near god like beings that lived long long ago– and he was originally sealed away by King Solomon. Upon his release, Ratash goes on a rampage, destroying huge sections of the palace, unleashing more hellish minions and turning all those that try to stop him into sand sculputures that used to be people. Malik and the Prince are both given half of the seal that allows them to resist the transformation into sand, and fight the army of the dead. The seal is also key to sealing the army of the dead back into the same prison that it was released from.
As the Prince makes his way through his quest to reseal the army and Ratash back in the tomb of Solomon, he is helped by another Djinn named Razia. She grants him powers that she hopes will allow him to accomplish his goal. Unfortunately, Malik doesn’t receive the same help, and is soon seduced by the seal’s power. Once the Prince defeats Ratash with Malik’s help, the spirit of Ratash finds a new host: Malik. Though he wants nothing more than to help his brother be rid of this vile spirit, the Prince soon finds that the only way to help Malik is to kill him. Obviously this isn’t the ideal way to greet a brother but the Prince is left with little choice.
Forgotten Sands is all about the powers that the Prince controls and wields. As with previous PoP games, your main power is the ability to turn back time. This will ALWAYS be the power that you use the most. If you miss-time a jump, or get overwhelmed by a swarm of enemies, it’s just a button click away to get back to a safe point. This is not the only tool in his arsenal, however. Razia also grants the Prince with the ability to freeze water. Not freeze in the sense that he is making a slushy, more like he is just making it stop flowing thus (apparently) making it solid. This allows you to climb up columns of water, or swing from streams of water spraying from a wall. Razia also grants the Prince the ability to do a sort of “aerial dash attack” that allows him to jump large gaps. Finally, the Prince is able to see the “memories” that Razia has of the palace, meaning that the Prince can see and use walls, posts, and poles that actually don’t exist anymore. It seems kinda like a power that was just slapped on at the last second, but it does make for some pretty spectacular combination jumps later in the game.
So why did Forgotten Sands give me such a bad first impression? The visuals. The game starts off and EVERYTHING is brown. You are running through a brown crumbling palace, filled with brown sand, fighting people that are made out of the same brown sand. In addition, the model of the Prince is very bland. I can’t put my finger on it but he just looks unfinished. Malik looks great, he looks alive and human, but the Prince just looks … rough. However, since I played this game for review, I pressed on past my initial first impression, and was glad that I did. Once I made it out of the first section of the Palace, I found myself in the baths, then the gardens, both full of color. Not allowing myself to be put off by the Prince’s lack of “character,” I really started to enjoy the game. The jumping puzzles never really were all that hard to figure out, but offered enough of a challenge that I didn’t feel like it was “a breeze” either.
Now that I’ve finished the game I am completely happy that I stuck it out till the end, despite being turned off in the beginning. The game does have its other issues, of course. Timing in a game like Prince of Persia is key and sometimes the button presses didn’t feel like they registered well, causing me to fall to my (almost) death several times. I hit a couple glitches and several bugs, but most were minor enough to not get specific. It should be noted that this is a HUGE departure from the most recent Prince of Persia game. This one definitely takes you back to the original feel of the series. All in all it is an enjoyable game and well worth a rent for any Prince of Persia fan out there.
Popularity: unranked [?]
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