Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PS3)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time originally released in 2003, and then the HD trilogy released in 2010. It was developed by Ubisoft.

I was at a friend's house the day they got this game, close to its release date. I remember this was the biggest game in the world, everyone wanted it, myself included. Just watching him run across walls and the platforming, it was amazing. It defined platforming for me and helped make it what it is today.

The story follows an unnamed prince, who's seemingly telling the player the story, acting as the narrator. The Prince finds a dagger, that allows him to rewind time. He is tricked into releasing the Sands, thus turning people into sand creatures. The Vizier who tricked the prince attempts to take the dagger, but the prince escapes and has to right his wrongs by preventing the sands he released from covering the world. He is aided by a young woman called Farah, but her loyalties are doubted with her true intentions unknown, the prince trusts her, for now.

Puzzles, platforming and fighting. The gist of the game. The platforming is stellar though, running up and across walls, wall to wall jumping, swinging from poles, shimmying, beam balancing. This is were platforming was introduced to me, many games use these exact sequences today and they're not much different from a 14 year old game. That's how ahead of its time it was. The puzzle rooms where fantastic, well designed, great camera shots to show the whole area. They were made so well.

The combat is ok, not on par with its platforming. You could block, vault enemies and roll away, but most rolls ended up with you attempting to vault over an enemy that pushes you back. The camera was awful during fights, you couldn't control it well and it caused a lot of cheap hits. You know when you're safe from enemies, because the prince will sheathe his sword in a small  scene. If a fight didn't go so well, you could heal yourself by drinking from fountains, the longer you hold down the button to drink, the more health you recovered.

You can rewind time. Need I say more? I never played a game that allowed you to do that before, it was unbelievable. Fell to your death? ⏪ a timed door closes before you get there? ⏪ Got caught with a cheap hit in a fight? ⏪ Cool right? Obviously you couldn't do it any time you wanted, you have a limited amount of rewinds, they eventually refill and finding collectables earns you more rewinds. You also got future visions, they literally gave you small scenes of things you were going to soon be doing. It was great, it was a teaser of what was to come.

The voice acting was ok, there was a good amount of humour throughout, giving a lighter tone. The music was really fitting and I enjoyed the story telling aspect. It was annoying however every time you paused being asked "Should I continue?", hang on mate, I need a piss! There were some really awkwardly placed save points, were you couldn't help but enter them as you tried to pass them. Near the end, there's a long platforming section were you can't fuck up or you'll have to do it all again, even worse, you can't rewind in case you mess up. There's a decent one on one boss fight at the end to make up for it though.

Without sounding weird I like how he loses more clothing items as you play... Let me explain, you ultimately lose your hat and shirt completely, he does it in stages though. Like the sleeves go first and such. He starts off as just a prince, but ends as a warrior. It's great character development and it's a visible transition too. Sounds a lot less weird now right?

This game introduced me to platformers, I'd never been so impressed with a game after seeing the wall running. When it came out, it was my top priority to get it. I saw my cousin complete the game, but only now I've played through the entire game myself and it was a fun experience, even fourteen years later.

7.8/10