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66 of 69 found the following review helpful:
 Don't let this one slip through your fingers...Nov 15, 2003
By C.E.
This game is great! It is one of the best to be released for any system in quite some time. This game will be the standard by which all other action/adventure games will be judged for a long while. It has all the elements of a soaring adventure: action, drama, romance, and treachery.The developers of this game have really earned their paychecks and put a ton of time into this gem. The Prince has many acrobatic abilities to aid him on his quest to harness the sands of time. He can run on walls, vault over enemies, fight multiple opponents, and control time itself. Death in this game is not the end...simply reverse time and try again. Speaking of the moves and actions that the Prince can do...awesome!! The combat engine and interface are flawless and jaw droppingly smooth. Facing one opponent, move the analog stick back and press the square button to whip around and give the enemy sneaking up on you a good kick. Trapped by more enemies on all sides, vault over one and get yourself some breathing room. You can freeze enemies with the power of time, you can launch yourself off of wall for a more powerful attack, and you can even get a little help from Farrah, a mysterious woman also spared from the sands of time. The environments are beautiful and richly detailed. Tapestries move as you walk past, water ripples, and dust falls from the decaying walls of the huge palace that you find yourself trapped in. The palace is quite large and has many areas to explore, nooks and crannies to check out, and a few secret areas. The game is mosty a straightforward action/adventure quest with a few puzzles thrown in for good measure. Pulling levers, pushing blocks, swinging from walls and dodging traps are all skills that you will find yourself utilizing in dazzling combinations and myriad situations. The game is structured to provide a builing block system when it comes to controlling Prince. Moves are added one on top of another at appropriate times during the game so as to provide a good learning curve...before you know it you will be doing some pretty wild combo moves. This game is awesome! It is a solid addition to any library and a treat for the eyes as well. This game is as fun to watch as it is to play and everyone should own it. This game is what the "Tomb Raider" series should have been! I simply can't praise it enough! Go buy it and find out for yourself!
48 of 50 found the following review helpful:
The Thinking Man's Adventure gameNov 29, 2003
By sporkdude
"sporkdude"
Prince of Persia is just amazing. Prince of Persia is not a hack and slash game, it's not a fighting game, it's not even really a platform game. The best way to describe it is is as a adventure puzzle game, similar to Ico. Prince of Persia takes place in a huge palace, with many different levels. In fact, there are so many levels, progress is defined by percent, not level number. You control the Prince as he has to traverse the Palace. This palace is magnificent, and the atmosphere of the palace really shines. That alone is worth the price of the game. A lot of thought and artistic integrity was invested in this palace. The Prince has to go through this palace while fighting monsters, which are pretty easy, while jumping, crawling, swinging, or moving objects his way out. That's the beauty of it. The movements to the next levels are the puzzle. It's worth noting that these puzzles are not random, boring search and try puzzle like in Silent Hill or Kings Quest. It's more of, "how can I get to that wall?", or "how can push that button?". The puzzle take thought, but there never random, off the wall puzzles (like spending hours trying to find a key or some other stuff like that). Movement itself is a complete joy. Except for wall to wall jumps, movements don't require exact button pushing mechanics or precision timing. If you're on an overhang, and you need to jump to the next ledge, you just press x, and he'll jump and make it if you're aligned correctly. You can jump from wall to wall, jump up, jump down, run along wall, since, balance, crawl, and hang, and much more. If you do make a mistake, you've got the option of rewinding time, which means that you rarely repeat the same level over and over again. This means that the 12 hours to complete this is about 10 hours of real gameplay. Not like other games where 20 hours of gameplay is really just 5 hours extended over a long period of time through repetitive monsters or jumps, backtracking, or repeating levels. The fights are pretty easy, but they are decent nonetheless. It's good to know that they didn't make it overly hard or pointless. Somethings did bug me. Sometimes the camera angle is not the best. Sometimes you have to guess whether you can actually make a jump or not, or whether a ledge is there, and that could get annoying. Also, one level in particular near the end is very unintuitive. For some reason they take away your time reversal, they made the level really long, and the end of that level was very unintuitive and clumsy. That five minutes of gameplay took an agonizing hour and a half. My other gripe are with the cut-scenes. For some idiotic reason, they decided to make the dialogue volume really low and the background noise extremely high, thus making the vocals unintelligible. I couldn't understand half of what was going on. Worst part is - no subtitles. It's extremely terrible since any major game should catch such a bug, and the fix is really easy. I guess they designed it for televisions with high wattage Dolby surround, as opposed to normal televisions. Pros:
No cheats, guides needed - just thought and common sense
Atmosphere is amazing
Intuitive
Time reverse helps avoid repetition
Great flow
Good balance
Immense palace Cons:
Some moves are clumsy - wall to wall jumps for example
Vocals in cut-scenes are way too soft Difficulty - Easy Frustration Level - Low Time to Complete: 12 hours
20 of 21 found the following review helpful:
It certainly doesn't suck.Nov 22, 2003
By P. Lee
"impulse shopper"
Most video games these days seem all new-fangled and complicated to my 20-year-old self, but I'm into this. The puzzles are tricky without being frustrating, the graphics are rather gorgeous, and my friend Krista says the prince is hot. I think he's a little polygonal-looking, but I guess men with jagged edges need love, too. There are enough elements preserved from the original game to keep the title from being pointless cash-in-ism, but this new game won't have you mistaking your Playstation for an old-school Apple, either. I guess the only problem is the combat. You kill a zombie. Then another one. Then another one. It takes only a few seconds, but the process is repeated until you're praying for sweet, sweet oblivion. The first few battles aren't so bad, but each is more challenging than the last (and by "challenging," I mean "interminable"). On top of that, you have to keep the zombies from braining your requisite sassy love interest, but I'm not really sure why, since her only function in the game seems to be to make Disney-style repartée and somtimes accidentally shoot you. I also have a slight problem with the hero. He is headstrong and disobedient, often turning around and performing elaborate lunges to target a zombie that, unlike the one right in front of him, poses no immediate threat. I suspect that he does this because he resents my position of control, so sometimes I put the controller down and let the zombies have their way with him. It's very satisfying. The positive aspects of the game are well worth sitting through a few awkward, over-long battle sequences, though. I could watch the prince run up and down the walls until my eyeballs fall out, the puzzles straddle the line between ridiculously easy and frustratingly hard very well, and I suppose you can decide for yourself just how hot the prince is.
16 of 17 found the following review helpful:
Whole Lot Of Jumping Going OnJan 12, 2004
By Marc Ruby™
"The Noh Hare™"
I freely admit I'm an RPG fan first last and always. Not only that, but I like the excruciatingly long RPG/adventures that can take a year to complete if you're serious about them. For that reason (and the fact I have the reflexes of a snail) I have pathologically avoided platform games. Not only did I not 'get' them, but I did horribly even when I did. Some recent experiences convinced me that maybe, just maybe, I should reconsider. Since Prince of Persia is 1) a name I actually recognize, and 2) getting rave reviews from everywhere, I picked it out for the great experiment. Frankly, I was blown away. First of all, this is a beautiful game. The detailing of the oriental palace through which the Prince is racing to collect and return the sands of time is beautifully done. The characters are animated to the point of appearing almost natural. Dimensionality and background animation are perfect. And everything works together like a charm. This is the platform genre's equivalent of Final Fantasy X, and the effect is totally engaging. In a sense, this is a puzzle game. In each setting you must examine the architecture and features to look for the right way to get from where you are to where you need to be. Because the game allows the player to rewind and retry a sequence of moves until they work with almost balletic synchronicity, you are never plagued with the 'Darn! I have to start over at the beginning' syndrome that has always been a bugaboo for me. I could rave for a long time. There is something exhilarating about running along a narrow beam 300 feet in the air while slashing at sand bats. And done forget trading sarcastic remarks with a Princess while you are at it. Even if you are only doing so on a video monitor. If you only intend to try one frantic, action-filled platform game in your life, buy this one - you will love it.
12 of 13 found the following review helpful:
A Wonderful Yet Bumpy Carpet RideNov 19, 2003
By Christopher Hernandez
From the development team who created the gritty stealth-action
phenomenon Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time reflects on Ubi Soft Montreal Studios' enormous talents on integrating fantastic visuals with amazing gameplay value. Prior to trying this game out, I had not-so-fond memories of sludging through the dull, boring dungeons of the vintage Prince of Persia
titles. Five minutes later into the game, however, I was completely hooked. The graphics in this game are nothing short of spectacular. From the illuminating beams of light splashing with glittering perfection on various surfaces to the ridiculously detailed environments, the visual quality truly shines in this title. But all of the aforementioned examples of the game's aesthetics is just cake dressing for the most important ingredient: gameplay. The heroic prince boasts a massive array of stylish and extremely effective skills in his arsenal. Such abilities include running along walls, vaulting over enemies, rebounding off walls to launch a diving strike, and other equally impressive moves. These techniques truly supplement the innovative combat mechanism in Prince of Persia. Even minor scuffles with baddies transform into a beautiful display of choreography. The vast environments in the game are truly a testament to creative thinking and adept gameplay skills. Many locations may easily require hours to navigate through, forcing gamers to contemplate which move should they make next. The assortment of puzzles will satisfy hardcore gamers who do not mind cooking their brains in order to find the solution to them. Avoiding perilous falls to an early grave and evading traps can be a cinch or a pain in the ass. Luckily, the prince possesses a weapon which is arguably more useful than his sword: the Dagger of Time. The Dagger of Time thankfully facilitates you into the trial-and-error nature of the game. If you miscalculate crucial jumps or when enemies unfairly dogpile and kill you, you can simply rewind time to give yourself another crack at the situation at hand. Other time-based skills comprise of slowing down time, freezing enemies, and stopping every goon in the vicinity before splitting them apart. Wise usage of the Dagger of Time is essential for success. Unfortunately, a handful of flaws somewhat hamper the entertaining experience. Hardcore gamers will undoubtedly appreciate the brutal difficulty, but casual gamers will cry foul and probably throw in the towel midway through the game. Some of the more elaborate puzzles will certainly frustrate many gamers quickly. I read through many of the video game magazines (no, I am not going to name them) that reviewed PoP: SoT, and almost all of the critics bitched about the lengthy battles. Personally, I find the violent encounters to be very satisfying, but the majority of gamers may not warm up to the long-ass fights. The camera system is especially jumpy; at times I had to struggle to reposition the view to clearly see where the hell am I going to jump to. Despite all of the mild faults, PoP: SoT is an astonishing achievement in the realm of electronic games. Even if you may take offense to the intense dedication that PoP: SoT requires,everyone with any sort of admiration for video games owe it to themselves to give this remarkable game a try.
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