Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Hands-On

The prince has undergone a drastic transformation during the seven-year span between the Sands of Time and Warrior Within. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands returns to that universe and plans to fill in some of the gaps by recounting just one of the prince's many chaotic adventures. In this particular case, the story is about the prince and his brother who have teamed up against the devastating Sand Army. While the game and the upcoming movie Prince of Persia: Sands of Time are coming out around the same time, the game is completely separate from the film; thus, the in-game prince bears no resemblance to Jake Gyllenhaal--except for the outfit. The last time we saw the game, we ventured into an expansive city that was under attack by outsiders and eventually faced some skeletal members of the Sand Army. In our latest hands-on session, we practiced our freezing water ability to navigate through the sewers and get a taste of what combat is going to feel like.

Our demo put us in what looked like the basement of an enormous palace where we stumbled upon prisoners who had been recently converted into statues by the Sand Army. Water columns and spouts shot out that were often timed, so to make sure we had something to hold onto, we had to time our powers with the left trigger carefully. Your energy bar depletes as you hold down the trigger, so you can't keep water frozen indefinitely. Switches and levers are located in certain rooms to trigger the position of the water, so when you're not stabbing sand creatures in the belly, you're trying to find the way out. Some of the trickier maneuvers will require you to let go of the trigger to unfreeze and recharge your energy bar before using it again or time it so that you can leap from one spout to the next while passing through a waterfall in between. It can take a few tries to get the timing down, but once you have it, you can find secret collectables that will yield some extra experience points for you to upgrade your powers.

We were able to experiment with a few combat powers that were selected for us, which included a stone armor spell that boosted our defense, an ice spell that would shoot a beam of frost along the ground from our sword, and a tornado attack that picked up neighboring enemies then swirled them around until they disintegrated. These abilities can be upgraded as time goes on or you gain experience points, and they cost a blue orb to cast. If you didn't like your last move or happened to die, a blue orb can also be used to rewind time, but once you're out of orbs, you'll have to start over from the last checkpoint. So, yes, you can die in The Forgotten Sands.

The Sand Army is led by an ifrit, which we encountered later in our session. While we explored the dingy underground prison and pristine palace interior, we came across several different types of creatures we hadn't seen before. Ghouls were armed with shields that prevented us from merely slashing with our sword, but they were easily disposed of with a swift kick that knocked them over and a follow-up stab in the chest. Summoners are another creature type that will continuously summon wraiths and other Sand Army minions unless you take them out first. The other monster type are specters, which are a bit tougher and armed with a spiked club, so it'll take a few tries, as well as frequent dodging, to keep them at bay. You don't have the ability to block, but you can defend and reposition yourself with the B button by rolling or jump over the enemy with the A button. Combat is fairly fluid at this point, and you can come up with your own combos to keep enemies at bay.

The ifrit showed up once we made our way to the palace exterior, which was a breath of fresh air, especially after having spent a good amount of time running around the grimy dungeons. As we made our way across the wide, spacious balconies, it was easy to enjoy the spectacular view of the sky and the distant palace rooftops all while jumping over the fresh gaps that the ifrit had just made by launching fireballs at us. The build we played on was still early, so some enemies didn't quite move the way the way we expected them to and had missing textures. Hopefully, the camera will be improved because it was a bit fidgety at times, but the environments and surroundings looked great while the controls were solid.

Look for this version of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands when it is released on May 18 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. The Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS versions of the game with the same title are completely different games with a new storyline. You can read our impressions of The Forgotten Sands for the Wii here.