Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Check your bargain bin"

This is the first part of a trilogy on the consoles PS2,Gamecube and XBox of the Prince of Persia series having not heard from it in ages so what does the Prince bring to the table.



The story is the Prince travels to Azad looking for key artifacts the Dagger and an Hourglass but when he is required to use the hourglass to locate a treasure the result ends in disaster turning most of the civilians into zombie like creatures all apart from the Prince,Farah and the vizier. So the Prince has to use the Sands of Time to help him restore order and wrong the mistake that was made with the hourglass.


One of the games strong points is the ability to traverse across a wall while running on it and also jumping off a wall while running off it. This can lead to solving many of the games well designed puzzles and lead to great platforming elements into the game.

The game has many save slots and will show you a memory of what the next area will be like and whats expected. In terms of abilities you can Wall Jump from side to side,Rewind time where there is a marker in the top left telling you how much sand you have and you an extent the amount of slots by collecting certain types of Sand in the game. This can help if you fall down from somewhere or get hit by an enemy. Also you can climb up things and also swing from certain bits of structure to reach a certain place.

For some part of the game you do have an AI controlled sidekick in the form of Farah but she isn't to much trouble and adds to the puzzle aspect and helps you a little in battle. Speaking of the combat it is possibly the games weakest area in terms of gameplay. There's not really any combos only really a few methods of attack like freezing an enemy with the Hourglass,doding and attacking from the rear and a few other and it is a bit of a pain sometimes when loads of enemies are attacking you and you have to deal the finishing blow. Sometimes there is loads of enemies in a certain section you don't know when they are gonna stop.

Another issue can be the camera from time to time it can make it a bit difficult to see what area you have to jump to sometimes but if you use the the L2 or R2 triggers it adjusts it so you can see what platform your trying to get to.


The game is about a good 10 to 12 hours long but there are extras to check out.

Overall the game is a great return for the series. The Sands of Time has a very good feel to it with great puzzles and interesting ideas. A true gem of a game if a bit frustrating and difficult at certain times,

Overall Score 9