Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is an excellent game. If you were simply looking for the thumbs up from me to decide, then there you go. But as with any game review, there is an explanation that goes with my initial statement. PoP has many strong points, as well as a few weak ones, but overall the gaming experience is one that no fan of adventure games should miss. Released on November 18, 2003 from developer/publisher Ubisoft, Sands of Time is the first fully 3D installment in the Prince of Persia game series. It is a fun, exciting and beautiful game, and my GameCube library is that much richer for having it.

The story of Prince of Persia is told using well-done full-motion video cut scenes, as well as through in-game dialogue. Prince, our main character, is also the storyteller, so players get various chances to hear what he is thinking and feeling. This method gives the character another dimension and makes him more real and endearing. The Prince is not a random hero sent to save the day. If anything, he is an ambitious, overzealous man and these characteristics are what start all of the trouble. After his father’s army overtakes the palace of an Indian Maharajah with the help of a traitorous Vizier (It’s always the Vizier), Prince accidentally releases the Sands of Time using a mysterious dagger he finds. The Sands run amuck, turning the inhabitants and animals of a kingdom into demonic sand creatures, and Prince vows to right the wrong he has committed. That’s a lot easier said then done. Prince will need to use every ounce of his acrobatic ability, as well as his swordplay, to jump, climb, swing, balance, run, shimmy, dangle and flip past enemies and traps in a huge spanning palace. Did I also mention that he can slowdown, and reverse time as well using the dagger he found?

The control mechanics of this game are nothing less than spectacular. The control stick, which is used to move Prince, is extremely tight and can turn on a dime. Using the right shoulder button, Prince can run up and on walls and eventually control the movement of time using the left shoulder button. My favorite thing about the control system is the shear ease of it. I can run across a floor gap, back flip off of a wall, grab a ladder, climb up and wall-jump up a pit all in one fluid motion. The puzzles of Prince of Persia are all mostly environmental based, usually involving getting Prince from one point, say the bottom level of a courtyard, to another point, maybe the top of the tower in the middle of said courtyard. Every puzzle is logical and makes sense. While I might have gotten stuck a few times, the solution would sometimes simply click and everything would seem so simple. The control and puzzle design both work together brilliantly throughout the entire adventure.

When not exploring and doing back flips, Prince is stuck battling hordes of various sand monsters. And this brings me to one of the few weak points I encountered while playing; the battle system. While it is still well done, it’s too simple. Each monster has a very obvious pattern to their attacks and once you figure it out, battling becomes more tedious than tricky. Battles are also too expectant. After a long period of exploration and environmental puzzles, you can bet that monsters will start to appear in droves.

By using the Dagger of Time (the one he found at the opening of the game), Prince can reverse or slow down, assuming he has the magical power to do so. While some might think this is only a gimmick, it actually has a practical use throughout the entire adventure. Many puzzles involve jumping from one perilous location to another, and that results in frequent falls of death. But by using the dagger, the player can reverse time back to before these “leaps of faith” were taken and look at the puzzle from a different perspective. This helps, a lot. The original Prince of Persia games were plagued with ‘try something, die, restart’ scenarios, and that gets tedious. By being able to reverse your mistakes instantly, players can try various ways to solve a puzzle and not have to worry about playing an area over and over again.

So far, the majority of this review has been positive, and I stand by that. But game length is an area where this game suffers. I’m an RPG fan, so I usually feel anything under 60 hours is too short. But PoP can be easily beaten in less than 10 hours, even less on the second time around. While some would claim that 10 hours is a fine length for a game, I have to disagree. Such a well-made adventure should last longer. The replay value of PoP is basically non-existent, as each puzzle only has one solution. If Ubisoft had designed some of the puzzles with more than one solution in mind, I could see a reason to replay them. But doing the exact same thing over again isn’t replay value.

I know nothing about graphics. I couldn’t tell you anything about how they work, what shadow-effect lighting particle filters are being used to make it look like the sun is setting, or anything along those lines. But I do know what looks good. And this game looks damn good. The environments are all extremely well designed and the textures are excellent. The model for Prince and other characters are all very well designed and look and move in very life-like ways (well, those that are human at least). One of the coolest things I’ve noticed while playing was the way that water reacts to Prince. When he leaves a pool of water, you can see drops falling off of him and you can see the wet footprints he leaves. It’s the small touches like that which I find cool. When using the Dagger of Time to reverse of slow time, an awesome motion blur streaks across the screen, an effect which I found extremely well done the first time I saw it.

I found the music of PoP to be very entertaining and well done. The music fits the theme of the game and sounds as if (and probably is) based off of Middle-eastern music. When battles begin, a guitar and techno beat join in with the music, giving it a more ‘modern’ sound. One of the more interesting things about the music is that it actually goes in reverse or slows down when you manipulate time. Prince, as I mentioned in the beginning of the review, tells the story, through in-game dialogue. The voice acting is top notch, but there is audio compression. The audio used during the menus is just horrible and just sounds bad. At various points in the game I was forced to crank the volume up to hear what the characters were saying, only to be blown back by the loudness of some sound seconds later. Sound effects such as water splashing, traps springing to life and swords clinking are all very well done.

As I said in the beginning, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is a good game. I found it fun, interesting and challenging. But it’s not for everyone. The one solution puzzles and short length might turn some people off, but even with these shortcomings in mind, PoP is an excellent game and every adventure fan should try.