Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Acrobatic Royalty Returns
Posted June 3, 2010
While Jake Gyllenhaal is taking the helm of the Prince on the big screen in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Ubisoft decided to smartly time the release of a new Prince of Persia title for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii and other platforms. In The Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, you are tossed into the PoP Timeline between The Sands of Time and The Warrior Within. The Prince’s brother, Malik, decides to release an undead army commanded by King Solomon to help him defend his castle.
Not surprisingly, the army of deadly skeletons has their own plan and decides to attack the Royal Palace from within. It’s up to the prince to right his brother’s wrong and send the sand-covered undead back into their graves. The story is fairly absent of originality if you have played any of the other games in the series. The presentation is fairly ho-hum as well with little to entice the player to complete the narrative. There’s also no build-up to the events that occur in The Warrior Within, something that would have made fans very excited to pick up the title.
Fans of the entire series will be happy to know that you can actually die in this PoP game; opposite from Ubi’s 2008 version of Prince of Persia; an unchallenging game to say the least. Also faithful to the series, the core gameplay centers on the prince’s ability to pull off radically inventive acrobatic moves. Similar to Tomb Raider titles, each level opens with a large pan over the areas that the prince can navigate through; leaping from pillar to walls to sharp ledges. Players are also offered a variety of special moves, including the ability to move earth to repair broken ledges and freeze water to skate quickly over frozen areas. The powers are kicked on and off via the controller buttons and often have to be used in combination to navigate through a section of the game.
Combat isn’t terribly exciting, basically just slashing through the hordes of enemies that surround the prince. That being said, there are several defensive moves that the prince has as his disposal including crowd-surfing over their brain-dead skulls, quick-rolls away from the enemy, knockdowns and disarms. The offensive side of the game opens up a bit when the prince gains attacks based on the power of the elements. This ties into the light RPG elements of the game as the powers are unlocked in a skill tree as the game progresses. Combat feels like an extremely tame version of Devil May Cry with a vastly easier difficulty level.
I did enjoy the majority of the puzzles in the game, but they were a bit too sporadic to enjoy the entire levels. Much of the time is spent running, leaping and fighting rather than solving puzzles to open up the next area. In regards to achievements, you can knock out the majority of the tasks in the first playthrough; assuming you spread around your attacks with the different elemental powers. It’s a simple set to complete and doesn’t offer any really creative challenges.
If you are familiar with the Prince of Persia series, you aren’t going to be thrilled with the difficulty level or the presentation of the young Prince’s journey. While it’s certainly a step above a blatant movie tie-in game, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands doesn’t offer the quality of past titles in the series such as The Sands of Time or The Two Thrones. You will find about 8 to 10 hours of play time in The Forgotten Sands (depending on how well you complete puzzles), but little reason to push through the game unless you are just enamored by the acrobatics and intricate puzzles.
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Not surprisingly, the army of deadly skeletons has their own plan and decides to attack the Royal Palace from within. It’s up to the prince to right his brother’s wrong and send the sand-covered undead back into their graves. The story is fairly absent of originality if you have played any of the other games in the series. The presentation is fairly ho-hum as well with little to entice the player to complete the narrative. There’s also no build-up to the events that occur in The Warrior Within, something that would have made fans very excited to pick up the title.
Fans of the entire series will be happy to know that you can actually die in this PoP game; opposite from Ubi’s 2008 version of Prince of Persia; an unchallenging game to say the least. Also faithful to the series, the core gameplay centers on the prince’s ability to pull off radically inventive acrobatic moves. Similar to Tomb Raider titles, each level opens with a large pan over the areas that the prince can navigate through; leaping from pillar to walls to sharp ledges. Players are also offered a variety of special moves, including the ability to move earth to repair broken ledges and freeze water to skate quickly over frozen areas. The powers are kicked on and off via the controller buttons and often have to be used in combination to navigate through a section of the game.
Combat isn’t terribly exciting, basically just slashing through the hordes of enemies that surround the prince. That being said, there are several defensive moves that the prince has as his disposal including crowd-surfing over their brain-dead skulls, quick-rolls away from the enemy, knockdowns and disarms. The offensive side of the game opens up a bit when the prince gains attacks based on the power of the elements. This ties into the light RPG elements of the game as the powers are unlocked in a skill tree as the game progresses. Combat feels like an extremely tame version of Devil May Cry with a vastly easier difficulty level.
I did enjoy the majority of the puzzles in the game, but they were a bit too sporadic to enjoy the entire levels. Much of the time is spent running, leaping and fighting rather than solving puzzles to open up the next area. In regards to achievements, you can knock out the majority of the tasks in the first playthrough; assuming you spread around your attacks with the different elemental powers. It’s a simple set to complete and doesn’t offer any really creative challenges.
Graphics
- The visuals look like they were created by different development teams. Many of the lighting effects during the special moves are really well done, but there is some really questionable, pixilated landscape design throughout the sandy levels. The castle textures are quite bland and they eventually all blend into a mesh of ugly, incredibly similar designs.
- While I really liked how the physics engine responded to the prince’s movements, there were several points in the game where the camera went wonky. It’s pretty annoying to attempt the same jump over and over due to a terrible camera angle. It’s also difficult to solve the time based puzzles when the camera is all over the place. There’s also character animation issues with some of the combat powers that get opened up late in the game.
Audio
- Musically, there’s a solid score that goes along with The Forgotten Sands and the limited amount of voice work is excellent as well. Veterans of the series will notice that Ubisoft hired Yuri Lowenthal again to voice the Prince, an excellent choice. He really is the voice of the Prince of Persia. The sound effects are passable and combat sounds similar to previous PoP titles.
Conclusion
If you are familiar with the Prince of Persia series, you aren’t going to be thrilled with the difficulty level or the presentation of the young Prince’s journey. While it’s certainly a step above a blatant movie tie-in game, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands doesn’t offer the quality of past titles in the series such as The Sands of Time or The Two Thrones. You will find about 8 to 10 hours of play time in The Forgotten Sands (depending on how well you complete puzzles), but little reason to push through the game unless you are just enamored by the acrobatics and intricate puzzles.
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