Tuesday May 18th


Tuesday May 18th marked a pretty epic day in the land of video games when some of the year’s biggest titles were released. I kissed my wife and kids good-bye as I hunkered down for some serious gaming. Now with all the games released that day, there was one I completely overlooked, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. Here’s my review, better late than never.


Our Prince has traveled to see his brother Malik


The story line here is that our Prince has traveled to see his brother Malik somewhere is Persia. When the Prince arrives Malik and his people are under attack by a powerful invading force. Desperate, Malik summons a mystical army thought to have belonged to King Solomon. Long story short, Malik has bitten off more than he can chew and it’s up to the Prince to defeat the mystical army, restoring his brother’s kingdom to its former glory. So far, so good.


Gameplay is exactly what you’d expect


Gameplay is exactly what you’d expect a next generation ‘Sands of Time’ game to be like. The Prince wall runs, jumps, rolls, climbs, swings and solves puzzles just like he always has. Of course, it wouldn’t be Prince of Persia without some swordplay, which feels sluggish and repetitive, as though it was an after-thought. “Hey, should we give The Prince a sword?” The only thing that’s new here is the inclusion of some powers. Back is the ability to rewind time, also The Prince use an ice wave, a trail of flame, a whirlwind power that pushes enemies away, stone armor and something called, “The Power of the Flow.” These are kind of neat little add-ons to a game that otherwise has nothing really new to offer.
The graphics are quite nice, but I feel they pale in comparison to some of the other games I played on the 18th. They don’t seem to have to polish that Red Dead or even Alan Wake have. Don’t get me wrong, the graphics aren’t bad, they’re just not great either.


Look, this game is not a winner.


Look, this game is not a winner. Maybe it has suffered my wrath a little extra because UbiSoft thought it would be a good idea to release it the same day as ‘Red Dead Redemption’. The music and sound of ‘The Forgotten Sands’ is passable and there is no multiplayer. There really isn’t anything here to warrant this addition to the series. It would have been a better idea for UbiSoft to have remade ‘The Sands of Time’ in HD, make The Prince look like Jake Gyllenhall, and charged the gaming public 400 Microsoft points for it. In conclusion, I’ll play this game to its end; just don’t ask me to be happy about it. 2 out of 5.
Stay tuned.

Related posts:

1. Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Developer Diary [HD]
2. Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Developer Diary 3 [HD]
3. Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Combat Powers Trailer [HD]
4. Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Acrobatic Moves Trailer [HD]
5. Prince of Persia – The forgotten sands WII Dev Diary #1 [Europe]

Tags: Alan, Don, Forgotten Sands, game, Jake Gyllenhall, king solomon, Malik, prince, prince of persia, Solomon