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.

It’d be nice to think that we, as consumers, had outgrown motion controls for the sake of motion controls shortly after the Nintendo Wii’s hype-laden launch. Admittedly, the unique functionality of the Nintendo Wii Remote holds the potential for some interesting and intuitive interactions; but more often than not, Nintendo Wii developers prefer to have the player flail around like a moron in lieu of a more traditional — and elegant — motion control solution. Such is the case with Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, a title far different than its identically-named 360/PS3 counterpart, and seemingly designed to take advantage of the Nintendo Wiimote’s strengths without taking into account any of its weaknesses. And when it comes to a series typically focused on precise platforming, that’s just asking for trouble.

Unlike the 2008 reboot Prince of Persia, The Forgotten Sands turns the clock back to a more linear Sands of Time-style adventure, though without any helpful time-rewinding magic. The Prince isn’t completely unprepared, though; to assist him with the traditional, jumping, running, climbing, and swinging, his djann (a female djinn) partner Zahra offers up a handful of powers new to the series, along with the opportunity for plenty of annoying banter.

Click Here to Watch the Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Gameplay Trailer: www.youtube.com Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Combat Powers Trailer [HD] Developer: Ubisoft Release: 5/18/2010 Genre: Action/Adventure Platform: PS3/X360 Publisher: Ubisoft Website: prince-of-persia.uk.ubi.com This new game marks the return to the Prince of Persia® Sands of Time storyline. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands™ will feature many of the fan-favorite elements from the original series as well as new gameplay innovations that gamers have come to expect from Prince of Persia. Follow Machinima on Twitter! Machinima twitter.com Inside Gaming twitter.com Machinima Respawn twitter.com Machinima Entertainment, Technology, Culture twitter.com FOR MORE MACHINIMA, GO TO: www.youtube.com FOR MORE GAMEPLAY, GO TO: www.youtube.com FOR MORE SPORTS GAMEPLAY, GO TO: www.youtube.com TAGS: Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Combat Powers Trailer [HD] machinima videogame video game xbox 360 xbox360 microsoft playstation 3 ps3 playstation3 ubisoft vga awards exclusive new movie sands of time Disney film warrior within two thrones nes yt:quality=high

Click Here to Watch the Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Opening Cinematic Trailer: www.youtube.com Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Developer Diary 3 [HD] Developer: Ubisoft Release: 5/18/2010 Genre: Action/Adventure Platform: PS3/X360 Publisher: Ubisoft Website: prince-of-persia.uk.ubi.com This new game marks the return to the Prince of Persia® Sands of Time storyline. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands™ will feature many of the fan-favorite elements from the original series as well as new gameplay innovations that gamers have come to expect from Prince of Persia. Follow Machinima on Twitter! Machinima twitter.com Inside Gaming twitter.com Machinima Respawn twitter.com Machinima Entertainment, Technology, Culture twitter.com FOR MORE MACHINIMA, GO TO: www.youtube.com FOR MORE GAMEPLAY, GO TO: www.youtube.com FOR MORE SPORTS GAMEPLAY, GO TO: www.youtube.com TAGS: Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Air and Fire Developer Diary Trailer [HD] machinima videogame video game xbox 360 xbox360 microsoft playstation 3 ps3 playstation3 ubisoft vga awards exclusive new movie sands of time Disney film warrior within two thrones nes yt:quality=high

Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands World Premiere Trailer: www.youtube.com Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Developer Diary [HD] Developer: Ubisoft Release: 5/18/2010 Genre: Action/Adventure Platform: PS3/X360 Publisher: Ubisoft Website: prince-of-persia.uk.ubi.com This new game marks the return to the Prince of Persia® Sands of Time storyline. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands™ will feature many of the fan-favorite elements from the original series as well as new gameplay innovations that gamers have come to expect from Prince of Persia. Follow Machinima on Twitter! Machinima twitter.com Inside Gaming twitter.com Machinima Respawn twitter.com Machinima Entertainment, Technology, Culture twitter.com FOR MORE MACHINIMA, GO TO: www.youtube.com FOR MORE GAMEPLAY, GO TO: www.youtube.com TAGS: Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Developer Diary Trailer [HD] machinima videogame video game xbox 360 xbox360 microsoft playstation 3 ps3 playstation3 ubisoft vga awards exclusive new movie yt:quality=high

Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands World Premiere Trailer [HD] Developer: Ubisoft Release: 5/2010 Genre: Action/Adventure Platform: PS3/X360 Publisher: Ubisoft TAGS: Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands World Premiere Trailer [HD] machinima videogame video game xbox 360 xbox360 microsoft playstation 3 ps3 playstation3 ubisoft vga awards exclusive new movie yt:quality=high FOR MORE MACHINIMA GOTO: www.youtube.com

Discover the exclusive story behind the Wii version of Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands. Discover your power… Realise your destiny!

Ubisoft’s shot out a rather spiffy looking gameplay trailer from the Nintendo Wii version of next month’s Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, showing our hero traversing the environments and taking on foes small and large. No sign of that co-op play though.

For a deeper look at the Nintendo Wii game, this previously launched developer diary should come handy.

Today’s quarterly financials call from publisher Take-Two revealed much of their release schedule for the coming year, including their plans for Red Dead Redemption. The Rockstar developed Western, which was originally scheduled for a late April launch, has been pushed back to May 18.

Take-Two president and CEO Ben Feder had the following to say about the delay (via Kotaku): “We shifted the launch of the game by several weeks into the third quarter. We believe this is the optimal time frame to release what is being hailed as the next generation of sandbox games.”

This moves Red Dead out of the way of heavy April competition from the likes of Splinter Cell: Conviction, but it also puts the game head-to-head against Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Alan Wake, Lost Planet 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and a handful of other notable May releases. Should be a crowded month from the looks of things — we’ll see if the delay pays off for Take-Two.