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Don't let this one slip through your fingers...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 62 / 68
Date: November 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is great! It is one of the best to be released for any system in quite some time. This game will be the standard by which all other action/adventure games will be judged for a long while. It has all the elements of a soaring adventure: action, drama, romance, and treachery.

The developers of this game have really earned their paychecks and put a ton of time into this gem. The Prince has many acrobatic abilities to aid him on his quest to harness the sands of time. He can run on walls, vault over enemies, fight multiple opponents, and control time itself. Death in this game is not the end...simply reverse time and try again.

Speaking of the moves and actions that the Prince can do...awesome!! The combat engine and interface are flawless and jaw droppingly smooth. Facing one opponent, move the analog stick back and press the square button to whip around and give the enemy sneaking up on you a good kick. Trapped by more enemies on all sides, vault over one and get yourself some breathing room. You can freeze enemies with the power of time, you can launch yourself off of wall for a more powerful attack, and you can even get a little help from Farrah, a mysterious woman also spared from the sands of time.

The environments are beautiful and richly detailed. Tapestries move as you walk past, water ripples, and dust falls from the decaying walls of the huge palace that you find yourself trapped in. The palace is quite large and has many areas to explore, nooks and crannies to check out, and a few secret areas.

The game is mosty a straightforward action/adventure quest with a few puzzles thrown in for good measure. Pulling levers, pushing blocks, swinging from walls and dodging traps are all skills that you will find yourself utilizing in dazzling combinations and myriad situations. The game is structured to provide a builing block system when it comes to controlling Prince. Moves are added one on top of another at appropriate times during the game so as to provide a good learning curve...before you know it you will be doing some pretty wild combo moves.

This game is awesome! It is a solid addition to any library and a treat for the eyes as well. This game is as fun to watch as it is to play and everyone should own it. This game is what the "Tomb Raider" series should have been! I simply can't praise it enough! Go buy it and find out for yourself!

The Thinking Man's Adventure game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 45 / 47
Date: November 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Prince of Persia is just amazing. Prince of Persia is not a hack and slash game, it's not a fighting game, it's not even really a platform game. The best way to describe it is is as a adventure puzzle game, similar to Ico.

Prince of Persia takes place in a huge palace, with many different levels. In fact, there are so many levels, progress is defined by percent, not level number. You control the Prince as he has to traverse the Palace. This palace is magnificent, and the atmosphere of the palace really shines. That alone is worth the price of the game. A lot of thought and artistic integrity was invested in this palace.

The Prince has to go through this palace while fighting monsters, which are pretty easy, while jumping, crawling, swinging, or moving objects his way out. That's the beauty of it. The movements to the next levels are the puzzle. It's worth noting that these puzzles are not random, boring search and try puzzle like in Silent Hill or Kings Quest. It's more of, "how can I get to that wall?", or "how can push that button?". The puzzle take thought, but there never random, off the wall puzzles (like spending hours trying to find a key or some other stuff like that).

Movement itself is a complete joy. Except for wall to wall jumps, movements don't require exact button pushing mechanics or precision timing. If you're on an overhang, and you need to jump to the next ledge, you just press x, and he'll jump and make it if you're aligned correctly. You can jump from wall to wall, jump up, jump down, run along wall, since, balance, crawl, and hang, and much more. If you do make a mistake, you've got the option of rewinding time, which means that you rarely repeat the same level over and over again. This means that the 12 hours to complete this is about 10 hours of real gameplay. Not like other games where 20 hours of gameplay is really just 5 hours extended over a long period of time through repetitive monsters or jumps, backtracking, or repeating levels.

The fights are pretty easy, but they are decent nonetheless. It's good to know that they didn't make it overly hard or pointless.

Somethings did bug me. Sometimes the camera angle is not the best. Sometimes you have to guess whether you can actually make a jump or not, or whether a ledge is there, and that could get annoying. Also, one level in particular near the end is very unintuitive. For some reason they take away your time reversal, they made the level really long, and the end of that level was very unintuitive and clumsy. That five minutes of gameplay took an agonizing hour and a half.

My other gripe are with the cut-scenes. For some idiotic reason, they decided to make the dialogue volume really low and the background noise extremely high, thus making the vocals unintelligible. I couldn't understand half of what was going on. Worst part is - no subtitles. It's extremely terrible since any major game should catch such a bug, and the fix is really easy. I guess they designed it for televisions with high wattage Dolby surround, as opposed to normal televisions.

Pros:
No cheats, guides needed - just thought and common sense
Atmosphere is amazing
Intuitive
Time reverse helps avoid repetition
Great flow
Good balance
Immense palace

Cons:
Some moves are clumsy - wall to wall jumps for example
Vocals in cut-scenes are way too soft

Difficulty - Easy

Frustration Level - Low

Time to Complete: 12 hours

Whole Lot Of Jumping Going On

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 22
Date: January 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I freely admit I'm an RPG fan first last and always. Not only that, but I like the excruciatingly long RPG/adventures that can take a year to complete if you're serious about them. For that reason (and the fact I have the reflexes of a snail) I have pathologically avoided platform games. Not only did I not 'get' them, but I did horribly even when I did.

Some recent experiences convinced me that maybe, just maybe, I should reconsider. Since Prince of Persia is 1) a name I actually recognize, and 2) getting rave reviews from everywhere, I picked it out for the great experiment. Frankly, I was blown away.

First of all, this is a beautiful game. The detailing of the oriental palace through which the Prince is racing to collect and return the sands of time is beautifully done. The characters are animated to the point of appearing almost natural. Dimensionality and background animation are perfect. And everything works together like a charm. This is the platform genre's equivalent of Final Fantasy X, and the effect is totally engaging.

In a sense, this is a puzzle game. In each setting you must examine the architecture and features to look for the right way to get from where you are to where you need to be. Because the game allows the player to rewind and retry a sequence of moves until they work with almost balletic synchronicity, you are never plagued with the 'Darn! I have to start over at the beginning' syndrome that has always been a bugaboo for me.

I could rave for a long time. There is something exhilarating about running along a narrow beam 300 feet in the air while slashing at sand bats. And done forget trading sarcastic remarks with a Princess while you are at it. Even if you are only doing so on a video monitor. If you only intend to try one frantic, action-filled platform game in your life, buy this one - you will love it.

It certainly doesn't suck.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 20 / 21
Date: November 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Most video games these days seem all new-fangled and complicated to my 20-year-old self, but I'm into this. The puzzles are tricky without being frustrating, the graphics are rather gorgeous, and my friend Krista says the prince is hot. I think he's a little polygonal-looking, but I guess men with jagged edges need love, too. There are enough elements preserved from the original game to keep the title from being pointless cash-in-ism, but this new game won't have you mistaking your Playstation for an old-school Apple, either.

I guess the only problem is the combat. You kill a zombie. Then another one. Then another one. It takes only a few seconds, but the process is repeated until you're praying for sweet, sweet oblivion. The first few battles aren't so bad, but each is more challenging than the last (and by "challenging," I mean "interminable").

On top of that, you have to keep the zombies from braining your requisite sassy love interest, but I'm not really sure why, since her only function in the game seems to be to make Disney-style repartée and somtimes accidentally shoot you.

I also have a slight problem with the hero. He is headstrong and disobedient, often turning around and performing elaborate lunges to target a zombie that, unlike the one right in front of him, poses no immediate threat. I suspect that he does this because he resents my position of control, so sometimes I put the controller down and let the zombies have their way with him. It's very satisfying.

The positive aspects of the game are well worth sitting through a few awkward, over-long battle sequences, though. I could watch the prince run up and down the walls until my eyeballs fall out, the puzzles straddle the line between ridiculously easy and frustratingly hard very well, and I suppose you can decide for yourself just how hot the prince is.

A beautiful and strategic journey through the sands of time!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: January 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game around the time it was released and I must have played it at least 10 times now if not more! This excellent game provides the player with an alluring storyline, challenging gameplay and above all, an enjoyable experience!

The game features beautiful environments, characters and cutscenes all crafted with an attention to fine detail! The colors are so vivid that there were times I had to stop and just look around with awe. The graphics found in this game had to be one of PS2's best.

The plot is very involved. From the beginning, the audience is drawn into the story as the protagonist reflects on the events which took place that led him to where he is now. It is the player's job to follow these events through to the end making sure to follow his footsteps as accurately as possible which in turn reveals more and more of the story. The tale that the prince divulges is truly unique and is entirely interwoven into gameplay by a series of "flashbacks" and internal discourse. I will not disclose any of the plot details here, because I do not want to ruin the experience for you.

The gameplay is very straightforward with easy to manipulate controls. The game offers not only puzzling environments with a variety of "traps", but the combat sequences are frequent enough to provide the player with enough practice to prevail in future battles. Each of the environments has a series of traps that you must learn to maneuver around, through and/or under in order to retrace the steps of the prince's story. Also, the surroundings require a lot of strategic planning to move from point A to point B. This may include hitting switches, moving objects, swinging on poles and even daredevilish feats thousands of feet in the air! I have a fear of heights and this "adventure" game does a good job evoking uneasy feelings. Combat does become intense at times, but it is very possible to overcome all of the "monsters" with little practice. During the quest, the prince discovers new weapons that get more and more powerful and this definitely helps to defeat more difficult enemies. It is common to be completely surrounded by adversaries that are stronger than you, but this is where perfect planning must come into play to get through these tough battles.

My favorite aspect of this game has to be the ability to manipulate time! Quite often, I found it helpful, even necessary, to "rewind" the story to get a second chance at a series of complicated maneuvers or to escape sticky situations involving enemies. This element is really exclusive as it is only found in the Prince of Persia series and provides a unique experience that you only get here!

I highly recommend this beautiful and exhilarating game for anyone who likes a challenging adventure where one is kept on his/her toes the whole time!

A Wonderful Yet Bumpy Carpet Ride

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: November 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

From the development team who created the gritty stealth-action
phenomenon Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time reflects on Ubi Soft Montreal Studios' enormous talents on integrating fantastic visuals with amazing gameplay value. Prior to trying this game out, I had not-so-fond memories of sludging through the dull, boring dungeons of the vintage Prince of Persia
titles. Five minutes later into the game, however, I was completely hooked.

The graphics in this game are nothing short of spectacular. From the illuminating beams of light splashing with glittering perfection on various surfaces to the ridiculously detailed environments, the visual quality truly shines in this title. But all of the aforementioned examples of the game's aesthetics is just cake dressing for the most important ingredient: gameplay. The heroic prince boasts a massive array of stylish and extremely effective skills in his arsenal. Such abilities include running along walls, vaulting over enemies, rebounding off walls to launch a diving strike, and other equally impressive moves. These techniques truly supplement the innovative combat mechanism in Prince of Persia. Even minor scuffles with baddies transform into a beautiful display of choreography.

The vast environments in the game are truly a testament to creative thinking and adept gameplay skills. Many locations may easily require hours to navigate through, forcing gamers to contemplate which move should they make next. The assortment of puzzles will satisfy hardcore gamers who do not mind cooking their brains in order to find the solution to them. Avoiding perilous falls to an early grave and evading traps can be a cinch or a pain in the ass.

Luckily, the prince possesses a weapon which is arguably more useful than his sword: the Dagger of Time. The Dagger of Time thankfully facilitates you into the trial-and-error nature of the game. If you miscalculate crucial jumps or when enemies unfairly dogpile and kill you, you can simply rewind time to give yourself another crack at the situation at hand. Other time-based skills comprise of slowing down time, freezing enemies, and stopping every goon in the vicinity before splitting them apart. Wise usage of the Dagger of Time is essential for success.

Unfortunately, a handful of flaws somewhat hamper the entertaining experience. Hardcore gamers will undoubtedly appreciate the brutal difficulty, but casual gamers will cry foul and probably throw in the towel midway through the game. Some of the more elaborate puzzles will certainly frustrate many gamers quickly. I read through many of the video game magazines (no, I am not going to name them) that reviewed PoP: SoT, and almost all of the critics bitched about the lengthy battles. Personally, I find the violent encounters to be very satisfying, but the majority of gamers may not warm up to the long-ass fights. The camera system is especially jumpy; at times I had to struggle to reposition the view to clearly see where the hell am I going to jump to.

Despite all of the mild faults, PoP: SoT is an astonishing achievement in the realm of electronic games. Even if you may take offense to the intense dedication that PoP: SoT requires,everyone with any sort of admiration for video games owe it to themselves to give this remarkable game a try.

One of the Most Underrated Games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: February 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

These days, finding the perfect balance of graphics, play control, and plot in a game is like finding a needle in a haystack. Often too much focus is put on one aspect of the game while everything else remains seriously lacking. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time manages to bring a fairly equal balance while adding in a little bit of nostalgia for those of us who remember the original.

The story goes like this: there's this giant hourglass that contains "the Sands of Time" (therein lies the title), the hourglass can only be unlocked using the Dagger of Time. Both are considered treasures, but few know the horrors that will be unleashed if the hourglass is ever opened. Enter the prince...of Persia (and the rest of the title becomes clear), who through the treachery of the Vizier, mistakenly opens the hourglass and releases the Sands of Time turning the entire kingdom into a wasteland filled with sand zombies. Now it's up to the Prince and the Maharajah's daughter, Farah, to stop the zombies and return the Sands of Time to the hourglass.

The story seems a little simplistic, but it's well told. The entire game plays through the Prince's perspective as he narrates the story to someone. If you find yourself dead and needing to continue from a previous save, you'll hear the Prince correct his narration flub by saying "no, no, that's not how it happened", or "I didn't fall there". The narration also helps move the story along while the dialogue between Prince and Farah adds a little humor.

If you've played a Prince of Persia game before, you might as well ignore your previous experience because it won't do you much good here. Half the things Prince can do weren't even dreamt of when the original game was made. Throughout the game you'll have to rely on running, jumping, swinging, tight-rope walking, wall-walking, and combat just to progress further in the game. At times you'll be forced to run along a wall to reach a distant ledge, only to have to leap from the crumbling ledge to a stalactite that's about to fall, leap to another, then another, and finally to a safe ledge. There's little room for error, so enter the Dagger of Time. Using the dagger you can rewind time after you die. Missed that last jump? No problem, just rewind and do it again. Unfortunately you can only do this a limited number of times, and you can only go so far back in time. The dagger also allows you to slow down time, or stop it entirely while giving Prince a speed boost to quickly eliminate enemies. The drawback is that all of this requires sand tanks, sand you can acquire by defeating the numerous sand zombies.

The game controls well, there are few complaints there. Controlling time and numerous save points keep you from getting too frustrated, while cutscenes at save points also give you a glimpse of things to come and provide hints on how to solve puzzles or make your way through an area. If I were to nitpick about anything it would be the fighting. Most of the time you find yourself surrounded by three or more enemies and it becomes difficult trying to defeat them, especially when you have to deliver a killing blow using the dagger to prevent zombies from rising again.

Graphically, the game is gorgeous, and coming from a guy who never uses the word "gorgeous", you know the graphics are good. The lighting is perfect, the game is filled with well rendered locations, and even simple things like realistically moving cloths on the walls make the areas seem almost alive. To top it off fog-like sand covers some parts of the ground adding to the game's atmosphere. The downside is the Prince, Farah, and the zombies aren't rendered quite as well as the backgrounds, but they're impressive.

If there were any glaring downside to the game, it would be the sound. Often the sound makes it feel like you're playing the game with a bucket on your head. It's a shame too, because the voice acting, music, and sound effects are actually decent.

The game isn't long, and it's not all that hard either. There's a fair amount of difficult gameplay that will have you repeating some tasks, but by the time you get really good at the game, it's already over. But the question many of you are asking is "is it worth my precious, hard-earned money?" Well, if you ask me, it is. But I'm still going to recommend renting it first, just to get a feel for it and see what it's all about before you shell out the cash for it. Even if you don't end up buying it, I promise you'll at least get something out of this excellent game.

Worth every single penny

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I wasn't sure this was a game I could learn to play. Screenshots and trailers intimidated me. I'm not a hard core gamer I can't play more than one hour a day and some days I can't even get close to de PS2, so I didn't want to buy something I wasn't going to be able to play, because it was going to take to much time to learn.
But this game is amazingly easy to learn to play, because it has very responsive controls. I can only remember twice or thrice having camera problems. I beat the game and with the help of a guide on the web I unlocked prince of persia, which I'll play in a while.
The graphics are great, the story is very good and has a unexpected ending. This year the only better game I have played is Onimusha 3 but there are some things POP is better tha Onimusha, basically the acrobatic moves of the prince and the ability to turn back time when you die or make a wrong move like jumping instead of wall running. I enjoyed every minute of the ten hours of gameplay. Every single move you learn you need to master in order to complete the levels, especially the last three ones. This is a game anyone from novice to expert can play and enjoy.

prince of persia rocks and deserves 5 stars

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: November 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

this game is just plain awesome,you can run on walls and run up walls,but if you screw up you can just rewind time with your dagger. really don't listen to other people's review this is worth your time and money.you'll spend hours after hours on this game. it's awesome.

Breathtaking and Beautiful, a Masterpiece...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Breathtaking and beautiful, The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a masterpiece of a game. You play as "the Prince"...of Persia (seriously,our prince is nameless). He is the youngest son of the king Sharaman of Persia, and he is willing to prove his worth. So during a raid on a city, he sneaks into the temples and nabs a mystic dagger. He presents the dagger to his dad and the Vizier recognizes it as the dagger of time. while on a visit at a nearby ally's palace, the vizier tricks the prince into using the dagger to unleash the sands of time harnessed within an hourglass. The glowing sands escape and transform eveyone within the castle into sand monsters... except for the Prince, the Vizier,and the mysterious Farah.

The story is rather simple, but turns into something far more touching and heart-warming. The characters are realistic, likeable and are much more 3-dimensional than one would have thought: the prince isnt spoiled, he is determined to repair what he has done and matures throughout the game.He realizes how his pride is what caused this mess ,and it further inspires him to succeed. Farah is the daughter of a conquered Maharaja, but instead of picking a fight with the prince, she does the smart, sensible thing and sticks with the prince to survive.The love/hate relationship between the 2 makes for some funny stuff and when seperated, the prince isnt above complaining to himself in a humorous fashion.

For a prince,the Prince is rather athletic: he can run across walls, shimmy across ledges, run up walls, swing on poles in a manner that shames pro gymnasts, and is quite the deadly swordsman. Suffice to say,the Prince is going to need everyone of these skills to survive. And the palace's defense system is more likely to impale him than be of help. Amazingly, anyone of his attacks and maneauvers are easy to pull off (the magic of R1, *happy sigh*). Using your wits and skills, you will navigate through the palace's various rooms and get past deadly traps. These traps vary from spiked log swings to wall gears. Puzzles are scattered throughout the game and require thought (or perhaps I'm not as bright as I'd hoped). You will also encounter various enemies (all sand-monsterfied). There are red garbed men wielding clubs and swords, scantily clad women with daggers, and blue robed men with axes, plus the local freaky fauna (*shudders*, the birds). Most are easily defeated, and I wished the action in the game to be more... interesting. in the end the fighting is rather easy (and easy to execute), and doubtlessy fun, but I fell in love with the platforming. Nothing compares to the platforming (no worries, it isnt crash bandicoot). You will love the navigating and the ease of doing so (bye bye to clumsy controls).

I just had to devote a chapter (albiet small) to Farah.She kicks butt. Farah assists you during battle and is an important part of the puzzle solving. She can fit through small cracks and helps The Prince navigate the castle.Admit it... you need her.

Even though it looks a bit dated by now, PoP:SoT is a pretty game. The castle is bathed in a warm glow that accent the color pallete nicely. The enemy models are well-done, and The Prince's and Farah's models look real nice too. Sound is limited towards effects, so music is used spareingly ,used mostly during cutscenes. I liked this desision to an extent: on one hand, it gives the castle an extra dimension of reality, on the other, the music that IS there is beautiful. I must give props to the acting as well, it was expertly done.

PoP:SoT is short but sweet, clocking at about 10 hours . Ton of fun, great graphics, and a certain charm, The Prince of Persia:The Sands of Time is a must-have masterpiece.

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