Review: Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Game: Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (2010)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Platformer
Developer(s): Ubisoft Montreal, Quebec, Singapore, Casablanca
Publisher(s): Ubisoft
Platform(s): PS3, Xbox 360, PC (Windows)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Classic PoP feel, combat upgrade system, spectacular graphics and story-telling.
Cons: Strict upgrade system, short gameplay, frustrating acrobatic mechanics.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    PoP: The Forgotten Sands revisits the original Prince of Persia: Sands of Time storyline, taking place in the seven year gap between PoP: Sands of Time and PoP: Warrior Within. You play as the Prince, on a mission to meet with your brother, Malik, to learn about leadership. The game begins as the Prince arrives at Malik's kingdom to find it under siege by enemy forces. You quickly learn that Malik's forces are being overrun and defeat is imminent. However, Malik has a plan to awaken the legendary army of Soloman in an attempt to turn the tides of war. While weary of his brother's plan, the Prince agrees to aid him. Once the army is released, the kingdom's last glimmer of hope quickly becomes its demise as Soloman's Army is not a gift, but a curse, releasing an ever-growing army of undead soldiers. As the Prince, it is your duty to stop Soloman's Army and save not only your brother's kingdom, but the known world itself from the ravages of the demonic army.

   For the most part, this game played out rather quickly. Moments after the opening cinematic, you are cast straight into the action, gaining brief breaks whenever you gain an upgrade point or during cut-scenes. From there, gameplay steadily escalates in difficulty and excitement. Which means, in classic PoP fashion, constant acrobatic mishaps and time-reversing. Now, I never played PoP: Warrior Within, so I am not sure how time manipulation was handled in that game, but in Forgotten Sands, you didn't have the Dagger of Time, you instead were granted time manipulation through Djin magic.

    The upgrade system was a nice touch to the gameplay, but was too linear to allow for customization or variation (being able to gain all the upgrades by the end of the game). While it did allow you to gain more energy to reverse time more often or increase the length of time you could use some of your abilities, it mostly had a direct effect on combat, which wasn't quite as abundant or difficult as the game's acrobatic challenges. And I am not quite sure if this is a bug or not, but often when I died, my XP would jump just below the next upgrade point, meaning the more I died, the faster I upgraded.Otherwise, the game was bug free from what I experienced.

    In regards to game length, it maybe took 15-20 hours to complete this game, something you could easily do over a weekend. For that reason, and due to the lack of replay-value (no variation in upgrades or story progression), and the absence of multiplayer functionality, I would probably recommend renting this game instead of buying it (unless, of course, you are a diehard PoP fan). The game was fun and entertaining, but not something I could play over and over again.