The Sands of Time is a terrific adventure with few flaws that successfully captures the spirit of the old games in 3D.
The Bad: Lackluster combat; short.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is the second time that Prince of Persia has gone through a 3D translation, the first being the rather infamous Prince of Persia 3D. Luckily, Sands of Time is a much better game than 3D, and is largely successful at capturing the feel of the old games while adding in a lot of new elements.
The Sands of Time's gameplay can be split clean into two parts, movement and combat. You control the extremely athletic Prince, who can leap, wall run, flip, and pretty much anything else you want to. One remarkable thing about The Sands of Time is that it's just a lot more fun and quite a lot easier to do these things than it is in other games. The control scheme is simple but very effective, and the prince himself controls flawlessly. It's also worth noting that the prince simply looks amazing in motion, making all his incredibly acrobatic feats look, dare I say it, remarkably realistic and even easy (a hallmark of the 2D series was its terrific motion capture as well).
The Sands of Time's combat is probably its weakest point. Essentially, you have an attack button, a block button, and a jump button. You can execute simple combos with combinations of the attack and jump buttons, some of which are contextual. Despite how entirely unlikely it is that people would ever be able to do these feats, again, the Prince's motion capture looks absolutely state-of-the-art while doing it. This is probably why your jaw will drop the first couple fights you get into, since it's pretty easy to pull off the combos and very intuitive. The problem? It quickly gets repetitive, partially because there simply aren't that many combos and you get extremely tired of seeing them, and also pretty much all enemies can be beaten by one of two major combos: one where you flip over their head and knock them down (or at least hit them), and another one in which you jump off the wall and knock them down. The game's even less fun if you don't do those moves though, and the fights take more time as well, so it's probably better to just get them over with. In the Sands of Time, you don't really kill your opponents. Basically, you'll beat them until you knock them down, and then you'll absorb their sand with The Dagger of Time (which I'll elaborate on later). Of course, if you leave them down long enough, they'll get back up, and you'll have to knock them down again. This adds a nice strategic element, but in the more drawn-out sequences it gets tiring to keep absorbing the sand. Another weak link is that the block button is virtually impenetrable, making even the hardest fights a little easy.
From pretty much the very start of the game, you'll have access to the Dagger of Time, and it's unique features. The Dagger of Time uses sand tanks when you use the sand, although you can absorb more sand from enemies as well as sand clouds scattered around the game. The Dagger of Time has many abilities, such as freezing enemies, or slowing down time, but the one that you'll be the most familiar with by far is Rewind. The Rewind power will turn time back to a certain extent, so it's useful if you make a mistake in exploration. It can also help in fights if you think you can live or even just have more health if you had done something differently a few seconds back. The Dagger of Time pretty much totally minimizes any frustration you'll get from exploration, so it's a very useful feature and one that works to the advantage of the series.
The exploration in The Sands of Time is the heart of the game, and it's why this game is so superb. Simply put, just moving around is a lot more fun in the game than in other games because of how the Prince moves, and it has a dramatic effect on the gameplay. As you move around, you'll encounter innumerable traps which you have to dodge somehow, usually through a combination of timing and using your astonishing acrobatic abilities. It's hard to explain how fun this is.
The Sands of Time also has a few puzzles for good measure. These puzzles are fun interludes between the action, and they even require you to use your brain a little. Luckily, none of the puzzles are all that frustrating, and they're executed rather well, making them another good addition to the game.
For extended parts of the game, you'll be accompanied by Farrah, a princess who is the only other person other than you (and the evil guy, the vizier) who has managed to survive the Sands' corruption. Farrah is not useless and not a typical damsel in distress that can be found in videogames most of the time, as she carries a bow and arrow around and will use it fairly accurately. She is signficantly weaker than you, not being a super-athletic highly trained prince warrior, but she's not helpless either. Some of the puzzles and exploration involve you and Farrah doing it together, and these are quite fun. The best thing about being with Farrah is the great witty, funny banter that occurs between the Prince and Farrah throughout the game. The whole thing, in fact, has a great storybook atmosphere - helped along by how it looks.
One of the best parts of the game are its stunning, distinctive visuals. I've already talked a ton about how incredible the Prince looks in motion, but the whole game has an fascinating look to it, with everything being bathed in a soft light and filtered to make it still stunning at this point. It's one of the most visually striking games I've ever played, which has allowed the visuals to age extremely well.
The sound is very good as well. The voice acting is great (admittedly it's just you and Farrah), and the prince narrates the whole way through, providing funny, well-written lines that are very well acted that lends him real character and gives you a genuine connection with him.
The value is one of the weaker points of the game. It's not a terribly long adventure, and it's fairly linear as well. Still, that's not to say that it's not replayable, just that you'll have done it all before. It is boosted in the form of a couple extras you get after you beat the game, though.
Overall, The Sands of Time is a fantastic game with incredible visuals and the best exploration in any 3D game, ever. And while it would've been slightly better had it been longer and stuck more to its strengths of exploration and less to combat, it's still a superb start to what was a great trilogy.