To my opinion too short, but nevertheless a great game!
The game starts with the city of Babylon, where our fine prince lives, is under attack. After a short CGI-movie you take control of the prince and an introduction level commences. Here you can get used to the abilities of the prince. As well the combat moves as the acrobatic moves. After this introduction our prince finds himself in a situation where he releases the Sands of Time with the Dagger of Time. This however wasn’t the best action and the entire city is turned into sand-monsters. Trying to reverse this, the prince must hunt down Jaffar who was after the dagger the whole time.
The gameplay of this game can be divided into two parts: adventure and combat. The adventure part feels really good. You can run up walls with just a single press on a button. Jumping against two walls also is a piece of cake for our acrobatic prince. When it comes to combat, there’s something different. There are a few moves, not much, and every enemy has its own weakness. In the beginning you can defeat most of the by vaulting over them to get behind and cut them with your sword. Others only respond to jumping from the walls.
There’s one aspect in this which I haven’t talked about yet: the Dagger of Time. This dagger has extraordinary powers to slow, freeze and turn back time! This comes in handy when you fall of a cliff or need some time to think in the middle of combat. You must also use this dagger to send back monsters to the sand. It really makes this game one of a kind and a lot more fun!
The graphics in the game look stunning. The graphics in combination with the background music really set a great Persian atmosphere. The SFX also sound great and really needs no further explanation.
There’s one, to my opinion big, downside with this game. That the length. I got through the game the first time in less than 5 hours. In fact, I’ve heard about some people beating it in a little over 3 hours. I mean, the game itself is really good, but it would be so much better if it had at least twice the length.
Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time is a great action-adventure game, but too my opinion too short. Maybe worth a rent at first and a buy if you really like it. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it very much, but a little more playtime would really do the trick for me!