True sequel? Or movie tie-in tragedy?

by Shadow Wave:

©2010 Ben Cadwallader:

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands sounds like a risky purchase. It’s been released a little too conveniently close to the upcoming Prince of Persia (PoP) film, it’s had nowhere near the publicity that the previous Prince of Persia games had been given, and on top of that the logo for the game (besides the usual awesome ‘Prince of Persia’ text), is slapped with a standard ‘Arial Black’ serif font, which isn’t exactly eye catching nor does it indicate that it’s a polished game.

But Ubisoft were the developers and they don’t usually release trashy games, so I took the plunge.

The sequel we expected?

Was this a sequel to the great Prince of Persia games that we know and love?

Saying that Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands takes place between the first two games of the original trilogy is one thing but to actually link the games together with some revealing plot line is another.

And sadly, if Prince of Persia wasn’t publicised on its time period in the story, you would not know because this game is completely and utterly separate from the trilogy’s universe. The only things linking them are sandy palaces and the Princes body- but not his face because it’s damn ugly.

Ahh, but what about the story?

Speaking of story, Forgotten Sands’ story could not be more of a letdown. Think back to the original trilogy and remember all the complicated stories from each game; each one had many twists and turns and generally kept you guessing the whole way.

But once again Forgotten Sands separates itself from the original trilogy by having one extremely basic, clichéd and predictable story that I found was extremely disappointing, even more so when it’s contrasted with the other Prince of Persia games.

This gist of it is this: The Prince rocks up at his brothers palace for a visit, but upon his arrival the Prince walks into a war against his brother’s city.

After a short while the brothers meet up, have a hug and decide and to unleash the secret of the kingdom, a hidden vault that contains the power of an army.

Upon opening it magical sand falls out ­– and sand creatures rise that destroy both armies quickly. The Prince and his brother both held part of the key to the vault so were unaffected.

Both of them, feeling regret take the task of sealing the vault in their own hands.  I’m sure you can piece together the rest.

Even though the story kind of sucked, one thing I really liked was the pacing of the game. Cut scenes played at just the right moments to keep you playing. As you wander around the palace the Prince, voiced by Yuri Lowenthal once again, comments on his thoughts and surroundings as you wander about and it really helps the game flow ­– almost like in Prince of Persia 1, but not as classy dialogue lines. Still any banter is good banter.

The gameplay is where this game shines, well at least some of it.

Easy, or simply ‘different’?

When I completed The Forgotten Sands, I was left thinking, my God that was an easy game- and it’s true.  This takes the easiness from the New/Cell Shaded Prince of Persia and combines that with the old PoP universe.

But that doesn’t mean it’s bad, as this kept the game flowing really well.  All the standard acrobatic moves such as wall running are here and are controlled pretty much the same way, so any PoP veteran will have no trouble in picking this up and playing it.

If you loved the complex puzzles from the old Prince of Persia games then move right along. Once again to keep the game flowing well, puzzles are considerably easier than what you might be used to. If you hated rotating those damn levers then you might be very happy with this news, as there’s not many in the game.

And you know what? I really enjoyed the simplistic puzzles. They are just enough to make you think a bit, but nothing to make you throw your controller at the wall over.

Traps are also less varied, easier to navigate and are not as frequent as veterans might be used to, traps mainly consist of the towers with spinning blades, circular saws on the walls, and spiked swinging blocks of wood.

So the Prince does get a few new tricks up his sleeve, he has ability to master many elements of the earth, although you’ll mainly manipulate water and time.  The Prince is able to freeze water in place with the press of the left trigger.

This lets him grab onto pillars of water and climb or flip off them – Unfortunately once you acquire this ability generally what you’ll find is the standard poles and pillars are replaced with the water equivalent, and once you understand how the freeze  system works, is basically the same as if real poles were there anyway.

Mid-air antics

Occasionally things will get a little more complicated and you’ll have to freeze and unfreeze water while mid air etc.   I will admit there are some sequences towards the end that require a lot of freezing and unfreezing that are quite intense though!

So you can reverse time again! This is great because Elika’s trial and error ways were more annoying from the last game. The Prince acquires this from the sand he unleashed (not from the dagger of time) and pretty much can only reverse time with it. No fancy slow mo, fast forward or anything like that this time ­– it’s all gone back to the basics.

So I mentioned the Prince can master the elements, and most of his other abilities consist of combat attacks. But honestly, I never used one.  Combat is easy, dull and boring. Sure there might be like 50 enemies on the screen at once, but it’s not exciting when they just aimless wander towards you.

I did what any Prince of Persia would do: I mashed the X button, yep even on bosses. And it never let me down.  Invest your upgrading points into abilities such as health and magic improvements, you’ll get much more use out of them.  Thankfully due to how easy combat is, it’s over pretty quick.

So I still sound like I hate it don’t I?

But I didn’t. Something grabbed me with the game, and I put it down to the games pacing.

It just flows so well, not only through the story, but combat, puzzle and free running areas are separated so well, you never really get sick of them… Well maybe combat is the exception.

The game’s environments change so often it’s refreshing to not get stuck in the same area for very long. Like I seriously mean new environments every 10 – 15 minutes or so- it’s great!

That being said, the game doesn’t really leave the palace so don’t expect drastically differently styled environments.

Graphically amazing

Graphically this game looks quite amazing really. Environments are stunning, enemies look great, frame rate is usually very stable and the prince looks great, except for this face.

The Prince’s face is awful to watch in motion and something just looks totally wrong with it. It’s like they’ve tried as hard as possible to merge the Prince’s face with Jake Gyllenhaals and the end result is just awful.

There are some sequences towards the end of the game that are quite epic, in that they reminded me of God of War 3 – just for the sheer amount of stuff that was going on whilst you played which was great.

Once you’ve beaten the game that’s about it… There’s about 5 – 7 hours of gameplay max here, which honestly fits quite well with the basic story that is provided.

There is no multiplayer and not really any bonus content, unless you actually enjoyed combat and if so there is an arena type mini-game you can play if you enjoy mashing X for long periods of time.

What’s disappointing are the little things that are missing that only the veterans will miss, like drinking water to replenish health (now you have break a crap load of pots), the cupping noise the prince makes as his hands hit walls, hidden corridors that lead to bonus health, deeper combat etc.

These would have been very welcome in The Forgotten Sands and I’m surprised that they did not put them in.

What Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands provides is a tribute to the Prince of Persia trilogy. A demonstration of what can be done, an answer to the fans’ Prince of Persia thirst.

What makes the game great is its puzzles and platforming gameplay, and these flow together very well. I found the game was quite a joy to play just for the gameplay. I thought of the story as an extra bonus for the player.

I personally don’t believe this is a true sequel/prequel though. It doesn’t add at all to the Sands of Time trilogy’s story. This is simply what the fans wanted: time manipulation back and this is what Ubisoft came up with, and as far as gameplay goes its fantastic, but the rest is a bit of a letdown.

If you’re wanting this for the story stay clear, if you’re wanting this for the classic tough Prince of Persia puzzles stay clear, if you’re wanting this for the fun of running on walls and doing crazy stunts definitely pick this one up.

If this game was priced at $50 AUD instead of $109 AUD  I’d be throwing a 9/10 at it. But there is simply not enough value from it to warrant a top dollar purchase.

I would imagine its price will be dropping sooner rather than later and I definitely would  recommend a look at it then.

[ED: It is a shame we can't have games priced at that point, and to find out why, read the latest issue of Game Informer #6 - June 2010, pages 12 - 17 inclusive to understand why games are priced the way they are in Australia - extensively researched in Game Informer Aust]

Update:- More Forgotten Sands games heading our way from Ubisoft GameInfomer.

8.2/10

©2010 Ben Cadwallader:

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