As some of you were no doubt up late fighting aliens in Half Life 2 (if you even got far enough to have a gun yet), I was finishing Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. The last few levels were really exciting because the pace of the game changed. They take away your dagger and your ability to control time, but they give you a bad ass sword that kills enemies with one hit; they also increase the number of enemies. The action quickens and becomes more immediate. The puzzles have you crawling and swinging around the outside of a tower high above the ground. They did a good job giving you a sense of vertigo and making you feel you were really high up. Because you didn’t have your time dagger you died instantly with each misstep, but kindly there were hidden checkpoints at fair intervals so it wasn’t too frustrating.

The story at the end is excellent and has a nice “things have come full circle” feel to it. Though the final boss was a bit disappointing, the drama was still good.

Overall I think my attitude has changed. The fighting still needs improvement and some of the camera angles were awful, but overall a great game. I learned how to avoid getting overwhelmed by enemies and got in the habit of reversing time whenever they got a good hit off of me. Running the obstacles and advancing the story is well worth the mediocre fighting.

I was going to let Jeff borrow this, but I think he’ll be occupied for while…