Prince of Persia: Sands of Patience
Yeah, you know you want it!
Just got this for Xbox from EB and so far it’s overrated. While parts of the game are unbeleivably cool such as the graphics, level design, and overall presentation; other parts are extremely frustrating. I’m about a third of the way through the game, so let me break it down for y’all.
The Good:
One of the coolest things is that the whole game is someone telling a story and you’re playing out that story. So whenever you die a voice says things like “No, that’s not how it happened. I ran and jumped over the gap” or “I didn’t die in that battle” and when you save it says “Shall I start my story from here if we get interrupted?” This is a great feature that not only makes the game more immersive, but it makes me want to keep playing after the save.
Another cool feature is the way your counterpart Farah reacts to things you do. If you have a close call at a cliff, she gasps or says “Be careful”! If you fall and hurt yourself, she’ll say “Are you alright?”
The best part of the game is the puzzles. It’s really fun navigating the obstacle courses where you run across walls, swing from tree branches, jump from wall to wall, etc. while avoiding blades and saws. They sometimes add a time element when you pull a switch opening a door that gradually closes . You have to hurry through the obstacles or you’ll need to do it all over again. The best move so far is when you have to run along the wall and then jump off the wall to grab a bar on the other side of the gap.
Also, you can unlock the original Prince of Persia and Prince of Persia 2.
The Bad:
The fighting. It can be great at times, but it’s mostly tedious. I wish they had spread it out more so you’d be running the obstacles while slashing bad guys, but instead you usually reach a room at the end of an obstacle that has 15 bad guys in it, usually 4 or 5 at a time. The play control is a little slow and there are only a few moves to choose from, but the most annoying thing is when you end up on the ground with bad guys around you; it’s very difficult to get out of it without dying. I was extremely pissed of with one fight scene in particular where I ended up at a room with barely any health (one hit killed me). There was a health fountain at the end of the room, but whenever I tried to drink from it, the bad guys would materialize and hit me before I could restore my health. Also, when you die and retry the scene, they don’t give you your health back like most games. I had to keep trying until I was lucky enough to get my health back.
The other bad thing is the time manipulation. It’s an interesting feature, but it can be buggy and slows the gameplay down (other than literally). Sometimes when you try to slow time down you accidentally hold the button too long and end up reversing it. Other times, you try to reverse time after falling into a pit and accidentally don’t reverse it far enough so you jump in again. It can be hard to tell when you’re reversing whether you’re just standing there or are in the process of leaping to your death. Having to collect sand from enemies is tedious, but if you don’t, they regenerate. They should make it an option but not a necessity because everytime you collect the sand it triggers a slow move or cinematic dramatically showing you collect it. Maybe I’m just pining for the days of action packed side scrollers like the original Ninja Gaiden, but so far no 3D game has come close to the frantic hand-eye fun of those 2D games.
The Ugly:
Play control. Sometimes I’d like to sacrifice realistic motion for easier play control. I realize that a person weighing 170 lbs can’t stop on a dime, but it sometimes feels like I’m trying to make an elephant dance ballet on an oil slick. The Prince also seems to have a hard time moving diagonally despite the analog controllers of the 21st century. You’ll find it difficult to line him up flat against a crate so he can push it forward. When fighting, he reacts quickly sometimes and slowly other times. You end up pounding the buttons so hard that your pinky twitches when you’re trying to sleep.
Overall, a good game and definitely worth playing, but not in my opinion worthy of the unending accolades it’s received. PC Gamer got it right when they gave it %79. If they can refine it a bit and make it less clunky, then we got something worth a 9.5.
