The Forgotten Sands
May 21, 2010
Here’s to what can be a decent review. Beloved fans of The Sands of Time trilogy have what can be a long awaited gap in the story. Forgotten Sands bridges the gap between 1 and 2. Most of my preview and details are in my other P.O.P entry. Let me get to the nity grity.
Quick recap of the story for those that don’t wanna read previous entries. Prince visits brother named Malik. Malik is under attack by a massive army. Overwhelmed Malik opens a sand army encased by King Solomon. Army can not be contained, 2 shard pieces are separated and divided into Prince and Malik’s hands, keeping them unaltered by the sands, in a matter so to speak. The Prince encounters a aura wall that where he meets a overseer who gives him power of time(back) water and air.
Graphics are solid especially the opening cinematic. One weak graphical point is that the Prince after walking through water stays wet for a second and then disappears, unlike Enzio in Assassins Creed 2 who stays damp for a more couple of seconds instead of just drying off. I would’ve liked to have seen the Prince stay wet for as long as he can since he’s going through water after water. Controlling water is amazing, the castle is surrounded and controlled by water, wait to you get to the Observery part. With the flick of the left trigger time freezes water and you can either swing or wall climb.
Another new added feature is the ability to aerial dash, the side affect is that you can only use this move when there are enemies on the other side of anything, it could be a huge gap in the ground or an enemy in front of you. Easy achievement to get, knock out 50 (me thinks) enemies, easy 15 points. along with water and air, (by leveling up with exp gained from defeating baddies,) comes powers with fire, stone, frost, and a whirlwind. Each power is different in it’s own way. Fire is a trail that follows you and burns all the victims that you get close to. Stone armor grants a stone arm to the sword arm making his strike more powerful, frost is a kind of dash with a frost pike leading the way. My favorite is whirlwind, strike the ground and a wave of wind knock outs all the surrounding demons, which works great cause when under attack your really under attack, most battles contain dozens of enemies weak and armored and sometimes magically powered enemies who can bring more enemies to the field.
Flaws in this game are a weak battling system, a single X attack with a weak and strong attack. A kick helps with guys holding shields and when grouped in by many opponents. One of the basic rule in sword wielding games is the ability to block and counter, well guess what, instead of of blocking cause I’m assuming they ran out of buttons to use we get the ability to dodge, tuck and roll. Kinda lame dodging in battle but if you think about it, it works. Jumping and rolling makes moving around the battle field less harmful to your health. A minor flaw in my opinion is that there is no double jump, what kind of platform doesn’t have a double jump?? I also don’t remember the Prince being able to wall climb to far, maybe I just forget but I’m pretty sure he couldn’t run the walls so far. Basically what I’m saying is that I believe the Prince is to acrobatic.
Overall I love this game. I could careless if it bridges the gap between 1 and 2, well because I haven’t played 1 or 2 since my good old ps2 days. So if you love(d) the original trilogy you must play this game, stop reading this review and get this game. It’s fun and has nothing to do with the movie coming out on the 28th. Although this game would help bridge a gap when the continue the Prince of Persia movie franchise (well only if this movie is good, and makes me like Jake, whom I really dislike.)
