Prince of Persia
Sands of Time
PC (Game Tap)

Review by Michael S. Wright

I have been wanting to check this game out for a while, and thanks to Game Tap. I have finally gotten to test it out. I was strongly compelled to play it all the way through and I must say, I'm glad I did. The game has this unique feel to it and leaves very little to be desired. It has an interesting plot line and character development. Basically you’re a prince who just has to impress daddy dearest when his army invades a city. You work your way through a maze of jump puzzles and come upon the dagger of time. This is what everything else kind of revolves around.

Visually this game is great. I was playing the PC version of this game and I ran into one or two visual problems. I had to turn off the fog options, because my video card didn't like it much for some reason. I had a few problems with the cinematic and vision sequences. This of course did little to take away from the actual game play. I had a few issues with the camera, but seriously what game have you played that the camera controls weren't sometimes a hindrance instead of a help. The details of the levels were amazing and the lighting was very good, even outside in the nighttime areas. Overall I found this game to graphically solid, besides the few glitches I had with my video card.

Now my first impression of this game I expected to fight through tons and tons of mobs. However I was proven wrong very quickly. I would call this game more of a jump puzzle game than a typical adventure game. Now the fights are often long and difficult once you actually get in to them. As your ripping through mobs it just seems like they keep coming. This of course is off set by the dagger of time, which you will learn to love. This little I win button was an important part of almost every fight in the game. The dagger of time has the ability to absorb the sands from the enemies you fight, which of course is the only way to actually kill them. When you hit an enemy enough with your weapon and knock them to the ground you have a short amount of time to absorb them with your time dagger. If you fail to do this in that amount of time the mob gets right back up. Once you have absorbed these sands you can use them in various ways. The most common way I would think is to simply reverse time for a little while. You will use this allot to save your self from death, both in and out side of fights. The other way to use the sands is by hitting them with a stun move, which with 2 more swings of your sword you are able to completely destroy your target. Even though this game is mostly jump puzzles I will say that the actual hard part of this games are the fights. Some of the fights are down right bother some even with the dagger of time, "I win" buttons. The last boss fight is the biggest disappoint about this game. You fight against the Vizier, who is a total joke. Simply block and counter attack and kill off all this doppelgangers till he starts coughing. Then one good swing and he is out for the count. Despite the great game play there is a little left to be desired.

I spent about seven hours playing through this game and didn't think I really wasted my time. However I didn't realize I was getting into a mess of jump puzzles which weren't really that puzzling. The fights from this game are so freaking hard, but the final boss is a total joke. Over all this game was worth playing and I plan on picking up the second game to see how good it is.

I give this game: B+