#215: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003, GCN)

I made a recent realization that if you are a platformer, you pretty much should have a level of quality and preciseness to your control that is somewhat on par with the Mario series. For example, you have Sonic, whose jumping never quite feels right when he is running (feeling like it is lagging just slightly with a looseness to the ability to control him in midair), and controls absolutely terribly when he is starting from stopped point. The older (two-dimensional) Prince Of Persia likewise suffered from some pretty awful control, though here the looseness and slow response time is attributable to the use of rotoscoped animation - movements cannot be properly canceled. To jump, for example, one needed to press up while there was a window in the prince's run animation. The use of up to jump is bad enough, that it is a timing game (where the 'error' results in death or severe damage from falling) makes it very near unplayable.

The problem with these, however, is not that their control is imprecise, but rather because their design and structure do not work with their imprecise controls - each places an emphasis on speed yet has controls more well suited to a slower and more thoughtful game. The original Prince of Persia was indeed largely a puzzle game - built around navigating the environment and obstacles presented to the player, but there were also time limits present which, like Pikmin, have the effect of rushing the player even if the limit is well above what is actually needed to finish. The controls, to be honest, wouldn't even work if there was no time limit - it is simply too obtuse to use for basic locomotion - but the updated version seen on the Xbox Live Arcade (using assets from the Sands of Time trilogy) illustrates this rather perfectly. The controls are plenty competent, but lack the level of precision one would want to feel truly comfortable. Comfort is very important for a more speed based platformer, as it allows one to be able to not pay attention to the controls and instead focus on navigating the environment through their intuition. That the classic Prince of Persia seems to be designed for navigating through thinking simply underlines how the time limit ill-suits the gameplay.

Sands of Time, in addition to bringing this series into three dimensions, also manages to alleviate this problem by encouraging the player to focus on thinking their way through the environment. This is not even to say that the controls are terribly imprecise - but they do do a lot of the work for the player. In other words, the emphasis is not on execution but planning. The net result is that the player gets to enjoy thinking of a way to navigate the environment, and is then rewarded while executing their route with some entertaining animation (via the Prince's acrobatics). What difficulty in execution there is typically comes down to timing to avoid obstacles - in these instances it is precise (with none of the canned-animation lag seen in earlier entries in the series), and typically sees the timing coming down to when one starts their move (for example, a series of traps will be easily navigated if one starts their run through at the the right time) rather than in the middle of a sequence (these typically being only the need to push off a wall after a wall run at the proper time).

And here comes the master stroke that elevates this whole deal to the level of greatness - the sands of time themselves, which let players rewind time if they screw up. Not only does this render what difficulty in execution there may be somewhat moot, but it encourages the player to, when trying to judge a route through the environment, to be much more open to ideas and simply put, more reckless. That I know I can just push a button to roll back a few seconds before seeing if I can pull off some risky maneuver is, needless to say, going to encourage me to go ahead and try that out. This ability is limited to a maximum of 6 or so rewinds at a time, so one does need to be able to judge if a mistake was due to execution error (in which case, try again) or because that route was not intended to be taken at all (in which case, look elsewhere).

Some time should be spent on what foibles Sands of Time has. It's length and linearity are often criticized - for me I didn't mind the latter (I rarely do when it is in the context of the path being a puzzle) and the latter bothered me only because I would have liked to see more, not because I felt at all cheated. Looking back, in fact, I actually respect their decision not to try to pad it out and risk making the experience tedious (as Warrior Within nearly veered into being). The tedium is unfortunately reserved for the combat which, while not being offensive in any way, is simply too simple for as much of the game it takes up, with a good couple minutes of combat being sprinkled in between every 5-10 minutes of platforming. That each enemy has basically a single move or combo they are weak to makes it largely a rote experience. The last boss, for example, is just a regular enemy with more health who blocks most of your attacks - luckily the real last boss is actually the trip to meet him. Later entries in the series would have the sense to develop the combat to the point where it became somewhat fun in a button-mashing sense - adding a level of variety to your move set that let one simply move to another style of attack once one becomes stale.

The later entries in the series would rather dramatically improve on the core gameplay, but none would match the quality of the story and presentation here - featuring a rare blend of interesting characters and an interesting plot, with the time travel mechanic being used in both a very clever way and as a means to a legitmate emotional payoff, while also sporting some very witty dialogue. Combine this with the fact that it uses a legitimately interesting and (by videogame standards) original setting, and I think the Sands of Time movie could actually turn out to be pretty good (in a Pirates of the Caribbean sort of way - helps that the same production team is behind it).



See, the problem with most video game movies has been mostly due to the sorts of games being adapted - a good adaptation needs good characters, a good plot that can easily be condensed into about 2 hours, and a good, original (or more aptly, distinct) setting. Most adaptations to this point have contained usually none of these and none that I can think of had remotely interesting characters, which is probably the most important piece to the puzzle. Instead game adaptations have been used as titles with accompanying high-concepts which fit neatly with the sorts of mid-budget movies aimed at teen and young-adult males - Doom and demons/mars, Resident Evil and a zombie virus, Alone in the Dark and Tara Reid as a scientist, Dungeon Siege and Jason Statham fighting Ninjas, etc. That Prince of Persia brings with it good characters, a unique setting, and a good plot should help it turn pretty good - at the very least the license is finally bringing some tangible benefits to the production such that if it doesn't turn out good, we can say it was because of some other reason than it being a game adaptation.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Publisher: Ubi Soft
Developer: Ubi Soft Montreal
Released: 11/18/2003
Obtained: Christmas 2003

9.5/10