Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Rrp: £8.59 (Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam)
Y’know I’ve always found the existence of this game to be a bit odd, not because its bad but simply because of where it stands in the Prince of Persia timeline, in that it doesn’t. I should probably explain what I mean. This game came out in 2008 (as referenced in the title of this blast review), however it has nothing to do with the Prince of Persia series that finished in 2005. Nor was it a spin off game for a movie as the later Forgotten Sands title was. And yet the game makes some very minor references to the previous titles, such as the main character calling out for ‘Farah’ while in a sandstorm in the opening sequence of the game. In the previous timeline Farah was the Prince’s love interest where as in this game its the name of his donkey. The thing is I’d sort of understand if this were a game with an online element to it, like Call of Duty etc where a yearly or two yearly iteration is almost a necessity to retain interest (as well as make all the players have to repurchase the microtransactions they’ve bought). But this game has none of that, in fact the only piece of extra content is the epilogue DLC that isn’t available on PC. So why bring this game out, why rehash it? I wish I had an answer.
Again I want to reiterate that this isn’t a bad game at all, in fact its pretty damned good. The acrobatic portions of the game (which to be honest are the main reason anyone buys this game) feel great and even have a few new moves to work with since the main character now sports a gauntlet and has help from an NPC named Elika. Unfortunately the combat isn’t as fluid, in fact it feels like a step back from the way combat used to be performed in the previous Sands of Time series. Gone are the wall-run strikes and the vaulting over enemies heads all while in a chaotic scrum of combat replaced by one on one fights where you have to use more precise, and less flashy, attacks and blocks. I know that some preferred this new combat but I really liked the chaotic and frantic energy that the other titles had.
The cel shaded graphics very much work to its advantage and keep the game from looking too dated, in the same way that Borderlands 2 still holds up quite well because it doesn’t rely on looking realistic.
On the whole not a bad game, worth the price of entry. I just wish they’d included the epilogue DLC or at least made it available for PC players.
