Games of the decade: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Part of a series of subjective looks at my favorite games of the decade.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

(2003, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC)

I can't be sure, but I think Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was the last game I played without the aim of writing about it. There may have been others, but it was right near the end. It was definitely the last game I fell in love with and played repeatedly, content not to rush on to the next big thing (or not so big thing).

A common theme on this list, among the games predating 2004, are games I got for Christmas, because that was the way I got them for the first part of the decade. This was no different. In 2003, I remember seeing TV commercials for two games: this, and Castlevania: Lament of Innocence. When either ad came on, I'd comment about wanting to play them, but when Christmastime arrived and my girlfriend handed me a suspiciously game-shaped box, I found myself desperately hoping it would be Prince of Persia and not Castlevania. I'm not sure why. I don't think I'd read any reviews. I'd been a Castlevania fan in the past, especially Super Castlevania IV and Symphony of the Night, but held no particular affinity for anything PoP. Still, when I unwrapped that gift and saw a sword-wielding Prince leaping out at me, I felt relief more than anything.

As I delved into the game, my relief turned quickly to excitement. Sands of Time is nominally similar to Tomb Raider, a franchise I have never liked because of its unforgiving and slow-paced platforming, but it solves every problem that Tomb Raider had, including some I didn't realize existed. The acrobatic Prince performs one impossible stunt after another, and the beauty of the game is that you don't often have to stop and line up your next move exactly right. Using only two buttons, you can wall-run over a gap, then spring onto a bar, flip around it once before leaping to a pole, then shimmy up it and disembark for a perfect landing, all in one smooth and unbroken sequence. Navigating the game's physical space is thrilling. I had never felt such freedom of movement in a game before.

Smarter still is that magical sand. I can't believe it took until 2003 for somebody to come up with the idea to let you rewind upon making a mistake. There's no such thing as a cheap death in this game. Instead, you learn what you've done wrong and can immediately correct it. That doesn't make the game too easy or simplistic. It makes it fun.

The sand is the linchpin of a surprisingly powerful story. From the beginning, the game is cast as a flashback, with the Prince narrating his incredible story to someone whose identity we don't learn until the end. The writing is fantastic, and so is the acting. Yuri Lowenthal, as the Prince, strikes exactly the right note of raffish charm. His sarcastic asides to himself as he progresses through the game are funny, and his gradual acceptance of responsibility for having unleashed the Sands of Time is both believable and affecting.

(Why Lowenthal was replaced in Warrior Within by some generic gravelly voiced dude, I have no idea. Nolan North did all right in last year's Prince of Persia by playing, as he always does, Nolan North, but Lowenthal is the definitive Prince.)

It's the game's finale that pulls the rug out from under you. Throughout the game, the Prince has been slowly developing a relationship with the Princess Farah, at the end of which they are well and truly in love. Standard stuff. Then, after the Prince topples the evil Vizier and rewinds time, back to before the Sands destroyed everything, it's as though they've never met. When we realize that the Prince has been talking to Farah all along, and not to us, it is a perfect storytelling moment: funny, surprising, achingly romantic. I don't remember if Farah falls in love with the Prince after that, but I did.

Friday afternoon tidbits

Whoa, quick week. Can't believe it's time for the links already. Let's get to it!

-Hit Self-Destruct is no more. The last post went up this morning. I highly recommend you read it, along with the archives. Duncan is one of the best game writers out there -- maybe the best. It's a shame to see him move on. There may be more to say about this later.

-Recently, Edge's "Time Extend" feature took a look back at the superb Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, one of my very favorite games from the PS2 generation. I'm glad to see that they didn't merely focus on the gameplay, as terrific as it was. They're correct in observing that the storyline and characters were atypical for the genre, smarter and more heartfelt. The Prince of that game was cunning and roguish, and his inner monologues were genuinely funny -- not at all like the angst-ridden prefab Prince of Warrior Within. No wonder it didn't sell very well.

-Newsflash: Video games are not recession-proof. Is this a surprise? Not really. But it does help to explain why so many publishers are pushing games into 2010. It's not about polishing or revamping. They're afraid nobody will be buying. They may be right. I still think this fall represents a golden opportunity for gamers.

-On the Fall 2010 front, Bill Harris's console posts are always worth reading, especially when he drops in a fact like this: This fall, there are five music games coming out in the span of eleven weeks. We reached saturation point on these things long ago, didn't we? Especially with news that Rock Band revenue has been dropping precipitously, you have to wonder who they're still marketing the instruments to. Consumers would be much better off if they released this new games as digital downloads, as well as physical media.

-Sparky Clarkson does one of my favorite things a writer can do: takes a video game seriously. He looks at the storyline versus the mechanics of Red Faction: Guerrilla. I admired this game quite a bit, as you may remember, but it's hard to do anything but smile sheepishly when I read a criticism like this:

Although 'guerillas' often show up when you need a hand, nobody ever attacks a convoy or hijacks a truck without your assistance, this despite the EDF's tactic of regularly sending lightly-protected, high-value convoys to destroyed bases in territories it no longer controls.

That's dead-on. It's the sort of thing you can ignore when the gameplay succeeds on its own terms, as this game's does. But Sparky is right that the world of Red Faction is not one that is believable in its own right, not in the way that something like Far Cry 2 or Fallout 3 was (my comparisons, not his). Still a blast, though!

Run, jump, die, repeat

Above: It's no Sands of Time -- but then, what is?

My review of the new Prince of Persia is up now at thephoenix.com. I'm a bit surprised at how much conversation has sprung up around this game,* and while I've enjoyed reading it all I haven't felt compelled to respond. I thought it was a good, not great, game that overstayed its welcome, despite not being overly long.

The conversations about the difficulty level are interesting, as are various thoughts about the ending, but I don't know. Well before the ending, I had kind of stopped caring. But I was having a heck of a lot of fun for a good bit of time before that.

I know, this is why I didn't say much about PoP before now. This is how boring it would have been!

*Cf.

-The Brainy Gamer's four-part series, here, here, here, and here
-Shamus Young's video at Twenty Sided Die
-Tom Cross's "Diamond in the Rough" at GameSetWatch
-Scott Juster at Experience Points
-Sparky Clarkson at Discount Thoughts
-Sean's VideoGame Musings
-Probably more

The Year in Review: Honorable Mentions

Today through Christmas Eve, we'll be recapping the year that was. Today: 2008 honorable mentions.

If you hear me complain that 2008 was a blah year for games, it's not to suggest that we lacked quality software. Quite the contrary. Rarely did we have to go more than a month or so without finding something decent to play. But so often, that's all these games were: decent, especially compared to last year's standouts. This year, nothing I played was as purely fun as Crackdown. Nothing moved me as did The Darkness. Nothing blew my mind like Portal (well, maybe Braid). And nothing synthesized everything I like about games into one superb package, as did BioShock.

Then again, it's not anybody's job to make exactly the game I want to play, and I'm happy any time I play something I like, even if I don't love it. And this year, there were a lot of those. In chronological order:

Burnout Paradise: Wasn't perfect, but nobody does high-octane racing with spectacular crashes like the folks at Criterion.

Army of Two: Again, not perfect, but I played through the whole thing and it kept my interest. I thought the topical references were ballsy, the interplay between the leads was hilarious, and the Aggro system actually worked.

Ikaruga: Glad I finally got to play this cult classic, even if I ran away from it in terror once the review was finished.

LostWinds: Cute, with a winning aesthetic and a fun, innovative control scheme. I just wish I had known going in that it was only episode 1.

Ninja Gaiden II: I was far too unskilled to get the most out of this game, but even playing it as a button masher made for a gory good time.

Space Invaders Extreme: Raise your hand if you saw this coming.

PixelJunk Eden: Thanks to the Serious Games Journalist Network of Pretension for turning me onto this one. It was just a nice, relaxing game that you could lose yourself in without realizing how taxing it actually was.

Dead Space: A triumph of execution, with excellent graphics, sound, and play control. I spent a lot of time harping on the negatives with this game, but it was a polished shooter that was well worth playing.

Silent Hill: Homecoming: Atmospheric and creepy. I thought this was the better horror experience, compared to Dead Space.

Gears of War 2: I wrote, scheduled, and published this post without remembering to include Gears of War 2, even though it was better than most of the other honorable mentions. Partly, that's because the top 10 list was touch and go for a while there, but I think it also goes to show how GoW2 made less of an impact than its predecessor. Horde mode is awesome, though.

Prince of Persia: It's as if the folks at Ubisoft Montreal made a list of everything that's annoying about platformers, and one-by-one excised each item from their game. The result feels a little bit like an extended QTE at times, but the newest Prince of Persia is beautiful to look at and a pleasure to experience.

Tomorrow: The worst games of 2008.