Put it to any platform fan - heck, any gamer full stop - and they will agree that there are times in life when, as pause menus, restart options and reset buttons underscore the frustration of instant or unavoidable death, the most desirable thing in the world is an option to rewind the last few seconds and press a different button. And when the game does do something you weren't expecting, it's quite literally not the end of the world. Furthermore, instead of repeating the mistakes of the past, it has papered over as many of the cracks in the familiar third-person template as possible, leaving us with a satisfyingly complete and rarely unfair adventure that throws up far less "so I have to operate the cumbersome mechanics this way to progress" or "so I can't hang onto that piece of scenery and now I'm dead" scenarios than most games muster in an opening level alone. Obviously this has been tried before (the disappointing Prince of Persia 3D, for example), but the creative minds at Ubisoft Montreal have somehow defied third-person convention and married the charm and simplicity of the original to a more up-to-date style of game. Basically you climb around massive 3D environments, running along walls and leaping between bars, ledges, chains, beams, platforms and even icy stalactites, occasionally pausing to take down a handful of cutthroat, reanimated former Persians or solve a logic puzzle, constantly basking in the glorious 3D landscape, and hoping eventually to undo the sins of the past. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which was reportedly only green-lit after creator and rights-holder Jordan Mechner personally okayed it, takes what made the original game good and translates it to 3D, making a smattering of its own intelligent decisions along the way. It was crude in some respects, but dazzlingly original and rewarding in others, and the decision to pit the player against an hourglass was sheer genius. Prince of Persia, for the uninitiated, began life as a stylish platform adventure released during a time of archaic, slender and even unfinishable games, which had the player control a sword-swinging and acrobatic prince on a quest to rescue a damsel in distress. The tone of the Prince's voice, the way he moves around the game's palatial labyrinth, the way he reacts to common gameplay scenarios (grasping a ledge at an angle, shimmying round corners, moving a box in any direction just by holding one side and using the analogue stick rather than having to run round it every time to push, etc), the way the combat fits in with the rest of the game, the way the puzzles are introduced, considered and solved, the placement of save points and foreshadowing of key game events through occasional 'visions' (it does work, trust me), and especially the Sands of Time angle, of which more shortly. Quite simply, right from the start, almost everything about it feels right.
As somebody who regularly has to suffer through and remain objective about the sort of cripplingly lame, soul-destroying misconstruction that runs throughout the genre, the beauty, simplicity and logic behind Prince of Persia is enough to bring a tear to my eye.
#PRINCE OF PERCIA PS2 PS2#
Apart from ICO, which is probably the most directly comparable title on PS2 in terms of core gameplay, I can't think of a single third-person game that better fits the above description. In fact, it almost seems unfair to call it a third-person action-adventure, because it's wonderfully inventive yet intuitive, logically designed and consistently rewarding without ever feeling contrived.
In other words, if the inconsistencies of titles like Spider-Man: The Movie, Legacy Of Kain and Tomb Raider left you with the gaming equivalent of deep vein thrombosis, Prince of Persia is like a gentle massage set to the peeling tones of a 72-virgin orchestra. You pay quite a lot for the privilege of eight hours' comfort at high altitudes, you have a merry old time sampling all the little luxuries and extravagances kept out of your reach in the rough and ready confines of economy, and although by the end of the journey you're still fairly content to depart the plane, remonstrating with yourself that it was a very expensive way to fly, given the choice it's a touch of class you'd certainly never be without. In terms of third-person games, Prince of Persia is like first class air travel.
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