Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

The Prince of Persia, along with his father, plans to capture the castle of Indian Maharaja. In this regard, they are helped by the renegade vizier, who actually pursues his own plans - to get from the treasury of Maharaja the Dagger of Time, with which you can control the Sands of Time, enclosed in a large hourglass in the same treasury. The vizier’s plan is broken when the dagger is captured by the Prince. Meanwhile, the people of Shahraman are taking the hourglass from the treasury. Shahraman presents this watch as a gift to the Sultan of Azad, a neighboring kingdom, saying that this will strengthen the friendship between their kingdoms. On the advice of the vizier, the Prince inserts the Dagger into the hourglass, thereby freeing the Sands of Time, which turn his father and many warriors into sand monsters, which can only be destroyed by hitting the same Dagger of Time. At this moment, the Prince and the hourglass are separated, and almost the whole game is a long journey of the Prince and captured Princess Farah , the daughter of Maharaja, through the huge castle of the Sultan with the goal of reaching the Tower of Dawn, where the Vizier moved the hourglass, because another use of the they Dagger will be able to give an opportunity to rewind time back and prevent a disaster!

Released many years after the original Prince of Persia, Sands of Time is characterized by a highly developed gameplay, one of the reasons for the change of which is to transfer the game to a completely three-dimensional space. The basic idea of ​​the game, however, is the same: an acrobatically difficult movement around the castle with traps, interspersed with fights with enemies. In addition to the usual jumps and hanging on hands, the main character can run along the walls, jump from them and climb the ropes, tumbling, jumping from poles, as well as combine some of these acrobatic tricks with each other.

The combat system is quite simple - there are several possible attacks, and the Prince can attack only one enemy at a time (except when the enemies are crowding around the Prince). It is possible to stand in a block that enemies cannot penetrate, or dodge enemies with somersaults and jumps. Enemies can be killed only by finishing them with the Dagger of Time, after they are weakened after hitting the sword.

In addition to acrobatics and fights with enemies, the game has several puzzles that need to be solved in order to go further.

At points of saving the game, the player sees some scenes from the next part of the level ^[6] .

Weapons

The Prince’s only weapon, other than the Dagger of Time, is the sword, as in the original game. True, during the game, the Prince changes swords several times for more powerful ones (it is probably implied that the new swords are stronger because of their size and weight), which, however, do not give special advantages, except for causing great damage and breaking walls in some places. An exception is the last sword in the game Sword of the Enlightened Warrior , which allows you to kill enemies with one blow (if the enemy does not block the blow) without finishing the Dagger with Time.

Dagger of Time

A unique feature of the game is the presence of the Dagger of Time itself, which makes it possible to control time by spending the Sand of Time stored in the compartments in the dagger - round yellow and white in the form of a crescent. Sand can be restored by killing enemies with a Dagger, which restores one yellow compartment or half white, as well as in special sources of Sand or passing through sand storms, which makes up for all the compartments as a whole. Gradually, you can increase the number of compartments in the dagger - up to 10 of the first and second type. The dagger gives four abilities:

• Return - allows you to rewind time, but no more than 10 seconds, even if the Prince is already dead at the time of rewinding (for example, you can rewind a fall into the abyss) ^[6] . Uses one sand compartment of the first type (yellow).
• Delay - allows you to slow down time, giving the player an advantage in reaction, while slightly accelerating the Prince and making his blows non-blocking for enemies ^[6] . Uses one compartment of the second type (white).
• Immobilization - allows you to freeze the enemy with a dagger, which makes it possible to kill him with two blows, but you can not finally get the Sand out of it ^[6] . Consumes one compartment of the second type.
• Haste - slows down and freezes all enemies around for a short time, making it possible to quickly destroy all enemies in a couple of strokes. Enemies do not leave behind Sand, and the ability consumes all the compartments of the second type, can be used only when they are full and when their number is equal to the number of compartments of the first type.

The capabilities of the Dagger of Time compensate for the inability to save the game at any time: you can only save in specially designated places where Sand Storms are hit from the ground, passing through which also gives a vision, which is a kind of hint for further passing the level until the next storm.

Enemies

Fights with enemies are clearly separated from the acrobatic part of the game, and are small breaks during which the Prince engages in battle with enemies that come in several waves in a relatively confined space. Most enemies can only be killed with the Time Dagger, and only when the enemies are weakened by the blows of the sword. When all enemies in a certain area are destroyed, the camera shows near the Prince, sheathing the weapon.

The game has very high-quality graphics for its time. Despite the relatively low detail of the models, the picture is decorated with a large number of filters that create smoothing effects, light reflections and blur the image at the right moments. These and other special effects give the picture a realistic and colorful look.

The game’s schedule has been praised by reviewers on several occasions, calling it unprecedented and beautiful ^{[7] [8]} .

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was announced on March 3, 2003 and was created at Ubisoft Montreal in an attempt to “breathe new life” into the genre of Action-adventure ^{[9] [10]} . The game was released on November 6, 2003 in North America, November 21, 2003 in Europe, and September 2, 2004 in Japan ^[11] . The process of creating the game was shot for the program " How It Works " and is shown in the twelfth series of the third season on the Discovery channel.

In reviews of Metacritic, the game is most often praised for its graphics, acrobatic and combat component, clear and responsive controls, character animation, plot and time manipulation using the Dagger ^[38] .

The average rating of games on Metacritic and GameRankings is 92%, which makes it one of the best reviewed games for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube ^{[19] [38]} . GamesRadar and IGN put The Sands of Time on their lists of the 100 best games of all time, while ComputerAndVideoGames.com listed it on its list of 101 best PC games of all time. Edge Magazine called it one of the greatest games of all time ^[52] . In a review of Game.EXE magazine, the game was called revolutionary. The observer Frag Siberian especially noted the thoughtfulness and balance of the “Prince of Persia”. The plot of the game, he designated as "survival horror in the Persian wrapper." The reviewer also found the combat system convenient for the player ^[6] .

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Original Soundtrack was released on November 3, 2003 by Ubisoft . Stuart Chatwood , a member of the Canadian rock band The Tea Party, was chosen as the composer for the music in the game. Since 2002, Chatwood has been working on materials for the game, and in January 2003 the first recordings appeared. The vocal parts of the soundtrack were performed by Mary Tollar and Cindy Gomez .

• In 2010, based on the game, a self-titled film was released, the plot of which was very much changed in comparison with the game.

• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time at Akella's site
• Review of the game from the editors of Gamerone (inaccessible link)