Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

Starting with the positive points, PP the forgotten sands is a well crafted game and the graphics are really nice. The scenes of the city and general gaming environment are excellent. The gameplay is okay by Xbox standards and it flows quite smoothly; I certainly didn't encounter any bugs. I thought the new power over the elements (water) was a really nice touch and looked really cool.

There are however a number of downsides to this game and I will not apologise for comparing this game to the original PS2 games which I think it is fair to say were brilliant. So, issues with the forgotten sands were as follows:

- This game is just way too easy! Whether it is the traps, fighting enemies or the big bosses, everything is far too easy and formulaic. On the first completion of the game I completed over 90% of the game achievements leaving little interest in replaying it and highlighting how easy it was to complete. Having also just completed Splinter Cell Conviction which was another very short game from Ubisoft I am starting to wonder if this is going to be a continuing trend with their products.

- As a result of being too easy I completed this game in three days and I would estimate 6-8 hours. As beautiful as the game is, I would suggest that this is too short in duration for a game with little replay value and costing circa £40.

- This is another game with a fairly in-consequential xp reward system. I didn't see the value in it personally. The provision of powers as part of the story line makes more sense to me (as with Warrior Within and The Two Thrones) but thats only my preference.

- The really nice fighting system developed for the previous PP games has been replaced in the forgotten sands with a more limited slash and hack approach. This is a real shame as the previous games had a variety of really cool fighting moves including aerial and combo attacks which required more skill. Fighting enemies in the sands focuses more on powers which some may prefer but the sword fighting is really boring after a while.

- Previous PP incarnations had the ability for the Prince to pick up different types of weapons which was a feature I really enjoyed. I thought that being stuck with two swords for the entire game in PP forgotten sands was a less interesting approach.

- The baddie AI in this game is very poor. True, it is visually impressive to take on hordes of baddies and the game flows without pausing or slowing down which is commendable. However, take a look at the detail and often you will see the enemies just standing around or walking into the meat grinder of the princes blade without doing very much at all! Its like they are holding a "bad guys convention." The bosses in this game are equally woeful. All in all I concluded that the bad guys really weren't that bad and this problem is not helped by the fact that the prince is infinitely faster than the slow and trudging hordes of enemies. Sorry for the comparison, but this is another let down compared to previous games which had a range of cool bad guys, some of whom were pretty tough.

- The ability/requirement to jump on birds and from bird to bird in mid air...what is that about? The prince has been able to do some pretty improbable moves to date but this is in a league of its own...totally bizarre.

So all in all this is a nice looking game, but it is very short in gameplay and in my opinion it is not an equal to its predecessors, the Warrior Within or The Two Thrones by quite some margin.

I got Prince of Persia: TFS as a free game with my xbox console bundle and put off playing it in favour of Batman: Arkham Asylum. Having completed that game (and played a few others in the interim), I finally sat down with TFS last night, after finding 2008's Prince of Persia devoid of any real incentive to carry on. I'm a huge fan of third person action/platformers, but didn't quite dare to hope that Ubisoft's fifth outing would (in my opinion) better their first.

Make no mistake, this is Prince of Persia for those of us who played (and/or completed) Sands of Time, Warrior Within and The Two Thrones. This is Prince of Perisa returning to its original xbox roots whilst redefining everything that made me enjoy Sands of Time to begin with. It's almost as though this is the game Ubisoft wanted to make first time around, but couldn't due to certain hardware limitations.

Take the opening level, your brother's palace is under attack from invaders and it's up to you to reach him. Except how you go about doing it is such a refined, enjoyable, seamless platforming experience, that I didn't mind playing through a rehash of the original game's opening level. At least not when it looks this good, it's obvious right from the off that you're in the midst of absolute chaos, and things only get better once King Solomon's (fabled) army has been released.

The Prince can now wall run from the left or right-hand side of a ledge he's already grabbed onto, as well as having the ability to climb up cobbled walls. Both are a welcome addition to the standard acrobatic move set of pole swinging, column grabbing and wall leaping. I'm also glad that now you have to run over activated floor spikes instead of walking very slowly (this change was first introduced in Warrior Within).

This brings me to the combat, which despite comments lamenting its 'simplistic, mundane' nature, is anything but simplistic or mundane. Fans of Batman: Arkham Asylum should be lapping up the free-flow combat since there's no actual block button. Instead the Prince can use his acrobatic moves (by pressing A), to leap into the air before coming down on an enemy with a sword attack. There are different finishing moves, which can be used to defeat 'vulnerable' enemies, as well as chained combos and a new shove attack (used to stun shielded enemies). The Prince can also dispose of enemies over low walls, which for a game of this type makes absolute sense.

XP is awarded for the disposal of large groups of enemies and a separate upgrade menu soon becomes available. According to the story you appear to acquire powers of a race known as the Djinn, in effect you're given access to new magical abilities. Personally, I think these abilities add variety to combat, especially given that I acquired the 'stone armour' ability (it makes you impervious to attack for a short time) before any others. However, early on it's more than possible to be killed by hordes of enemies, unless you plan your attack before they actually close in. Easy or not, it's still hugely satisfying to dispense large groups of attackers at once. I remember the combat in Sands of Time as being difficult and frustrating, whilst the difficulty might be amiss, at least it's a lot more fun here. And The Forgotten Sands is all about having as much fun as you possibly could from a single player adventure.

The level design is absolutely flawless (once again), as each area seamlessly flows into the next with no loading times. Commendable. Although your progression is largely linear, it never feels linear in the traditional sense, due to the scope, variety and sheer fun of what's on offer. Large puzzle rooms are not only breath-taking to look at and navigate, but they also require a certain degree of lateral thinking, and this is where The Forgotten Sands absolutely excels itself. Each puzzle can be solved in a logical manner and therefore made sense of without ever becoming laborious, frustrating, boring or overly complicated. And it's for this reason that the game constantly flows devoid of any slowdown of movement, except for some cinematic cutscenes. (Incidentally, having the original voice actor return to voice the Prince is like meeting up with an old friend you haven't spoken to for a long time).

That's as much as I can write from what I've played so far, but if you've still got any doubts after reading what I've written, you probably wouldn't take heed of any further comments anyway. Sometimes you want to experience a game instead of just 'playing it' and much like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands delivers in spades.

After 2008's disastrous Prince Of Persia game in which you couldn't die and was very repetitive and featured boss battles where you just pressed buttons hoping for the best, Ubisoft have come to their senses and gone back to basics with The Forgotten Sands which is set between the classic Sands of Time and The Warrior Within' and it's returned to that very format where you can rewind time and instead of facing one enemy as in the last game you now face multiple enemies at the same time.

The game includes the usual running across wall grabbing onto walls and performing death defying jumps but as well as that you know have the ability to control water, such as freezing it at the right time so you can run across to make it to another ledge or freezing it for a jump and then letting go in mid air to freeze the next piece, it sounds difficult but once you have the hang of it you will be flying(literary). A new feature will have the Prince getting upgrade points for the more creatures he kills, you can then use these points to upgrade the Prince's health, sands or how long he can reverse time for. You can also use them to get new attacks for the Prince such as a ground attack or armour these are controlled by the directional arrow buttons on the joy pad.

Whilst The forgotten Sands isn't a major jump forward for the Prince, the graphics and sound are nothing spectacular it's a step in the right direction as he tries to reclaim his gaming throne from Uncharted which is now the superior series of the two, but this game does help make up for the awful last game.