Free online prince of persia sands of time game

The stop-start-run-die gameplay of old has been replaced with a far more thought-provoking experience, in which you are faced with a set of puzzles and given time to think about how to overcome them and, more importantly, are never unfairly punished for getting them wrong. The sheer simplicity of such an approach is a miracle in itself, and you have to wonder if the platform genre would have disappeared as quickly on the PC had this approach been adopted before.

Foremost among the devices used to ease frustration is the rewind function. Using the power of a magical dagger, this ability enables you to literally turn back time in the game, retracting any disastrous movements and allowing you to escape certain death. It may sound cheap, removing some of the inherent challenge of the gameplay, but in practice it works brilliantly. For one thing, the device is not unlimited, and you can only manipulate time when you have some of the eponymous sands of time stored in your magical dagger.

Better still, the rewind function actually looks great as well, adding a nice cinematic feel to proceedings. Apart from rewinding short bursts of gameplay, you can use your trusty time dagger to slow down or accelerate the speed of the game at crucial points, like when you have to evade a nasty set of spinning death-blades.

This adds new elements to the gameplay and variety in how you approach dangerous situations. Indeed, the entire game is geared towards making you think about the problems ahead of you, instead of worrying about exactly timing a running jump. As a result, even the most cack-handed of gamers should have no problem making progress in The Sands Of Time. Whether this ultimately makes the game a bit unchallenging is uncertain. The emphasis, as we've said, is on thinking your way out of situations rather than sheer manual dexterity; on solving the game environments rather than merely coping with them.

The combat is also great fun, though again the watchword is simplicity. So you can leap over an opponent's head and slash him on the way down with a simple attack-jump key combo, but you might land in the middle of three other enemies ready to gut you. The gameplay is so fluent and the controls so intuitive, you can run confidently from one part of a level to the next without worrying about falling into a giant hole, which some clever- clogs programmer put there to display his sense of humour to the world.

There are pits, but you can see them before you get to them. There are traps, but you can see them before you plunge headlong into them. There are enemies, but you always spot them in advance, giving you a chance to prepare yourself mentally when you notice a huge mass of them standing together nodding knowingly in your direction. Help in difficult situations also comes in the form of Farah, a wily and seductive princess who becomes your unwilling partner in crime.

She can even pick off a couple of baddies while you catch your breath and prepare yourself for another scrap. The Sands Of Time may well be a work in progress, with a few finer details yet to be ironed out, but if the current build is any example of what the finished game will be like, we say bring it on. The character animations are superb, the game world is lavish and well-realised, and the all-important gameplay is fun with a capital.

In fact, this could be the first truly great platform game on the PC for years. Look out for the full blow-by-blow review next month for our final word on this potential classic. Well, you knew this one was going to be in there, right? The difference with SOT is you are not punished for bad timing.

There's no need to position your character to make pixel-perfect leaps, so the time-honoured platform tradition of making you repeat jumps over and over each time you die does not exist in this game. Knowing when to jump is important. Figuring out where to jump is important.

It really is that simple, and it's this approach to game mechanics that makes SOT such a joy to play. Thinking man's platform game? You got it. Navigating ledges is one of the most dreaded aspects in platform games. In SOT it's easy as pie. There is no danger of falling off. Even when you try to cock things up royally, the prince will often cling to the nearest ledge, giving you a second chance to climb back up and find another way round the problem.

It's another example of the game encouraging you to think of what to do next, instead of how to do it. It's safe to say this is one of very few platform games that doesn't adhere to the opinion that difficult key combinations are the only way to provide a challenge.

Many of the puzzles in the game require you to navigate areas in which the environment is falling to pieces around you. Often you are given visual clues as to where to go via cut-scenes, but sometimes you can tell just by watching changes in the landscape. Climbing up, down and around parts of the landscape is a huge part of the game. Again, the game never punishes you for getting things a bit wrong, unless you do something really stupid and just leap blindly into the abyss, in which case death is pretty much what you deserve.

Yes, you can run along the walls, as well as up the walls, something you'll find yourself doing a great deal - even when it's not strictly necessary. You can also spring off the wall at any point, hurling yourself across yawning gaps in precarious undie-soiling fashion. The seamless fluidity of the animation is at its best in scenes like these, indeed the animation is so good in SOT you'll often find yourself slowing down time just to admire the view a bit more closely.

It's really that good. The latter event may not have grabbed the headlines, but 14 years on the all-new Prince is hogging a lot of pages. Of course, he has appeared since, in for the sequel, and again in for a 3D version that history has incontrovertibly deemed 'shit'.

Following the debacle that was Prince Of Persia 3D, it may have been tempting to bury the licence and forget about the whole thing. Never go back, as the saying goes. Creator Jordan Mechner has done exactly that though, overseeing the development of this 21st-century incarnation. Suffice to say, the Prince looks a lot better than in the original. Unlike when an old band gets back together, the magic of games means that everything is shiny and new, and such are the exponential advances in technology over the past decade that it almost looks like a different medium.

Even judged by current standards, the look of Sands Of Time is immediately striking, and it comes across as a kind of soft-focus fairytale, in keeping with the ninth-century Arabian Nights-style setting. A lot of effort has clearly gone into the visual style, and if it were a film it would probably be one of those cheesecake 70s Slnbad adventures albeit thankfully without Martin Shaw.

As for the story, it is of a similar ilk, and involves the titular Prince inadvertently unleashing the titular sands, thus destroying a kingdom and turning its entire populace into ferocious demons. Clearly feeling a little sheepish, he sets out to rectify matters immediately, which is where you step in, easing into the action at a fairly sedate pace.

This is just as well, as the control system takes some getting used to, particularly with a mouse and keyboard. Not because it's bad, but because it's so original, providing a refreshing change from the tired platform antics of Tomb Raider et al. A triumph of design, the emphasis has wisely been removed from pixel-perfect gymnastics and placed instead on a far more cerebral approach.

Simply finding out what you can actually do is a joy in itself, be it walking on walls, clambering up pillars or swinging on bars like a particularly well co-ordinated chimp.

It's a breath of fresh air, and elevates the game beyond the realms of a mere 3D platformer. Mechner has stated that he wanted the gameplay to capture the frenetic pace of the original game, but initially this wish seems to have gone unheeded.

At least the first hour of the game seems to involve being stuck up a pole wondering what to do next. What you actually do is look for another nearby column, adopt the most appropriate of four directions and attempt to leap the gap. Depending on your decision, you'll either make it or you won't, and should you miss, you'll know not to try it again, eventually working out the correct route. Hardly twitch gameplay then, but as the action unfolds your manual dexterity is tested as well as your mind, and you are made to approach the game with a degree of gusto.

Effectively timed sections appear, forcing you to put your skills into practice without having all day to think about it. So, for instance, a pressure panel will open a distant door, giving you about 20 seconds to scarper up a wall, avoid a spinning blade, leap on to a ledge, hurdle a chasm and throw yourself through the door just as it slams behind you.

So far, so Indiana Jones the film, not the game , but once you get your confidence it's done in such an elegant fashion that it feels perfectly natural. And should you misjudge a move and hurtle towards imminent death, you can make like Cher and turn back time. Yep, the mystical sands of time allow you to do just that, as stabbing the R key enables you to rewind the action to the point just before you cocked up, replete with wibbly-wobbly visual effects.

You can't do it indefinitely, as the sands eventually run out and have to be replenished, but while your magic dagger is full of magic sand, it's a very useful tool to have. In real terms, it's little more than a glorified quicksave, but one that maintains the sense of immersion, something that has clearly been uppermost in the game's design. For example, health is restored by drinking water as opposed to finding an arbitrary health pack, again maintaining the integrity of the universe or at least to the extent that a gushing head wound can be cured with a sip of water.

The magical sands also have other uses, and as well as reversing time they can slow it down, giving you something of an advantage over enemies during close combat. And if you think that sounds familiar, you'd be right, as it is to all intents and purposes, bullet-time, albeit without the bullets scimitar-time doesn't quite have the same ring. Also handy in a scrap, enemies can be frozen in time, enabling you to slay them without reply.

As for the fighting, although you can sometimes run away from nasties, you will eventually have to get stuck in, using the game's much-vaunted multi-directional combat. What this means is that when surrounded by a slew of enemies, you can switch between them and lock on to one while lashing out with your sword. It's not really that big a deal -particularly with the keyboard -and the combat isn't particularly satisfying.

Demons have to first be lacerated into submission with your sword, and then swiftly finished off with the Dagger of Time lest they rise again. In a one-on-on situation, this presents no problem, but with three or four it becomes something of a crowd scene, and your path to the stricken demon is often blocked. Also, due to the fact that the Prince locks on to an enemy, if you need to back off to replenish your health, you have to first put away your weapons, thus leaving yourself vulnerable.

On the plus side, you can use your sword at any time, even when climbing a ladder or hanging off a bar. This adds to the perceived reality and comes in handy when hanging off a branch attempting to ward off a flock of killer birds, for instance.

Or maybe they were bats. Prince Of Persia was of course all about traps, with instant death meted out in a number of gruesome ways. They certainly haven't been overlooked here, and the vast palace in which the game takes place is full of them, at times resembling some kind of medieval torture chamber. Among the devious devices is an homage to the original in the form of the famous spikes, either lurking in a pit or ready to spring from the ground should you put a foot out of place.

With all manner of hardware flying about, you do need to be on your toes, and the prince is well equipped, able to roll like a gymnast, aided by some excellent animation. As a change of pace, puzzles are liberally scattered through the game, and require a reasonable level of thought. If you don't enjoy thinking and who does? It's a big old palace in which you're roaming around, and it's a reasonably big old game. Along the way, you'll meet a few characters, including the token female interest in the form of Princess Farah, who seems keen but may have dubious motives.

That said, the Prince is a goodlooking guy, particularly when he loses his shirt, and it has been suggested in some quarters that he's the male equivalent of Lara Croft, providing a bit of titillation for the ladies. It's not perfect, but there are enough fresh ideas to go some way towards re-establishing your faith in the genre. That said, simply categorising it as a platformer-turned-action adventure doesn't really do it justice, as it manages to transcend lazy pigeonholing to deliver a near seamless gaming experience.

If anything, it's a tad earnest in places, although this is perversely offset by some dismal attempts at humour. These are minor details though, and the real value is to be found in the sparkling gameplay and lavish environments.

Expectations have been high since the game's award-winning E3 appearance, and they have largely been met. Ubisoft has kissed a frog and it's turned into a prince.

Herein lies a tragedy. When we first saw the new Prince Of Persia game we were stunned - it's quite probably the bestlooking and playable platformer ever to grace the PC. Luckily, this demo gives you the chance to see why we were and still are excited and aroused. The game is centred around the titular Sands Of Time, which were spilled early on in the game proper, causing almost everyone in the land to transmogrify into strange beasts.

Add to Cart. Bundle info. Add to Account. View Community Hub. About This Game Amidst the scorched sands of ancient Persia, there is a legend spun in an ancient tongue. A technological masterpiece - Witness some of the most advanced programming in gaming history, pushing the limitations of consoles and raising the standards of games in all areas of production: physics, lighting, graphics, animations, and more!

An unmatched hero - Wielding powers of mythic proportions, the Prince returns to action-adventure gaming with gravity-defying acrobatics, ferocious fighting skills, and the ability to bend time to fulfill his destiny. The Sands of Time - Ubisoft's Montreal Studio presents the Sands of Time - a technological breakthrough that will change the face of action-adventure gaming forever.

Erase the past, behold the future, and freeze the present in real-time for unlimited gameplay variations. Exotic worlds and vast kingdoms - Uncover the mysteries of a world never before explored in action-adventure gaming.

Medieval Persia, mythical and deadly, holds a staggering array of landscapes and kingdoms to explore and conquer. A sweeping adventure of betrayal and triumph - The epic legends and deadly creatures of mythic Persia burn to life in this suspense-filled tale, featuring more twists and turns than the labyrinthine Palace itself. See all. Customer reviews. Overall Reviews:. Review Type.

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