Survival Guide #17: Prince Of Persia - The Sands Of Time

by Awesome The Hedgehog (He already pre-ordered his copy of Sonic Unleashed).

 

Hello and welcome to another intriguing issue of Awesome The Hedgehog’s Survival Guides to…games, stupid. Now listen, this next one is a favorite every PS2 should own or at least have played. It’s not a remake, nor a sequel, but more of a reboot in the franchise: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time! Oh joy!

 

Now, if you have played this before, you may be aware the searing pain it injects into the player’s wrists and thumbs, while the Prince’s-somehow “British”-corpse mocks you on the screen. Yes, the name and voice do give this guy away; the Prince is the ultimate pussy, he steals from Shinobi and The Matrix and cries like a baby when he falls, I mean makes a “Wah wah wah wah!” spat.

1) The Price’s Rather Shit and Plagiarizing Abilities

Yes, you probably all know what the Prince can do and we all know that what he can do is pretty irrelevant to the game. I mean, this man is a Persian Prince, yet he thinks he’s Keanu Reeves…bogus. However, I will admit that watching a perfectly pulled off combo of running across walls and jumping across ledges and rolling under moving blades with out one second of hesitation can be quite satisfying. And that’s the reason these techniques were probably put in there, this game is long and gay but it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it for what it’s worth (you faggot).

 

We can only hope…

 

2) Falling

Oh my god! This man can run across walls and take on massive sand zombies, but if he falls a couple of inches from the ground, he’ll manage to break his neck and leave a bloody mangled corpse, what a maroon! Falling is not an option in this game, keep pointer 1) in mind when running across walls which are higher than usual, long into the game you come across walls with no floors and I think you’ll no what to do then. But seriously, even if the floor does look pretty shallow from your perspective, I wouldn’t try risking it, saves in this game occur randomly and far apart.

 

God punishes the Prince for his shit game.

 

3) The Enemy

Aside from the tutorial, the only Ai you can stick your sword into the face of is a bunch of sand zombies created by and old man and his stick (soon to be a porno). You will have to fight packs of these constantly and they will consume most of your time playing, it’s repetitive nature soon becomes a chore to do and that’s why this game sucks ass. Aim for the glowing bright yellow parts of their body, which they will usually try to guard, it’s their weak point. Try doing that jump over their head and slash their back thing you can do with the X button on the weaker enemies (Don’t try doing that with enemies that have long sticks, they will strike you back down). Also, don’t get pushed to the floor while surrounded by them, they will not let you get back up and rewinding time will be pretty pointless.

 

The Prince attempts to appeal to the local youth.

 

4) Using Sand To Your Full Advantage

Sand is the gimmick of the game, sometimes it can be your friend other times it will kick you in the face. You only have one life in this game and because savepoints are incredibly random and inconsistent, well you gotta use the sand to your fullest. There are three main ways to use sand, one is to slow down time, which is really unimportant and doesn’t help you at all. The other two are trapping enemies and of course rewinding time as we’ve discussed before. Never (EVER!) use the rewind capability as a leisure type of thing, you only have so much sand and you only get new sand (from enemies or sand…storms(?)) at the most inconvenient times. Only rewind time when you’re dead, never when in trouble fighting or just fell off a puzzle or something and have to do it all again. Use trapping enemies in sand as a last resort, because it takes up a whole tank and lasts only a few seconds.

 

Okay, a joke is a joke, but that’s enough…

 

5) Increasing Powers and Finding Weapons

At the beginning of the game, you start off with a really shit pile of crap (figure of speech). Nothing can really help you except your sword and that starts to bend soon enough while further into the game. Luckily you get two sword upgrades, each one powerful-er than the last (sadly you don’t get the second new one until the end of the game, which really sucks because it kills enemies with one hit). Swords can also help breaks through cracks in walls, which lead to other upgrades, in this case, health. Somehow you wind up on a separate path with a bunch of veils hanging from the ceiling and that leads to this underground water fountain, which boosts your health bar a little each time you visit.

 

*NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

 

6) The “Fatal Farah” Glitch!!

This is probably the big reason I hate this game, because I got caught in it’s web. Now, I’m not sure how many times it can occur or in how many places it can appear, but make sure it doesn’t happen to you! Farah is this chick who follows you around and can fit into small cracks (soon to be a porno) to help you solve puzzles, if she dies the game is over. Now the only officially way she can die is killed by the enemy or killed by you, however if she happens to follow you around in a room filled with spike pits and decides to take a nice dip in the pool, it’s over. That, however, isn’t the glitch! Right next to the spike pit in that certain room (called “The Learning Hall” btw) is a savepoint, which has a 5 second intro movie to the vision. During this 5 second vision, she can fall in and die and it can be official. So basically, you’ll save at the point of her death, meaning each time you load that save it’s game over about 2 seconds in. Sucks, huh? Yeah, keep a close eye on her.

 

So now you know what to look out for and why the game sucks (and what’s coming to the adult section of your local video store very soon). If you think the game is worth checking out, I can’t recommend it, but that’s because of the personal misery I’ve had with it. But luckily, that misery can go on to protect you from the pain you might suffer during the 123,456,789 hours of enduring gameplay. Next time True Crime, vote Awesome.

 

*Don’t get the joke? It’s Micheal Bay…ugh.

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