Just when you think you are on top of the world, you've proven to your father that you are worthy of his respect by retrieving the priceless Dagger of Time and now you get to unlock the hourglass in front of the entire royal court. Too bad it's all a setup and you will have to battle through a dizzying array of sand monsters, palace defenses, and puzzles in order to put the genie back in the bottle. You can count on one thing, though. You will look great doing it!

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has exploded out of the studios of Ubisoft like so many other recent hits. They must have a real stable of gaming gurus there, because the games just keep hitting their mark. Think of Splinter Cell combined with Aladdin and you start to get an idea of what the Sands of Time looks like. The PS2 and Xbox versions are leading candidates for Game of the Year on everyone's list, and the PC version is not far off of the pace. Playing games on the PC has certain advantages, such as being able to play at high resolutions, but this is mitigated by the fact that Prince of Persia is really a platformer game that demands to be played with a gamepad. Unfortunately, Ubisoft did not build in very much support for the various gamepads available to PC users, so you may need to use the configuration utility to come up with a custom key-button mapping scheme. Double-clicking the key assignment area then pressing the corresponding button on the gamepad worked on one of my controllers, but I was never able to control the camera with the pad.

Control issues are the only flaw that mars this release, because the graphics presented and the animation are Disney-level quality. If you didn't know better, you could almost believe you were playing a movie. The camera swings around to show various perspectives as you move through the rooms of the palace, which generally help you play, though sometimes the camera shifts can be disconcerting. As you enter a new area, you are provided with a quick "fly-by" of the various obstacles present which give you a hint of what you need to do to make it through successfully. At the save points, you are blessed with a much more dream-like vision of the high points of the next level, so you have an idea what you are getting into.

Combat with the sand creatures is fast and furious. Rarely do you have the luxury of battling only one opponent at a time, so you will quickly learn to break out the Prince's spectacular ninja-like moves to keep up. When you can slash two baddies in quick succession and then vault a third, slashing him from above as you twist over him and then deliver the coup-de-grace with the Dagger to retrieve his sand, you will experience a fierce rush of satisfaction. And you will need to "retrieve" sand from quite a few of these guys, because that is the best part of the whole game.

By carrying the Dagger of Time, you gain the ability to control time. As you progress through the game, you fill up Sand Tanks, shown at the side of the screen, that give you the fuel to rewind time, slow it down, or even eventually give you the ability to move faster than everyone else, giving you the chance to really bust one loose. The rewind feature is the best, allowing you to rewind the game after a jump goes awry or you get a surprise sword thrust from the back. Since you have to have sand in order to perform any time functions, this is a very balanced feature and only adds to the fun rather than making everything too easy.

The attention to detail is amazing on this game. The gameplay flows from one scene to another with hardly a break. Health powerups are handled more naturally than ANY other game in history. In order to heal, you have to find a source of water, any water, and take a drink. Simple and realistic. Better than strategically scattered "medkits" just lying around, better than meds in a cabinet, just plain amazing.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is one of those games that comes along and you simply must play. It should be considered as one of the best games of the year and may eventually rank as one of the top classics. Since this is so much more of a console/game pad type game, I would give serious thought to the Xbox/PS2/GC version, just to avoid the control issues, but there is so much to like, all platforms are great options to play Prince of Persia. Just play it!