E3 2003 – First Look
The latest game in the long-running Prince of
Persia franchise brings an exciting new element to the table: the ability to
manipulate time. You see, the prince (of Persia) went on a mission for his
father to India to retrieve a magical dagger and the Hourglass of Time. He
managed to get both, but when he returns home, someone tells him to pry open the
hourglass with the dagger. He does so, and the hourglass breaks, sending the
sands of time everywhere, destroying the palace and transforming the people of
Persia into vicious sand-people. This forces the prince to embark on a quest to
re-gather the sands of time and restore Persia to its former glory.
The prince has gotten quite a bit more nimble
since last we saw him. He now has the ability to run up and alongside walls, and
perform acrobatic combos. His coolest ability is manipulating time by collecting
the sands of time. Using the sands, the prince can slow everything down, speed
himself up to moving in the blink of an eye, slow down one enemy to perform a
combo juggle and still attack another enemy, or completely rewind an event to do
it over again. Hopefully, this technique won’t be just a gimmick but an integral
part of gameplay, and if it is, you can look forward to the Prince of Persia
reclaiming his throne on the top of the action/adventure heap.
The Sands of Time is scheduled to release
later this year on PS2, Xbox, and GameCube and early 2004 on the PC.
