Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Feature Feature

The Prince of Persia game goes back a long way, right back to the good old 8 bit days when its many distinguishing features made it a flagship title. Its qualities - including polished graphics, unrivaled animations, superb action, thrilling storyline and ambient settings - put it way ahead of its competitors and made it almost a cult series. With each new games machine came a new version of Prince of Persia, which always managed to continue to be one step ahead of its time. <br><br><br>With the advent of time and more new machines, although the PC has remained a constant factor throughout, a new Prince of Persia title, The Sand of Time (POP), is nearing completion and due late 2003. Our man on the spot caught up with Yannis Mallat, the Producer, to find out what new and inventive ideas were in the making. With a game based on a strong storyline and action (that you must play and see to fully appreciate), one that has been chronicled endlessly from its conception, getting something new on the game is an almost impossible task but here is a game that must be talked about for potentially it is one of the big titles for 2003!<br><br>Throughout the many years POP has evolved, it has got better technically, but the essence of the game, the story and the characters and above all the compelling action, has always remained primarily the same. So how do the team go about making things even better? Newer and more powerful machines, more detailed setting, swisher movement and even more complex moves are a prerequisite. The initial task was building a playable area around the main character’s behaviour, a principal priority for the team. Comparisons with older versions will be made and time does tend to bring the nostalgic view that some of the versions from bygone days were better, even though they were not. With the POP concept so strong the development team used other sources for inspiration such as: The Arabian Nights book, even the movie Crouching Tiger, as well as the team playing the original games constantly.<br><br>Yannis mulled over and reminisced and then quickly brought us up to the present day with some interesting comments.<br><br>"The Prince of Persia games were among the coolest PC/varied format games ever. We wanted the huge numbers of people who are playing on next-gen consoles (including lots of the original Prince of Persia fans) to be able to experience this game." <br><br>"Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time offers a fresh and new start to this license. Although this game will be very much inspired from the original creation, basically everything needed to be rebuilt and redesigned to bring it on the Next Gen consoles and PC.” <br><br>“The game offers a new storyline that will be very tightly welded to the gameplay. The philosophy of the game will remain a focus for the team, meaning it will express a lot of elegance, attention to detail and uniqueness, while offering great action and sheer exhilaration of movement to preserve that feeling of the original game... only a bit more actual! The bottom line is that re-capturing the magic of the first game through new technology and innovations is quite a challenge for the development team, and it will be a great reward for the gamers.”<br><br>"We knew very early on that the whole concept would depend on the immediate appeal and intuitive controls of the Prince. Of course, this implied a specific organisation of the team, as we wanted the core to focus on this crucial goal. But we also wanted to experience this title played on the real engine, on the real platform, with all the constraints that implies. So we sent the core engineer team to another Ubi Soft studio to learn the engine we chose for the game. Once we were satisfied with the ‘playable's’ feel, movements, and basic gameplay, we focused on character design for the Prince, and then on environments and art. In a nutshell, we focused first on the gameplay basics, the things that make the game fun to play; then we focused on the dressing of the game, the things that make it beautiful to look at. And we also achieved a technical breakthrough very early on, but you'll have to wait to hear more about that!”<br><br>The newly created 'Prince' of Persia has a very different look from the previous games. He is strong and has many qualities and attributes, which includes courage and determination. The new character design will highlight other qualities and with almost feline movement, agility that offers spectacular lightning moves, it will please connoisseurs of the series. Skills in combat, from swordplay to martial arts, make the Prince an impressive specimen, who on his journey will face many life-or-death situations.<br><br>In POP, the Prince's ideals and illusions will be challenged by the hard choices he must make. In the course of the story he matures and learns what is really important.<br><br>Jordan Mechner has written the storyline. As a games designer, filmmaker and screenwriter, his specialty is telling a story in cinematic form, and comes with a truly impressive CV, which includes working on previous POP titles. One objective for him was to create action in the game that was interwoven with the storyline and not just merely adding cut scenes to flesh the game out.<br><br>A summary to the background story is that the player will take up the role of the Prince. After his father, the King, invades the palace of an Indian Maharajah, the Prince, tricked by a treacherous vizier, uses a magic dagger that will release a deadly curse, the Sands of Time, from an ornate hourglass. From that point, the story will unfold into an unbelievable adventure involving the Sands of Time and the struggle for life against evil. <br><br>"The game will take place in an exotic and mysterious world representing Persian time, from architecture and style, to the animals and the attire. The plot and storyline of the game are very much linked to the innovative gameplay found in this title. Locations vary greatly and mostly take place around the Persian Palace, from the deepest, darkest dungeons to the beautiful sun drenched gardens, there are so many locations, and a few surprises!"<br><br>POP offers almost everything action and adventure games could wish for. There is an endless list of enemies with both outside and inside action. If it is puzzles you want, or precise movement and manipulation, where timing really matters then look no further. Older gamers will fondly remember playing some the original games and getting excited and frustrated at having to jump from one ledge to another, failing just short and having to redo the task again. If you like your combat then this will also please. The real essence of POP has always been the fine mixture of gaming elements that fuse themselves seamlessly with the story to offer up gameplay where you always want to play for just one more level and ending up playing for hours on end just to see what is on offer on the next level. A roof top shenanigan, another POP fav component, is redone with even more style. Superlatives just reel off! <br> <br>POP is all about actually playing the game for all those little touches and special effects cannot be appreciated unless you are playing live. The glow of the naked flames, the endless particle effects that give POP its ambient look and feel. Even the music and sound effects within this game actually heighten enjoyment as opposed to being there for the sake of it.<br><br><br>Although POP may still be relatively low profile at this stage, and that will change soon with massive marketing, it is a title that looks to be perfect in almost every area and is being released across nearly all formats!