Review: Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

[EvilSpaghetti]

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Mobile Game Review

Title: Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Developer: Gameloft
Publisher: Gameloft
Release Date: Out now.
Format: J2ME
Game Features:
Reviewed on: SE K800i

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Summary

Sealed away for centuries, the evil Ifrit is free once again and now threatens to destroy the kingdom ruled by Malik, the Prince’s brother. Grab your sword and strike down your enemies in 9 locations including the Palace, Catacombs and Desert. Restore life to the desert, undo the destruction and return Malik’s kingdom to glory. Unleash the Prince’s new fighting skills and spectacular abilities to overcome foes and unravel secrets. It’s time for you to find your power and unleash your destiny!

Review

Hello again, this time around we have Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, the newest in one of many Prince of Persia titles to hit our mobiles, so my question for The Forgotten Sands is... Does Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands differ from any of the other titles?

A few weeks a go I reviewed Splinter Cell: Conviction, why are you bringing this up? I hear you ask, simply because The Forgotten Sands is pretty similar in terms of gameplay, it's an action platformer but obviously in the style of Prince of Persia, if you're a veteran of the PoP games on mobile you be able to pick this up and play right away as the controls are near enough the same as all other PoP titles, but fear not the ones who are not so familiar with the games it's pretty simple to play anyway, you also get a little help from the game when it comes to running up walls, yes that's right the game actually helps you the run up walls, all you have to do is run up to in and the game will do the rest, simply pressing '2' will allow the Prince to jump off at an angle, '1' and '3' are also used for jumping, you can use the D-Pad but I suggest that you don't as often with most D-Pads trying to do diagonal commands with them is usually one of the most irritating things in the world, but on saying that using '1' and '3' whilst running isn't the most comfortable positions to be in.
Now if like me you've played a few Gameloft games you'll know that they have a tendency to recycle their game, what I mean by that is that they like to take bits from older versions and re-use them in the newer versions and The Forgotten Sands isn't any different, if you've played PoP: Zero you will notice straight away the near exact same HUD and a few other features, but there are some changes from Zero in terms of gameplay, those of you who played Zero with remember Elika a sort of assistant who helped you out in fights, well she's gone and it's back to the Prince to fight it out alone for most of the story, but luckily those time bending sands are back for those tricky situations where you find yourself in a spot of bother, or you can do a bit of gardening with them, no you didn't read that wrong I said gardening, no you won't be growing flowers or herbs, just bringing dead vines back to life so that you can climb on them, or you can have a go at a bit of construction by rebuilding bridges, so these sand are a real necessity. Now that Elika has gone what is there to help you progress through those tricky barriers? Well in The Forgotten Sands the Prince has gained the ability to turn to water, this ability is used to pass through gates, it's a nice feature, strange but nice. The Forgotten Sands is a fun game to play there are some nice little touches added to make it as fun as it is, for example you can have a bloody tug of war with an enemy over a buzz-saw, and there's some pretty immense chase scenes, but even with all these new features it still feels the same as Zero, and it appears that Gameloft have slipped into their old ways and used the formula as it has done for the previous PoP titles, it just doesn't feel like a new game.

Conclusion

So I asked the question... Does Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands differ from any of the other titles? Well yes and no, yes it has some new features but at the same time it feels exactly the same as all the other PoP titles.

Screenshots

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Graphics: 8/10
As with most Gameloft games pleasing on the eye.

Sound: 8/10
Not too bad.

Game play:5/10
Fun and simple to play but feel the same as previous titles.

Story: 6/10
Quite short.

Overall Score: 6 out of 10

[Michelle]

Great review, EvilSpaghetti!!!

[Vivian]

Great review Aaron!

[Luter]

Great Review Aaron

[EvilSpaghetti]

Thanks guys.

[Vishay]

Great Review!!!!

[EvilSpaghetti]

Cheers 591989.

[EvilSpaghetti]

Next review; CyberPunk Arasaka's Plot.

[filani]

There's no doubt that Gameloft are one of the best mobile game developers out there today , making mobile gamers like me very happy with games like PoP THE FORGOTTEN SANDS (PoP:TFS).

The graphics true to gameloft standards are colorful & bright with the prince cutting a dashing figure on your mobile screen but i can't get away from the fact that the backgrounds on the game are recycled e.g the background for the fortress stage is simply a darkened version of the backgrounds for the kingdom stage ! gives me the impression that somebody somewhere didn't want to go the extra mile to give us something new with every stage
Bad Gameloft ! you get a 7 in graphics from me.

The Sounds on the other hand are adequate to a PoP game , they did ok in that department .

The game-play is the cornerstone on this little beauty. stealing weapons from enemy soldiers, quick time events (QTE) & the ''running towards the screen'' escape stages. nicely done

The story on the whole is short ,true but keep in mind that PoP :TFS is an interquel story between SANDS OF TIME & THE WARRIOR WITHIN .Making the story too intricate would raise more questions than giving answers which is the main aim of an interquel story.

That said another good review Aaron..erm ...sorry i mean EvilSpaghetti