Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Guest Review

June 29th, 2009

Wrote a review on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PS2) for Video Games Blogger, you can find it here. Ferry, the editor over there, spliced a few game quotes between my copy.

I haven’t written a review for a long time. I usually feel rather apprehensive about writing them, since mainstream reviewing usually doesn’t gel with the flavour of discussion I have here. Readers seem to be conditioned by the lazy graphics, sound, gameplay checklist which usually only serves to affirm or negate their prior assumptions with little supportive evidence. This is fine – if you’re looking for it, but such a style fails to serve the wider market of potential consumers who aren’t already on the cusp of buying, looking for that affirmation.

prince-of-persia-screen

I enjoy reading reviews where the writer justifies their assertions through supportive evidence and analysis, this allows readers to gain clearer insight into the game. The task of assigning adjectives and percentile grades to presentation, gameplay and sound does very little for the reader. Anyone can grade the visuals and sound from a trailer and/or screenshots, or read about the features of a game on the back of the box or in a press release. Without insight, the writer is almost useless – which most of them are.

It surprises me how this broken system doesn’t seem to be so harshly to older games, which is why I enjoy writing about them. I think I covered most of what I wanted to say on Sand of Time in my review. The platforming is delectable and the narrative a breath of fresh air, of course, I explain my point in the review, so please take a read. I’m playing through the trilogy, so I’ll likely have additional reviews once I finish the other games.

Additional Readings

Opinion: Do Video Games Over-Egg The Epic? – GameSetWatch

Retro reviewing – Retronauts Blog