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Last night, I concluded my rocky love affair with the newish Prince of Persia game, “The Sands of Time.” I actually started playing it a while ago, and got about 70% of the way through the game, when I was stymied by a bug. I had recently saved, and a platform that was supposed to rise when I stood on it did not. Since I had no save game since 40%, in order to make it any further, I had to restart play at that point.

The game is beautiful. I think that it my be, graphically, the peak of what the PS2 will achieve (though Gran Turismo 4 won’t be any slouch, either). It has amazing lighting, shadows, and modeling. Part of the effect is acheived by giving the entire game a hazy sort of look, but it works for me. Even better than the way it looks, though, are the controls. I have never played a game with such a rich palette of character controls that was so effortless to use. It’s challenging while not being frustrating, with everything from running along walls to swinging around poles and sliding gracefully down ladders. It just works.

And the controls clear the way for the best part of the game: the puzzles. The game is basically one long string of movement puzzles, with a few fights thrown in. The puzzles usually revolve around getting from one room to the next, either by climbing or descending or opening a gate. Frequently, you’ll screw up, and end up plummeting to your death or impaled on spikes. That’s where another unique aspect of the game comes in: the dagger of time. With a press of a button, you can reverse time for 10 or 15 seconds, and give that tricky jump another try. It removes all the frustration but none of the sense of acheivement from the game.

Last night, I finally finished it. It took maybe 20 hours of gameplay, which in the age of Final Fantasy X seems paltry. But it was very satisfyingly spread over a couple of months, including the time to replay half the game :P. The game is out, I think, for the PS2, gamecube, XBOX, and PC, so there’s really no excuse for not giving it a spin. Probably the best action-based game I’ve played in years.

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Comments

danielabrego — 2004-04-08 17:38:13

Playing Sands of Time made me feel like a kid again hammering away at a Super Metroid or Prince of Persia.

After playing it, I wanted to hunt down of copy Ico for more escaping from a giant castle fun.

bryan — 2004-04-09 08:49:37

i forgot to mention how much easier the sands of time was than the original POP. Wow, was that game hard. They actually have the original game stuck into sands of time as an easter egg.

Daniel — 2004-04-09 22:01:08

Yeah, I think this game would've been a tad o­n the difficult side if it weren't for the time effects.  Playing Jak 2 after this game was a big bad idea o­n my part…that game is evil. I kept wanting to reverse time to no avail.

See?

So, it’s that time again for all our favorite websites to do silly things for April 1st. Slashdot let me down this year, but there were two excellent showings from homestarrunner and maddox. Better hurry; I suspect everything will have returned to normal by tomorrow.

Yes, it’s that time again folks! Let’s bash Wal-Mart!

First, the funny. A woman is nearly crushed to death trying to get to a $30 DVD player .

Now, the depressing. Fast Company’s analysis of Wal-Mart’s strategy for abusing suppliers, which revolves around a gallon jar of pickles. What’s good for Wal-Mart is good for the country, right? Right?

The entirety of last weekend was absorbed in scuba training with Leslie. I was actually certified back when I was sixteen for a trip my family took to Cozumel, and I did a bit of diving in Costa Rica in ‘98, and then another trip to Cozumel in (I think) 1999. The upshot is that it’s probably been five years since I’ve been underwater, and so I figured my skills could use a bit of polishing. And, of course, Leslie needed to get the training under her belt, too.

The dive shop where we were trained is called “Diver Dan’s Wet Pleasure.” No, really. It’s very near our apartment, and the staff there really seem to have their shit together. We happened to be trained by some high PADI mucky-muck, so there were a bunch of aspiring instructors there to help. Actually, there were about 10 instructors and only 8 students, so the ratio worked out pretty well. We took the “accelerated course,” which means 3 hours on Friday, 9 on Sat/Sun, and four dives next weekend in Monterrey Bay. In honesty, if you read the book outside of class, the time spent in the pool is really the only time not wasted. I’d suspect Leslie would have been fine just coming in, taking the final exam in about 30 mins, and spending 4 hours or so in the pool.

Let me tell you a story about water temperatures. You might think that 70 degrees is a pleasant temperature to go swimming in. Well, it’s not. It’s really frickin cold. Even 80 can get cold after a while. Why? Because your body is 98.6, and even dropping that a few degrees can cause uncontrollable shivering and hypothermia. And water can wick heat away from your body like no one’s business. Any way, when I first got certified in Austin, we went diving in Lake Travis (Windy Point, to be exact). The water was in the low 70s, and it was pretty damned cold. We’re going for ocean dives in the Pacific, which makes Lake Travis in winter look like a hot tub. The current water temperature in Monterey is 54 degrees. I’m shaking just thinking about it.

We’re supposed to be in Monterey (about an hour and a half from where we live) at 7:30 next Saturday morning. Lemons to lemonade, we’ve decided to make a little weekend trip out of it. We’ll probably head out Friday afternoon, shack up at the Travelodge and take it easy. Maybe on Saturday afternoon when Leslie is recovering/grading papers, I can sneak off and visit Laguna Seca. Hmm…