The camera switches between free and fixed angles, sometimes you're able to spin it round to get a good look at your surroundings, while other times you'll be forced into looking at things from a certain angle, not a terrible thing, but the controls can seem a little awkward when the fixed camera is in play, sometimes you're not sure which way your supposed to be pressing the stick; this becomes apparent during the sections where you're against the clock and an inadvertent press of the control stick in what you think is the right way will have you heading in the wrong direction. That's not to say that it isn't a fluid experience, it is, and once you've got the hang of it then it can look amazing as you bounce across the room doing impossible looking moves. The rooms themselves are dressed in all manner of decoration and rarely fail to impress, particularly when you start to reach rooms that are quite tall and you can still see the scenery of the parts already traversed below, it's just a shame the same effort wasn't put into the main character.
Combat in Prince of Persia has always felt rather forced since the inception of the 3D models and unfortunately The Forgotten Sands is no exception, for such an acrobatic chap you always end up thinking that he should be a much better fighter than he actually is, unfortunately not it seems. An example of such is during some of the fights which are interspersed with a little animation of the Prince punching a guard, this sometimes results in another one hitting you when you come out of the animation, rarely fatal, but always stupid. Other combat glitches are apparent as well, for example, if you're fighting on a ledge then it's sometimes possible to throw your enemy over the side, all well and good and sometimes quite fun, however, the mechanic sometimes gets a bit confused and you end up throwing people through a wall or an enclosed stone staircase. That said, gone are the blocking moves that dogged the last game so it's not all bad news.
Once you get into the crux of fighting you'll be able to gain yourself some experience points from dropping your opponents to the floor. This allows you to purchase upgrades to your powers such as a longer health bar and armour upgrades, later on you'll also be able to purchase new abilities. The amount of enemies that attack you at various points can seem a little overwhelming given the sludge like feel of the combat manoeuvres, you're encouraged to chain moves together throughout, however, when you try to do this then it just makes things worse and somewhere along the line you come to the conclusion that the easiest way to do things is to keep using the one attack and maybe throw in an odd jump or two to get you out of harms way. There is a fair selection of enemies to go up against though, sure the main enemies are pretty much skeletons, but some of the other creatures that pop up from time to time can make an interesting change of pace, especially when a large group are attacking at any one time which requires different strategies to defeat; again though you'll large be reduced to using the one type of attack for the most part.
While the early stages might seem a little reminiscent of the previous games, and you'll be forgiven for thinking that this new incarnation offers nothing new; it's later into the story when you get the power to freeze water that it starts to truly blossom as an addition to the franchise. Not only will you have to freeze the water to create new platforms to leap and bound from but you'll also have to unfreeze it as well. Later on you'll gain the powers to create new levels out of fresh air, which further complicates things for our hero and introduces even more reasons to keep sharp and focused, by the time you reach the end you'll be pressing more buttons than you can sometimes fathom in order to get to your destination without even thinking about it.
It's not a bad game but it's a bit of a slow burner, like a film that doesn't get going till near the end where you might be a little bored at the start but you end up truly enjoying the experience. It's fairly safe to say that after the first disappointing reboot the Prince of Persia has once again found its way, it's a shame in some ways that Ubisoft have reverted back to a tried and tested formula for the series, especially going back to a previous storyline for their basis and perhaps you can levy some criticism at them for essentially bringing nothing spectacularly new to the table, but it's also great to see the Prince back doing what he should. It would've been good to see a better fighting system employed, especially with the scope given to fight so many enemies at one time; but, that was never what the Prince of Persia games were about, and so you can't really fault it for bringing a little, if not tedious variation to the action.
The Forgotten Sands therefore is not a perfect game, but it isn't necessarily a bad game, it's however one that you should definitely check out. Hopefully by the time we next see the Prince he'll have some new tricks to show us, until then we'll be happy with this.
