Prince of Persia

Because lately I have a good deal of time on my hands (not complaining in the least, mind you), I decided that before I actually got into the new Prince of Persia (I picked up my pre-ordered copy last Wednesday as all pre-orders were upgraded to the collector's edition for free), I would check out the old trilogy that was on the PS2/Xbox. I picked up used copies of the 3 games (Sands of Time, Warrior Within and Two Thrones) on the Xbox (at Gamestop) for $4, $5 and $10, respectively. I'm glad I did. I just finished Sands of Time earlier this evening (morning) and I loved it. It's a relatively short game (it took me just under 10 hours to beat), but it is a treat to play. The graphics, for its time as the game was released in 2003, look great, the controls are smooth and the gameplay, while challenging, is not stupid, make-you-want-to-throw-your-controller-at-the-tv, impossibly hard. Once you beat Sands of Time, you can unlock the original Prince of Persia (on the PC, back in the late 80s I think) game, though if you play the game on your 360 like I did, when you try to play the original Prince of Persia the screen just goes black. It's easy to see after playing Sands of Time where Ubisoft got the idea for Assassin's Creed.

The 360 Prince of Persia is calling my name pretty loudly, so I may be waiting to play the rest of the Xbox trilogy until after running through the 360 game. I haven't seen more than the opening cut scene of the 360 game, but the graphics are simple yet stunning and the music is beautiful (as a nice bonus, a short game soundtrack is on the collector's edition disc).