Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands on 360 and PS3 persuades us to forget about the previous game. This is the real heir to the platforming throne – even though there are other cheaper Xbox 360 games. By keeping focused on what it does best, The Forgotten Sands creates a platforming puzzle game that will thrill newcomers, and win over the faithful. One for the rental list of any committed gamer.

I liked the Nolan North voiced, cell shaded Prince (and rented it on a number of occasions) but for now it is swept under the carpet as Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands picks up where Sands of Time left off all those years ago.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands on either 360 or PS3 has you playing the still nameless Prince as he visits his brother Malik’s city, and unexpectedly stumbles into a full siege. Things are complicated by Malik’s zombie army which although thwart the attackers proceed to swamp the city.

All this is by the by and simply an excuse for some classic Prince of Persia platforming. As always, you can run along walls, knife-slide down banners, hang from poles and generally defy gravity. It’s still great fun to charge around the rich environments using these skills to get to increasingly hard to reach places.

As well as timing jumps and identifying routes to your targets there is also an array of mechanical puzzles. Some of these really stumped me. But once figured out they all pretty much make sense.

Everything slotted into place, going back all those years to a classic prince. And I think this made the technical improvements all the more impressive. Much of the visual style and sheer scale of the game is only possible on today’s 360 and PS3 hardware. I imagine this is less impressive on the Wii - but you get my point.

It’s not all as it was though as the Prince’s sword fighting is much simpler now. You are only awarded the more interesting moves as you progress through the game. While I’m sure this makes it easier for newcomers, I was impatient to have a full powered up Prince.

The coolest moment is when you gain the ability to freeze water. This is not only great fun but completely changes how you can solve problems. Many areas not accessible previously are now available with a bit of Freeze-zone action. It made me wonder if I should have gone for a cheap Xbox 360 game purchase rather than a rental.

All these changes work well to appeal to a wider audience – and make it ideal for rent. I wasn’t quite so sure about the boss-battles which I found a bit too easy at first. But either upping the difficulty or progressing deeper into the game soon provided me with the tough challenge I remember from the older games.

Prince of Persia needed to change for a world where Uncharted 2, Mirror’s Edge and Assassin’s Creed have really stretched the genre. By staying focused on the pure platforming that made the original such a hit, and tweaking the difficulty for newer gamers, The Forgotten Sands does more than hold its own. In fact, it even made me forget about the previous game for a while.

Score: 8/10 – A strong rental game with accessible gameplay for newcomers and some surprises for the experts.

Format: Available to rent or buy on: 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP.

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Topics: PSP, PS3, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 |

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