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So yeah, The Sands of Time movie is coming out soon as well as the 4th installment of the Sands of Time games. I'm the only person in the world I think who is going to say this, but I actually think the movie doesn't look half bad. Being the nostalgic goon that I am, I've replayed the more recent (Save for the 2008 one, which I didn't care for) PoP games and finally played The Two Thrones, which I missed out on the first time round. I've also gone back to my childhood to the original Prince of Persia games, which was one of the first games I ever played. So let's take a look at the classic PoP games, up to "Sands of Time." and by all means feel free to share your opinions on the series. Also take the Poll if you wish. Oh, and the two blue links link to Mechner's journals on the animation process.
Let's flash back to 1985. For some reason or another, young Jordan Mechner was filming his brother David (Random piece of Trivia: I've met David before. Was at a gathering for Go players, and he was there to get recognition for being one of the highest ranking Non-Japanese players. I gave him a play and was determined to beat him. I failed, but not miserably, I had him for awhile..) running about in a parking lot and he decided to take these images and over a period of time, he rotoscoped them and several [ame="http://vimeo.com/3858091"]other[/ame] images made from scratch in order to make the 1989 classic, Prince of Persia. He was relatively unknown for awhile, but a little game known as Karateka earned him a minor reputation and Prince of Persia's unique gameplay and incredible animation caught the eyes of the industry.
What made Prince of Persia unique was its focus on "Realism" and its story. It was a platformer, but this wasn't Mario. You couldn't fall of a four story ledge and keep on trucking, you'd be pavement pizza. You could leap and run, but momentum and realistic physics kept you fairly grounded and insidious traps and pitfalls haunted you.
The story is somewhat familiar (Especially to fans of Disney's Aladdin. Seriously, give Mechner some credit, Disney, there's no way in hell you didn't get some ideas from Prince of Persia.) and simple: You are a young man who has won the heart of the Princess of Persia, and the Sultan has agreed to let you marry but before the wedding, the Sultan is called away to war and he leaves his Grand Vizier, Jaffar in charge who tears the land apart. Jaffar wants the princess for himself, and throws the Prince into the dungeons against her knowledge, and approaches her. She refuses his advances, and so Jaffar conjures an hourglass and leaves the Princess with a choice: Marry Jaffar in the hour, or die. As the prince, you must escape the dungeons, navigate the palace, and save the princess from Jaffar. What made the story involving though was the fact that the "Marry him within the hour" thing wasn't just a plot device, it was the crux of the gameplay. You only have one hour to save the princess, precious minutes ticking away as you navigated the dungeon.
The game was unforgiving, and I played the game when I was like 4 (The game was older than me, I also played the 2nd one at this time too.) and imagine how a standard 4 year old would react to getting pounded with a spiked steel hammer. I nearly broke the keyboard in frustration, but I pressed on and truly this is what most peoples experience of the game was like. You almost had to memorize the game, beating it on your first try is something I'm sure only some holy deity could do. Even Mechner admitted he couldn't do it on his first try.
But the game was compelling, because of two things: Defying death and beating the clock. Death rides you so hard throughout the game that you could sue him for sexual harassment, so whenever you would successfully leap over a spike trap or make it through those damn blade traps with your intestines intact (For 1989/1992, the game is actually fairly bloody, especially the Mac version which was the version I played.... I was shocked the first time I saw him go in half, actually a little freaked out.) you felt a rush of excitement because you really felt like you had defeated death.
One of the most memorable sequences for me was The Mirror. There's a scene where you come across a mirror, and something happens... you step out of it. Talk about a major mindwarp. He moves like you do, and you can strike him with your sword, but it will injure you. This stumped a lot of people, and the solution was only stranger. To defeat your mirror self, you had to walk into him and merge. A metaphor of bravery and understanding/believing in yourself against all odds, or just a really trippy boss fight? Who knows.
Defeating the clock was also one of the things that gives one a rush. When I first beat the game and saved the princess, I had only two minutes on the clock and my heart was pounding. It was all so satisfying and addicting.
The game proved to be a hit, and came to many more systems and consoles, even the Gameboy (In fact it was released for the Gameboy twice, once in 1992 and again in 1998 but with Gameboy Colour support) The best port of the game was arguably the SNES version, for not being a direct port. It's a rare example of a port expanding on its source material. The SNES version is worth owning even if you have a copy of the original game because the levels were longer and remixed (A 2 hour time limit was also given to make up for this) and there was a total of 20, a total of 8 more levels than any other version.
Due to the games popularity, a sequel wasn't too far off. The sequel, dubbed "The Shadow and the Flame" continued the princes story: After marrying the princess and living happily, The Prince is called away for a bit, and when he returns, something isn't right. He enters the palace with the court staring at him in a strange manner, and he sees the Sultan and the Princess staring at him in an even stranger manner, behind them stood a mysterious figure. You approach the princess and speak to her, but only to have the guards take spears to your throat as the mysterious figure reveals itself, and the mysterious figure turns out to be..... you? Yes, indeed it is you, or so the prince and the princess think. A ray of light crosses the other you, and Jaffar's face is revealed briefly, but only to your eye. Turns out Jaffar has the Sultan and the Princess under a spell, and just as you are about to be thrown in the dungeon again, you leap out of a window and get straight into the action.
The game was a little more forgiving then its predecessor. The time limit doesn't start until halfway through the game (Unless you play the crappy Super Nintendo port which starts the timelimit at the beginning) and leaping is a bit easier to do, the game occasionally leaping for you instead of having to push the joystick diagonally or tap two keys at once in a split second and in some levels the ability to see a map, provided you found a secret. It was still difficult though, and it was still very satisfying. (Unless you play the crappy Super Nintendo port..) It was a bit longer than the first (Unless you play that crappy Super Nintendo port... why am I not surprised the SNES port of #2 was done by the people who did Superman 64?) and it improved graphically and had music. The world was also had more variety, rather than just two graphic sets you would go through various outdoors and indoors areas.
The game was popular, but not as popular as the first. Save for the crappy Super Nintendo port, it was only released on Dos and on Mac. After this, Mechner put the series on standby and went to work on "The Last Express," a HIGHLY underrated masterpiece and one of my favourite lost gems. The company that owned the rights to Prince of Persia, Broderbund, wasn't doing too well, especially since The Last Express didn't sell as well as they had hoped (Or as well as it should have...) and by 1998, they were defunct and a few stragglers opened up Red Orb entertainment. A year later, a 3rd Prince of Persia would come along without Mechner on board.
And it suffered for it. A lot of people had observed that the Tomb Raider series was somewhat similar to Prince of Persia, save for the fact that Tomb Raider was 3D and had guns, and so when Prince of Persia 3D went into development a Tomb Raider type game was put in mind, but with the traditional "realistic" platforming and death traps. The game was rushed and released in an unfinished form, and in truth it could've been great! For the time, it looked amazing for the time with beautiful architecture, above par level design, and the series trademark of superb animation but various bugs, terrible controls, and a horrible camera ruined the game. Especially the camera. The camera would remain behind the princes head and would NEVER leave that spot. Not only did this make moving awkward and disorienting, this meant that the player was never given a chance to look ahead or control the camera to swing around and get a view of the surroundings. You never knew where you were going, and you'd often climb up a simple ledge but because the camera stayed directly behind his head you wouldn't see a spike trap awaiting you on the ledge. It was no longer satisfying to defy death, it was frustrating and pissed you off.
The story was also unsatisfying. The story was essentially recycled, Jaffar throws you into the dungeon, steals the princess, blah blah blah blah blah. In Shadow and the Flame, Jaffar pulled some nasty tricks, so why couldn't he pull another magic MacGuffin out of his ass to make for a more interesting story? There was no time limit, and while this could've made up for some of the games problems, this meant rescuing the princess no longer had any sense of urgency and drained the last remaining drops of fun or excitement from the game.
The game was ported to the Dreamcast, but left no impact otherwise and faded out of memory. To most people, the series was dead. But Mechner wasn't ready to give up. He would return to the drawing board and wrote a new script and penned down some ideas on how to take the game to the 3rd dimension properly. A few self made betas failed, and he was ready to give up when he got a call from some Prince of Persia fans living in french Canada, who wanted to take a stab at bringing the series back. Mechner's interest was piqued, and took his ideas and script over to Ubisoft's Montreal studio. They already had an engine known as "Jade" prepared, and had a tech demo of what the engine could do for a 3D platformer. Mechner was impressed, they had the canvas and he had the paint. A small group of PoP fans were set aside for Mechner to work with, and this team aptly dubbed "PoP Team" created the now classic title, "Sands of Time."
Sands of Time got rid of the "Realistic" aspect in some regards, some of the tricks (Most notably the wall running technique, lol, wut?) the Prince could pull off defied the laws of physics. Regardless, you still couldn't fall too far and in truth the game stuck close to the original philosophy, you couldn't fall too far, and you had to run, jump, climb, and shimmy around traps and falling platforms. The story is widely regarded as one of the best ever told in the Video gaming world, and I can't agree more.
The story follows a new Prince, a young and spoiled Prince who wants nothing more than to appease his father in battle. His father sieges an Indian palace, and the Prince thinks that the best way to appease his father is not by body count, but by entering the Indian Maharajah's treasure vaults and finding a treasure to bring home. He finds a treasure that is more than extraordinary: The Sands of Time, as well as The Dagger of Time. The Maharajah surrenders, and you return to Persia with the sands/dagger as well as the Maharajah, his daughter Farah, and the Vizier in shackles. When you return, the Maharajah's Vizier, who is old and dying and believes that the sands can make him immortal and save his life, tricks the prince into unlocking the sands of time for him. This causes a cataclysm, killing everyone except you, the princess, and the Vizier.
What makes the story good is the characterization. Everyone feels real, and the chemistry between the prince and the princess is more than just sexual tension. It's a genuine and surprisingly well told romance even if its a little strange its all happening during a cataclysmic event, and the ending is sweet and thoughtful as well as a little clever and even the Vizier comes off as an interesting character because his intents aren't just "I want the world," all he wants is to defy fate.
After Sands of Time, Mechner left the team to work on the script of the film, while Ubisoft focused on doing the sequels themselves. However, I am going to end here. This article is probably getting long, and I wanted to cover the series' history and Mechner's involvement, and seeing as Sands of Time was the last game developed by Mechner (Though I would love to see him return after the film comes out....) I consider that the end of the "Original" PoP timeline, as good as Warrior Within/Two Thrones were in their own rights.
Share your memories of the games and feel free to take the poll if you wish.
Let's flash back to 1985. For some reason or another, young Jordan Mechner was filming his brother David (Random piece of Trivia: I've met David before. Was at a gathering for Go players, and he was there to get recognition for being one of the highest ranking Non-Japanese players. I gave him a play and was determined to beat him. I failed, but not miserably, I had him for awhile..) running about in a parking lot and he decided to take these images and over a period of time, he rotoscoped them and several [ame="http://vimeo.com/3858091"]other[/ame] images made from scratch in order to make the 1989 classic, Prince of Persia. He was relatively unknown for awhile, but a little game known as Karateka earned him a minor reputation and Prince of Persia's unique gameplay and incredible animation caught the eyes of the industry.
What made Prince of Persia unique was its focus on "Realism" and its story. It was a platformer, but this wasn't Mario. You couldn't fall of a four story ledge and keep on trucking, you'd be pavement pizza. You could leap and run, but momentum and realistic physics kept you fairly grounded and insidious traps and pitfalls haunted you.
The story is somewhat familiar (Especially to fans of Disney's Aladdin. Seriously, give Mechner some credit, Disney, there's no way in hell you didn't get some ideas from Prince of Persia.) and simple: You are a young man who has won the heart of the Princess of Persia, and the Sultan has agreed to let you marry but before the wedding, the Sultan is called away to war and he leaves his Grand Vizier, Jaffar in charge who tears the land apart. Jaffar wants the princess for himself, and throws the Prince into the dungeons against her knowledge, and approaches her. She refuses his advances, and so Jaffar conjures an hourglass and leaves the Princess with a choice: Marry Jaffar in the hour, or die. As the prince, you must escape the dungeons, navigate the palace, and save the princess from Jaffar. What made the story involving though was the fact that the "Marry him within the hour" thing wasn't just a plot device, it was the crux of the gameplay. You only have one hour to save the princess, precious minutes ticking away as you navigated the dungeon.
The game was unforgiving, and I played the game when I was like 4 (The game was older than me, I also played the 2nd one at this time too.) and imagine how a standard 4 year old would react to getting pounded with a spiked steel hammer. I nearly broke the keyboard in frustration, but I pressed on and truly this is what most peoples experience of the game was like. You almost had to memorize the game, beating it on your first try is something I'm sure only some holy deity could do. Even Mechner admitted he couldn't do it on his first try.
But the game was compelling, because of two things: Defying death and beating the clock. Death rides you so hard throughout the game that you could sue him for sexual harassment, so whenever you would successfully leap over a spike trap or make it through those damn blade traps with your intestines intact (For 1989/1992, the game is actually fairly bloody, especially the Mac version which was the version I played.... I was shocked the first time I saw him go in half, actually a little freaked out.) you felt a rush of excitement because you really felt like you had defeated death.
One of the most memorable sequences for me was The Mirror. There's a scene where you come across a mirror, and something happens... you step out of it. Talk about a major mindwarp. He moves like you do, and you can strike him with your sword, but it will injure you. This stumped a lot of people, and the solution was only stranger. To defeat your mirror self, you had to walk into him and merge. A metaphor of bravery and understanding/believing in yourself against all odds, or just a really trippy boss fight? Who knows.
Defeating the clock was also one of the things that gives one a rush. When I first beat the game and saved the princess, I had only two minutes on the clock and my heart was pounding. It was all so satisfying and addicting.
The game proved to be a hit, and came to many more systems and consoles, even the Gameboy (In fact it was released for the Gameboy twice, once in 1992 and again in 1998 but with Gameboy Colour support) The best port of the game was arguably the SNES version, for not being a direct port. It's a rare example of a port expanding on its source material. The SNES version is worth owning even if you have a copy of the original game because the levels were longer and remixed (A 2 hour time limit was also given to make up for this) and there was a total of 20, a total of 8 more levels than any other version.
Due to the games popularity, a sequel wasn't too far off. The sequel, dubbed "The Shadow and the Flame" continued the princes story: After marrying the princess and living happily, The Prince is called away for a bit, and when he returns, something isn't right. He enters the palace with the court staring at him in a strange manner, and he sees the Sultan and the Princess staring at him in an even stranger manner, behind them stood a mysterious figure. You approach the princess and speak to her, but only to have the guards take spears to your throat as the mysterious figure reveals itself, and the mysterious figure turns out to be..... you? Yes, indeed it is you, or so the prince and the princess think. A ray of light crosses the other you, and Jaffar's face is revealed briefly, but only to your eye. Turns out Jaffar has the Sultan and the Princess under a spell, and just as you are about to be thrown in the dungeon again, you leap out of a window and get straight into the action.
The game was a little more forgiving then its predecessor. The time limit doesn't start until halfway through the game (Unless you play the crappy Super Nintendo port which starts the timelimit at the beginning) and leaping is a bit easier to do, the game occasionally leaping for you instead of having to push the joystick diagonally or tap two keys at once in a split second and in some levels the ability to see a map, provided you found a secret. It was still difficult though, and it was still very satisfying. (Unless you play the crappy Super Nintendo port..) It was a bit longer than the first (Unless you play that crappy Super Nintendo port... why am I not surprised the SNES port of #2 was done by the people who did Superman 64?) and it improved graphically and had music. The world was also had more variety, rather than just two graphic sets you would go through various outdoors and indoors areas.
The game was popular, but not as popular as the first. Save for the crappy Super Nintendo port, it was only released on Dos and on Mac. After this, Mechner put the series on standby and went to work on "The Last Express," a HIGHLY underrated masterpiece and one of my favourite lost gems. The company that owned the rights to Prince of Persia, Broderbund, wasn't doing too well, especially since The Last Express didn't sell as well as they had hoped (Or as well as it should have...) and by 1998, they were defunct and a few stragglers opened up Red Orb entertainment. A year later, a 3rd Prince of Persia would come along without Mechner on board.
And it suffered for it. A lot of people had observed that the Tomb Raider series was somewhat similar to Prince of Persia, save for the fact that Tomb Raider was 3D and had guns, and so when Prince of Persia 3D went into development a Tomb Raider type game was put in mind, but with the traditional "realistic" platforming and death traps. The game was rushed and released in an unfinished form, and in truth it could've been great! For the time, it looked amazing for the time with beautiful architecture, above par level design, and the series trademark of superb animation but various bugs, terrible controls, and a horrible camera ruined the game. Especially the camera. The camera would remain behind the princes head and would NEVER leave that spot. Not only did this make moving awkward and disorienting, this meant that the player was never given a chance to look ahead or control the camera to swing around and get a view of the surroundings. You never knew where you were going, and you'd often climb up a simple ledge but because the camera stayed directly behind his head you wouldn't see a spike trap awaiting you on the ledge. It was no longer satisfying to defy death, it was frustrating and pissed you off.
The story was also unsatisfying. The story was essentially recycled, Jaffar throws you into the dungeon, steals the princess, blah blah blah blah blah. In Shadow and the Flame, Jaffar pulled some nasty tricks, so why couldn't he pull another magic MacGuffin out of his ass to make for a more interesting story? There was no time limit, and while this could've made up for some of the games problems, this meant rescuing the princess no longer had any sense of urgency and drained the last remaining drops of fun or excitement from the game.
The game was ported to the Dreamcast, but left no impact otherwise and faded out of memory. To most people, the series was dead. But Mechner wasn't ready to give up. He would return to the drawing board and wrote a new script and penned down some ideas on how to take the game to the 3rd dimension properly. A few self made betas failed, and he was ready to give up when he got a call from some Prince of Persia fans living in french Canada, who wanted to take a stab at bringing the series back. Mechner's interest was piqued, and took his ideas and script over to Ubisoft's Montreal studio. They already had an engine known as "Jade" prepared, and had a tech demo of what the engine could do for a 3D platformer. Mechner was impressed, they had the canvas and he had the paint. A small group of PoP fans were set aside for Mechner to work with, and this team aptly dubbed "PoP Team" created the now classic title, "Sands of Time."
Sands of Time got rid of the "Realistic" aspect in some regards, some of the tricks (Most notably the wall running technique, lol, wut?) the Prince could pull off defied the laws of physics. Regardless, you still couldn't fall too far and in truth the game stuck close to the original philosophy, you couldn't fall too far, and you had to run, jump, climb, and shimmy around traps and falling platforms. The story is widely regarded as one of the best ever told in the Video gaming world, and I can't agree more.
The story follows a new Prince, a young and spoiled Prince who wants nothing more than to appease his father in battle. His father sieges an Indian palace, and the Prince thinks that the best way to appease his father is not by body count, but by entering the Indian Maharajah's treasure vaults and finding a treasure to bring home. He finds a treasure that is more than extraordinary: The Sands of Time, as well as The Dagger of Time. The Maharajah surrenders, and you return to Persia with the sands/dagger as well as the Maharajah, his daughter Farah, and the Vizier in shackles. When you return, the Maharajah's Vizier, who is old and dying and believes that the sands can make him immortal and save his life, tricks the prince into unlocking the sands of time for him. This causes a cataclysm, killing everyone except you, the princess, and the Vizier.
What makes the story good is the characterization. Everyone feels real, and the chemistry between the prince and the princess is more than just sexual tension. It's a genuine and surprisingly well told romance even if its a little strange its all happening during a cataclysmic event, and the ending is sweet and thoughtful as well as a little clever and even the Vizier comes off as an interesting character because his intents aren't just "I want the world," all he wants is to defy fate.
After Sands of Time, Mechner left the team to work on the script of the film, while Ubisoft focused on doing the sequels themselves. However, I am going to end here. This article is probably getting long, and I wanted to cover the series' history and Mechner's involvement, and seeing as Sands of Time was the last game developed by Mechner (Though I would love to see him return after the film comes out....) I consider that the end of the "Original" PoP timeline, as good as Warrior Within/Two Thrones were in their own rights.
Share your memories of the games and feel free to take the poll if you wish.
