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Memorial Day weekend isn't over yet, and that means some of you still have time to catch Disney's swashbuckling The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in theaters. But did you know what brought us up to this point? In our first part of this guide, we covered everything from the classic 1989 Prince of Persia, all the way up to the trilogy relaunch from Ubisoft a few years ago. But, Jordan Mechner's creation didn't stop there. There were more games, and even other creations, yet to come.
Ubisoft decided to reboot Prince of Persia for its appearance on next-gen consoles, and in 2008 they released Prince of Persia for the PC, Xbox 360 and the PS3. This time around, they wanted to focus on co-op gameplay, so instead of the big battles featured in The Sands of Time, this game focused on one-on-one battles. In the story, the Prince (still nameless) meets up with a mysterious woman named Elika, who has magical powers. As the two of you help each other (she'll save your ass multiple times throughout the game, including every single time you fall), you find out she's part of a race of people called the Ahura who have been tasked by Ormazd, the god of light, with keeping Ahriman, the god of darkness, imprisoned.
However, things haven't exactly gone according to plan, and of course Ahriman to corrupt the world through Elika's father, and she and the Prince have to rid the world of the influence of the dark by restoring the Fertile Grounds. The gameplay was inspired between the back and forth dynamic that the Prince has with Princess Farah in earlier games, and the Prince and Elika grow close throughout this title. Near the end of the game (spoiler warning) Elika dies, but the Prince is able to save her ... although he sets Ahriman free in the process. Setting up a possible sequel. At least, you'd think so. Especially for a game that went on to sell 2.2 million copies.
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Confusingly, rather than follow up the 2008 Prince of Persia reboot with a sequel, Ubisoft choose to return to the Sands of Time trilogy, by sticking in a game that occurs between The Sands of Time and The Two Thrones. It was also pegged to be released nearly day and date with the Jake Gyllenhaal starring movie, even though it isn't a movie tie-in game. The game also returned to the Sands of Time concept of multiple enemies, which could include up to 50 at a time, and gave the Prince some elemental powers which could be enhanced by purchasing upgrades from a genie.
In this shoehorned-in plot, the Prince is visiting his brother's kingdom, only to find the royal palace under siege. In order to save the kingdom, the Prince has to tap into the powers of the Sands. Which reminds me: these Sands really need to blow away never to return, because they've become a crutch that the series relies on too much. I could go into more detail about this game, which is just an unfortunate next-gen return to the Sands of Time trilogy, but why not just read our review?
The Other Princes of Persia
Other than the sextastic Prince of Persia: Harem Adventures that I couldn't resist mentioning in Part 1, there have been numerous other outings for the Prince on different platforms. Besides the early Game Boy ports, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within was released on the PSP with new areas as Prince of Persia: Revelations, and is in development for the iPhone as well (the classic 1989 Prince of Persia was also ported to the iPhone). Battles of Prince of Persia was the first Nintendo DS appearance for the series, but beware. That game is a turn-based strategy game, which I found out much to my disappointment after I won the game in the contest.
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones was released on the PSP and the Wii as Prince of Persia: Rival Swords, which marked the first Wii title for the Prince, and the series came back to the DS for Prince of Persia: The Fallen King, which was a companion game to 2008's Prince of Persia. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands was released for just about every platform (except the iPhone), and the Wii version of that game includes the upscaled Prince of Persia Classic. It's highly likely that we'll see the Prince of Persia again, and I'm hoping they return to the roots fo the game, like the 2008 version did. And throw away that Dagger of Time and the accompanying Sands for good.
The Graphic Novels
Game creator Jordan Mechner came up with the stories for two different Prince of Persia graphic novels. The first one, Prince of Persia was published in 2008. Written by A.B. Sina, it features gorgeous artwork by LeUyen Pham and Alex Puvilland. Inspired by the original games and Arabian Nights, this is a Sands-free story that is easily the Prince's best outing beyond the game world. Mechner also collaborated with Pham and Puvilland on the impressive Solomon's Thieves, the first in a trilogy about the Knights Templar.
Earlier this year Disney Press published Prince of Persia: Before the Sandstorm, which features six orignal stories written by Mechner that explore the world of the film. They're illustrated by artists like Todd McFarlane (of Spawn fame) and Bernard Chang. Although inherently tied to the movie, they are written by Mechner and superior to some of the other books spawned by the movie, like Prince of Persia: The Chronicle of Young Dastan. Disney has also published a ton of other tie-in materials, with multiple behind-the-scenes looks at the movie.
The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (The Movie)
The movie adaptation was beaten this weekend by both Shrek Forever After and Sex and the City 2, which doesn't bode well for the future plans of this franchise. Our own Stephen Johnson's review of the movie highlights some of the problems it has, and it makes me wish that Disney had used Jordan Mechner's version of the script. He also had plans to develop this into an animated film, and here's hoping that might still happen. At any rate, they finally decided to give the Prince a name: Dastan. For better or for worse, this might be the only live-action version of the Prince of Persia that we ever see. Only (the Sands of) time will tell.
Comments
Displaying 1–8 of 8
charming
Nice video game and very good movie as i expected...with lots of action sequence and special effects... makers should make a sequel of this movie....
angryOnanist
good video game, makes luke warm movie, makes terrible game.
...people must listen to the astec
Spybreak
I never played the Sands of Time. Well I played the demo but I shoot myself in the foot when I play the new PoP game because I never picked up Sands of Time. I'd pick it up now but I'm deep in RDR and I have a huge backlog lol, maybe sometime late in the summer perhaps. Good read, thx.
LawlBustoNom
Wow nice spoiler warning on the Prince of Persia reboot... seriously grand idea warning us with this about spoilers (Spoiler warning) and then directly after have a simple two word explanation. You could have an overlay hidden text or break in the paragraph to help stop a natural way of reading. Even repeating non-sense to give a chance to stop reading instantly.... flip.. and i was in middle of the PoP reboot game too....
Kevin Kelly, you are the worst blogger on The Feed!
masterfenix
Yeah I didn't care for peoples reviews, I loved the all of the PoP games except for the 2008 game. I knew it wasn't gonna be perfect, but not bad either. Now seeing it yesterday, I have to say it was an ok movie, helluva lot better than Super Mario bros., but still if you're just as much a fan of PoP then yeah you probably saw a lot of things wrong with it like I did. But if you can get past the fact that, Hollywood just sucks with making game movies, then yeah this is one of those movies that are ok to watch.
Sylvanio
I saw the Prince of Persia movie last night. Based on the seemingly entirety of the internet saying that it was awful, I came to the theater thinking it would be. It maybe of been because of my low expectations, but I did not think it was that bad. While I agree it was a bit weird with the obvious villain and the whole time travel thing causes plot holes, the movie as a whole wasn't that bad. There were some choice action scenes I really liked and the special effects were pretty good. I did not come out of the theater dissatisfied.
NeutraVega
More of the 2008 reboot. That game was generally well received, save for a lack of polish here and there, and what with it being a wee bit too here there and then.
The problems it has are a few, and very obvious, and the potential it has is also quite obvious thanks to the 2+ mil it has sold. I can't see why Ubi wouldn't go back to it anytime soon...
nerix
Prince of Persia sands of time was such a good game. The new installments of the series are really failing Ubisoft really needs to do something before the series is being compared to C class games such as ...sonic :(
Displaying 1–8 of 8
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