Prince of Persia: the Forgotten Sands

From the start of the game, graphics are unbelievably good. The Babylonian - Persian architecture's nice to look at in between Sand Natzis popping out of the ground. Basically what the bad guy is, except, y'know, not German.

The story is that the Prince's brother (who you're introduced to in like the 85th game!) is under attack by invading forces. So after beating the bad guys, jumping through insane booby traps every other hallway, and going downwards using everything but stairs, the Prince finally meets up with his brother deep underground. He uses mystical sand magic -which should have been a clue to the Prince immediately. Sand is evil man. Learn your lesson. - to unleash the sand army of ancient times with the Head Boss - we'll call him Kadash which might actually be his name. I don't know.

First order of business is turning everyone to sand statues except the Prince and his brother Malik because they have half of these medallions. Eventually, the power possess Malik and he turns into Kadash. In the process of chasing him down and getting his brother back and fighting a whole bunch of different - yay variety! The last one, same bad guy type  thing every time. BOOOOOOOOring. This one, not so much - and getting through the spinning pillars with spikes and stabbing floors and razors in the walls, the Prince meets a water genie, the last of her kind. She tells him that he has to stop his brother, it's too late to save him, and helps him by giving him all these neat elemental powers - water, fire, earth, air, plus the time rewind ability that this game is famous for.

After many, many, many puzzles and complex stages (that will make you curse and scream at the television and kill the Prince on purpose because obviously there's something wrong with him), the end comes with a supe (I mean, Galapagos) huge, big boss with nails like a bag lady. But not before being thrown in a sand storm on flying pieces of flooring and jumping blindly through from sand bird to sand bird. Once the Prince reaches Kadash, he goes down pretty easy. With his hugeness comes a giant, shiny target in the middle of his chest and all the Prince has to do is hit it with his sword about fifty-leven times. While killing the sand monsters he summons, dodging swiping claws, being crush by his palm, and oh, being blown up.

The ending sequence leaves much to be desired as do the fates of Malik and Rajiah (water genie), but at least time isn't rewound like the others, making everything the Prince go through seem pointless since it never happened. My only problem with this aside from the end was the lack of the Dark Prince. I know he was a feature from the other version, but he was funny, and I miss him. They should make another one, exploring the Dark Prince's journey to becoming free of his 'prison' and him and the Prince becoming seperate entities. That is continuity. Plus, the Dark Prince is way funny.
I also got very, very angry about all the stupid waterfall tactics that had to be run in this game. I figured them out eventually, but it was hard to do! But I guess that's also something I like. Who wants a game that's too easy.

I give this an 8 1/2 rating!

(Why did I just review a video game? I felt like it.)