Forgotten Sands and Bloodstones

Two quick blurbs for ya today. Prince of Persia (the newest version Forgotten Sands) and James Bond Bloodstone both for the PS3.

Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands Thoughts

Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands is the newest entry in the Prince of Persia series and yet another reboot for it as well. I guess, technically it is just a return to the story-line that was broken up by the appearance of 2008’s Prince of Persia which broke up the trilogy that began with Sands of Time…. confused yet? While the game introduces new powers that compliment the time-freezing and rewinding mechanics, it’s not really enough to be called innovative. They introduce new powers every so often throughout the game, and it feels like they come a little to late, as you’re already somewhat bored by that point. They momentarily recapture interest, but they also make combat. which is already far too easy, even more-so.

The voice-acting and music are fairly plain Jane here as is the simple story-line anchored by the ancient Djinn, who are attempting to help restore balance after an army of the undead is released in an attempt to defend the city from attacking invaders. That force takes over and defeats our main character’s (The Prince’s) brother Malik. This forcse the Prince, of course, to go reluctantly against him. The game is not terrible, but it’s not good either. I was surprised that the visuals seemed to have actually taken a step back from the 2008 incarnation. If you’re a fan of the series you may still enjoy the game. The series strength has always been on it’s level design, built to showcase the wall-running, time-freezing gameplay. That strength is still here and played out in this game with varying degrees of success.

James Bond Bloodstone in Brief

As Gamefly slowly expands its arsenal, and increases its speed thanks to a new Seattle shipping center, I can slowly removal some the very poorly rated games from the limited (50 games) queue. James Bond: Bloodstone has been in that queue since it’s release. Strangely and surprisingly the game has almost always had a “low” status on the availability scale. I had hoped this meant that it was a decent Bond game, despite what other review sites had suggested. Unfortunately this was not the case.

The game has Craig and Dench to do the voice acting and a passable story about the creation, smuggling and possible deployment of a mass bio-weapon. Apart from that, there’s not much going. It appears they’re going with much the same engine that the last Bond went with. This means you have a simplistic, somewhat clunky cover system, last gen graphics and some poor A.I. For some reason they cast a pop singer as the lead female role, and although adequate, there’s not a lot of life there. Maybe get a professional next time?

In the end I would point to the lack of any new Bond films as a more reasonable explanation of the low availability of this game, rather than it being goood. In Gamefly’s eyes Bond is worth $28 while Prince of Persia is worth about $13. If you switch those numbers, you’re much closer to price points at which I would suggest looking into either of these games.