With the Disney movie in the making, Ubisoft saw their chance to cash in big time with the Prince of Persia series, so within days around the film's premiere, they released no less than six entirely different PoP games, all carrying the same subtitle, The Forgotten Sands. The whole point was claimed to be to fill in the forgotten gaps in the Sands of Time trilogy (hence the title), namely in between the first and second games. In the end, however, nothing of the games has to do anything with the events in the former games, in fact some of them introduce entirely different Princes.

The only version still done by Ubisoft Montreal, the studio responsible for the original Sands of Time trilogy, is also the closest to fitting into the series, although it dislocates the events far enough to avoid any interference with the overarching plot and feels more like a side story. The Prince is sent by the King to train under his brother Malik, who is given the reign over one of the Empire's provinces, a kingdom called Azad. At the time of his arrival, however, the Prince finds Malik's fortress under siege, and things don't look very good. When he finally finds Malik, his brother drags him along to resurrect the legendary army of King Solomon. But a part of the legend has been lost in the generations of oral retelling: The army was not commanded by Solomon, but actually lead by the rebellious Ifrit Ratash against the Sage King. So the whole fortress is overrun by Skeletons and every human being is turned into sand—save for the Prince and Malik, who each hold a half of the magical Amulet used to control the seal that used to hold the army at bay.

While Malik is seduced by the power both of them gain with every slain skeleton, the Prince of course tries to find a way to seal the army away again. He meets the Djinn Razia (in a clever hommage to the life-extending hidden areas in Sands of Time. The Prince comments: "This place is very familiar."), who aids him with advice and bestows upon her powers over the flow of time—the rewind function is back.

But there's more. In later meetings she also teaches him to freeze water, which is the game's new main puzzle mechanic. With it, the Prince can create temporary poles and walls. In the beginning, that just means that you have to hold one more button during platforming, but the sequences grow gradually more complex, so often you have to swing from an ice swingpole, jump through a waterfall, no back to liquid state, and in the end quickly freeze the water again to hold on to the next pole. Towards the end the prince also learns to temporarily restore single elements of the fallen city of the Djinn, which at first feels quite similar, but makes for even more depth when the Prince is forced to combine the two powers.

The Prince's new face

His brother Malik

Razia the Djinn

The Forgotten Sands not only marks a return to the Sands of Time universe, it also plays like a direct sequel. The Prince has all his trademark maneuvers, he runs up walls and slides down curtains just like he did in the good old days. There has been, however, a couple of tweaks to the controls. There's finally a dedicated jump button that does nothing but jump, in any situation. It may be a bit irritating for series veterans at first, since the button that was usually used to climb up a ledge now causes the Prince to leap to the opposite direction, often to his death. The movements in general feel more realistic, as if there's actual weight to the Prince. Nonetheless the game is nowhere near the dull pace of the first Assassin's Creed, in fact the animations are faster than ever before. When jumping from a vertical pole, there's no need to tediously slide into the correct position, just press the jump button together with the direction of choice, and the Prince turns around the pole and jumps in a single, fluid movement.

Combat, on the other hand, has once again changed quite a lot. The Prince is now a real badass with a sword, taking on huge crowds of enemies at a time. The focus is therefore on keeping the upper hand in improbably outnumbered situations, playing the enemies out against each other and keeping the Prince from getting surrounded, not dissimilar to Batman: Arkham Asylum. Slashes can be charged for more damage and a wider radius, new button is dedicated to push enemies to the ground or down a pit, or get their shields out of the way. Acrobatics once again figure heavily into the combat, although the wall rebound attacks from Warrior Within and The Two Thrones are gone. The Prince will crush enemies to the walls instead, finishing them off with a blow to the head. The exact moves are heavily contextualized but you always feel in total control, the game completely disposed of any QTEs, even boss finishers are done in-engine.

"This is Persia!" No, seriously. That's what the Achievement/Trophy is called.

Among the magical powers the Prince is given by Razia, some spells are meant for combat rather than platforming. There's four of them, each corresponding to one of the four traditional elements: With Fire he leaves a trail of heat wherever he walks, burning the enemies that dare to pass, Wind calls a tornado that takes all enemies around him off their feet. The most valuable is Earth, which makes the Prince invulnerable for a limited time, while Water sends out rays of ice towards the direction he is facing. Unlike the essential puzzle abilities, these are not obtained during story cutscenes, instead you get to chose the order you learn them.

The Forgotten Sands is the first in the series to employ a traditional experience point system. By picking up yellow essences, the Prince gains level-up points he can invest in several upgrades on a skill tree. Not only the combat magic is upgraded here, but also things like the health bar, magic tanks and the power of the different melee attacks. The system is not very balanced, though: While stronger enemies later in the game drop more experience points, the costs for upgrades caps at 300 points - making the Prince's levels grow exponentially fast towards the end, while the enemies stay mostly the same. At the latest, when the Prince gets the ancient Sword of the Djinn which can mow down a dozen enemies in a single stroke, combat becomes a total pushover. Even the bosses are total jokes, so much that the designers had to break them up with more platforming sequences to prevent you from falling asleep. Two enemy types that exist solely to forward platforming with a special dash-attack make for further involuntary comical relief. The overall great impression only gets a little muddied by the dull colors. The Sands of Time games have never been famous for garish coloring, but The Forgotten Sands appears as the brownest of the lot yet.

There is also an issue with the "cinematic" direction of the game: Sands of Time would often loosely lock the camera to a certain angle to point players to the right direction to jump. While the system has been toned down with the sequels, here it is back in full force, and beyond. The Forgotten Sands dictactes your view on platforming almost at any time, with the same sense of imprisonment one gets by playing God of War or Devil May Cry. While the previous games have been mostly linear, they at least gave the illusion one could explore the areas somewhat freely. Here one almost feels like moving on rails because of the constant tunnel vision.

As the graphics are a lot more realistic, the Prince got another visual makeover, although he's still clearly recognizable from the design of Warrior Within and The Two Thrones. Even though his face is not modeled after Jake Gyllenhaal, there's something in his facial expressions that feels familiar after watching the movie. The Forgotten Sands is the first "main" game in the Prince of Persia franchise that doesn't give the prince a love interest, but the series trademark bickering is still fulfilled by his brotherly disputes with Malik and later arguments with Razia.

For unlockables, the game ties in with Ubisofts new Uplay portal. It's actually a pretty cool concept, since you can use points gained in one Ubisoft game to unlock stuff in another. Of course, that comes with the obnoxious requirement to be online while playing the game, and the "coming soon" menu point for a store betrays Ubisoft's true aims for the service. The unlockables themselves are rather barebones: A wallpaper/skin for your system, an experience point upgrade (total waste of points), the second of two arena combat challenges and Ezio's frobe from Assassin's Creed 2. Further costumes (Malik's armor and the Sand Wraith skin from Warrior Within) remain exclusive to buyers of the Limited Collector's Edition of the game.

While The Forgotten Sands is a full-scale return to form for the series, this also means that it is a return to old, worn-out paths. The platforming is the best yet, but it brings little new to the formula. Where the formular shows it age the most are the surprisingly frequent symmetric rooms that you have to climb twice, once on each side. It doesn't take long before the feeling of "I've done this before" extends from those rooms to the whole game—there's only so many different combinations you can string together with the given elements, the new powers likewise rely more on iteration than innovation. The combat feels fresh, but only until the final third of the game, when it becomes too easy to be any fun. If you haven't played any of the Ubisoft Prince of Persia games before, this one is the best. If you just finished your Sands of Time trilogy marathon, give it a few years on the shelf, or else the experience might turn sour fast.

The next biggest game that bears the title The Forgotten Sands, by Ubisoft Quebec, came out exclusively on the Wii. It almost has become a custom to create quite different Wii-Versions of big name titles with last-gen technology (see Ghost Busters or Star Wars: The Force Unleashed), and in the same vein Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands on the Wii also uses the good old Sands of Time engine. In this case, however, the port differs more than usual from the HD versions, as the story, levels and gameplay are vastly different, as well.

The protagonist looks very similar to the HD game, but his character is more akin to the treasure hunter without a past from the 2008 game. We learn that he recently purchased a genie named Zahra, who drags him into a new adventure by promising him the lost kingdom of Izdihar over which he'd rule as a Prince. In this iteration of the universe, however, genies are flying lights with faces and annoying voices—it's Navi from Ocarina of Time all over again. The genie of course is the sidekick to relate to this time, and the writers even try to build up some kind of romance between her and the Prince, but their dialogue is often lame. After she makes him kiss a statue for some magical effect, he complains: "Dammit, why didn't you tell me it would hurt?" Her answer: "You didn't ask, my prince." The way it is all set up is equally lame: The actual main story is kicked off by the Prince pulling out a sword out of a wall, unleashing a sealed army of monsters, just before Zahra tries to stop him. Yeah, since she seems to know all about the sword and its dangers, she couldn't just have told him before, sure.

The "story" however, is of course just a front to have some excuse to get to the action, and you're dropped into it, immediately. You start out right in the middle of a crumbling castle and have to get on before it breaks all down. The platforming is as good as ever, although you have also the option to use the WiiMote to assist with it: To jump onto a higher ledge, for example, you can just draw a line towards it. Combat is centered on using the WiiMote, you swing it around to hit enemies, which lacks the precision of the other games.

There's no rewind function this time (although the Prince gets "Life Orbs" from Zahra, which can resurrect him in place), instead special powers include the ability to create rings on walls that the Prince can hold onto, a "Sand Sphere" that serves mostly as a safety net for missed jumps, and a "Sand Pillar" to elevate himself and enemies into the air. The philosophy behind the special powers this time was to bring alternative ways to get around. Often it's not necessary to use them, but they can make passages easier, or help the Prince to find hidden areas.

The Forgotten Sands on the Wii is the first game ever in the series that has a 2 player mode. In practise, that isn't as great as it sounds, though: A second player can merely jump in to assist the first one, practically as the genie, and gets to stop traps, slow down enemies or simply point out places with their glimmering light.

Besides the main quest, the game contains 84 "Heroic Challenges," which function like Achievements or Trophies, but some of them unlock special stuff. As usual (at least among the more recent games), there are a couple of costumes to unlock. It's possible to play as the lad from Sands of Time, or Dark Prince from The Two Thrones. There are also art galleries and developer diaries, but the coolest unlockable are the hidden maps. Among others, one is played completely on a 2D plane, like the PSP and DS games. The Dark Labyrinth, where Life Orbs serve as a depletable source of light. The classic Prince of Persia is also included again, for the first time since The Sands of Time.

On screenshots it might look just like its big brothers, but the PSP version is really a 2.5D platformer like the DS games, although the camera direction conveys a stronger illusion of threedimensionality.

The story is as throwaway and unrelated as ever: It was prophesyzed to the mighty fire spirid Ahihud that he would die through the hands of a member of the royal family of Persia, so he has them all killed, except for the Prince who is saved by yet another Genie called Helem—looks like someone at Ubisoft Quebec was really fond of annoying little flying lightbulbs.

The Prince's magical powers are a mix from several other versions: The solidifying of sand is just another skin for the water freezing powers in the HD game while his Navi-clone can slow down traps or freeze enemies like on the Wii.

The Forgotten Sands (PSP promo)

The Forgotten Sands on the Nintendo DS is kind of a sequel to the HD game, as the Prince is once again joined by Razia, but now she, too, has turned into a yellow Navi lookalike. *sigh* Fortunately, however, she never flies around your head and only appears in cutscenes and as a portrait in the once again embarassingly silly dialogue. The plot yet again is as non-committed as it gets: The Prince has been kidnapped to be abused for a Dark Ritual, during which he lost all his memories. Now he has to get them back and punish his kidnappers.

The Forgotten Sands runs on the same engine as The Fallen King, carrying along its inherent flaw of touchscreen controls that make the game ultimately boring. On a technical level, it works better thanks to more responsive controls, but that almost makes it worse. The platforming still is about as exciting as reordering files on your computer. Combat controls are slightly improved (read: made less aggravating) as now the Prince finally uses his normal attacks when the touchscreen is stroked. A stroke is a stroke is a stroke, though, there's nothing of the depth and excitement you'd see in Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, and enemies are little more than convenient health pack drops. (Literally every enemy drops a healing potion unless the Prince is unscathed). The bosses are the worst yet. Fighting the first two (of four), you can literally just stand on a potion respawning spot and go do something else while they spawn their puny efforts to damage you in any significant way, come back just in time to dodge the attack that leaves them vulnerable, slash, repeat. The other two are only marginally more intelligent.

The level design isn't quite as dull as in The Fallen King. Gone are the aggravating reliance on overly elaborate switch constructs, as are the stupid powerup doors. Instead, the diamonds that are dispersed throughout the levels are spent in a store that can be accessed from the world map at all times. Here the Prince gets to purchase additional health units, sand containers, (unneeded) sword upgrades and new outfits.

Even though Zal and his puzzle magic are gone, Razia bestows upon the prince a melange of known powers: Back are the Sands of Time with rewind and slow motion functions, and after each boss the Djinn learns to manipulate sands in new ways, which resemble some of the powers from The Fallen King and The Forgotten Sands for PSP. Their use is all too obvious, though, as usual. Every once in a while, a black horse appears out of nowhere for 3D riding sequences, which could be quite exciting, if they weren't devoid of any challenging elements like the rest of the game.

To conclude, The Forgotten Sands is the superior game to Fallen King when examined under quantifying "good things / bad things" criteria, but in the end it's just as boring and pointless. There's no interesting story or worthwile effects (aside from the horse riding scenes), no particularly clever stage design to redeem the trivial-as-can-be core gameplay.

The mobile phone version of The Forgotten Sands is the only port that retells the story of the major console game, although much abridged and modified. The game uses the same engine as Gameloft's previous two PoP entries, but improves it with a lot of exciting new elements.

The Prince can now take over the weapons of certain enemies, so in some sections he gets to wield a giant axe or a crossbow, which are usually required to solve the next puzzle. At one point you even get access to a huge cannon to take out towers. The prince gets to interact with his brothe Malik every once in a while, at times you have to protect him from enemies while he's turning a crank to ride an elevator or team up with him against bosses.

Razia is also on board, here she challenges the hero to a fight to test his worthyness. The forces she bestows upon him afterwards aren't integrated quite as well, as they all use the same button and just act as fancy switch triggers, you never have to use them in mid-jump or in combination. The shooter levels have been replaced by an interesting "2nd person" 3D scene where the prince runs towards the screen to escape the big bad demon.

After the prude mobile Prince of Persia 2008, The Forgotten Sands is sexy again, although not in a way you'd expect. Whenever he's hit by enemies or loses health in any other way, the Prince gradually loses shreds of his clothing, until he's completely shirtless.

There's also a version for smartphones. It adds touchpad controls, which is exactly the way you should not play the game, and uses the upscaled and filtered graphics from the ordinary cellphone versions. It looks just hideous.

Finally, Ubisoft made The Forgotten Sands into a promotional flash game. It does use monsters and powers from the big console versions, but there's no story to speak of.

Like the handheld versions, this is a 2D sidescroller, but here it the Prince constantly runs and jumps through the stage from left to right, only stopping when he hits a wall. From the beginning, he can use Sands of Time for rewinding, but in each further level he gains a new power. The dash makes longer jumps poosible and also takes out enemies fast, Ice freezes enemies and waterfalls alike, securing the Prince's path. Fire throws a projectile and protects from, well, fire. Then there's the rock skin, which makes the Prince invulnerable for a time.

At the end of each stage awaits a boss. Here the Prince finally stops running and you can walk around freely, to fight, but most are only vulnerable to your latest special power. The final boss in the end constantly changes the color of his week spot, forcing you to cycle through the powers like crazy. You can submit your best time for each of the six levels to the leaderboards at Ubisoft.