Hawki said:
-Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (this game is...okay, I guess? I mean, I like it, I just don't get why it's so beloved)
This one I can address, and it really is quite simple. It is a masterpiece of game design in every measure. It was simultaneously a "reboot", a reinvention and a resurrection of an old 2D franchise famed for its challenge, rotoscoping and platforming and somehow created a new genre too.
I also maintain, and I will argue this with anyone, that the success of this game is the main, if not sole, reason for Ubisoft going down the path it did, starting with Assassin's Creed, but I'll come back to that. Simply, PoP: SoT was a triumph in every way. It was a game that looked stunning, had a fantastic story, great gameplay and mechanics which tied into all of these things. The Dagger of Time was like the stardust that elevated this game, being the central core of both the story and the rewind time mechanic. That mechanic and its implementation was inspired and whoever came up with and/or implemented it was a genius.
The pace was perfect too, as the player learned to overcome new challenges and enemies, stringing together the impossibly large array of jumps, wall runs, ledge grabs, shimmies, slides, and rewinding time to help with the major downside of such a challenging and punishing game...making a mistake. It gave the players the limited ability to rewind time, but not enough to make the game forgiving. The Dagger also tied into the monsters and Sands themselves.
The characters were fantastic...all two of them, plus one if you include the villain. The Princess was fantastic, the story and their interactions were superb and the ending was sensational. The music and sound were utterly brilliant, capturing the exotic feeling of the levels and the atmosphere. The levels themselves were amazingly designed, from the baths to the gardens, aviary, barracks and what not. Each had its own feeling and challenges and were incredibly rich and immersive.
One thing that winds me up is when people describe the freeflowing combat as like "Batman: Arkham". Games like Sleeping Dogs, Shadow of Mordor, Mad Max, like Arkham shared that reactionary, frenetic combat but it's attributed to Arkham, when they should be attributed to Sands of Time. This game was the first hit I can remember that had that kind of combat, including parkour-style attacks from walls and such.
In summary, Sands of Time is not overrated, not even close. It is a masterpiece of video gaming, a genre defining game that I would further argue is singularly responsible for the parkour elements Ubisoft later popularised in AssCreed and have since become a staple of the generic "The Ubisoft Game" (any asscreed, far cry, watch dogs, etc). Sands of Time was lightning in a bottle that married every part of game design into a whole much greater than the sum of its parts. It was great in every department and I believe it couldn't exist in today's AAA industry. Innovative, challenging, with nods to its 2D ancestors, it deserves to be in any Top 10 games of all time list.
