Sands of Time is actually the prequel to the Prince of Persia series. Set in 9th century Persia, Sands of Time tells the tale of a prince who inadvertently unleashes the terrible powers of a magical hourglass that is presented to the Sultan as a gift after the prince's father invades an Indian palace. The sands within the hourglass turn everyone they touch, including animals and the prince's father, into sand creatures. The conquered princess, also captured as a gift, cannot stop the prince's actions, but now needs the dagger that accompanied the hourglass and which can draw the sands back out of its victims. The prince, not trusting her pleas, does not trust her but soon finds he needs her help to undo the disaster.

Although set in India, Sands of Time is full of homage to Chinese mythology. The prince's abilities are beyond those of natural laws, though his acrobatic and gravity-defying abilities are not shared by the princess. The dominant inspiration for the game is Sony's Ico, and even players that have not enjoyed the original Prince of Persia games will find the tasks, level design and co-operative interplay between the prince and princess entirely familiar. The lithe princess Farah is more useful than Ico's Yorda, however. Trained in archery as is customary of the time, she is at least of some assistance during fights, which make up as much of the game as platform play as the characters make their way around the palace. She is also vulnerable, so it is as important to ensure her survival as your own.

Initially too easy, fighting becomes progressively more difficult, and extra moves the prince gains become essential to survival. Moves include kicks, flips, jumping against walls and vaulting over barriers. The sands within the dagger allow you to rewind time, slow it down or stop it all together, and this ability is important to both the platforming and fighting during the adventure.

The game's setting is sumptuously realised. The awesome architecture is basked with impressive lighting from torches and moonlight, and the stone and iron of the palace alternative is a pleasing blend of colour and hue - an intentional contrast with the colourful brightness of images Disney draws of such settings. Against such a faithful rendition, classical Arabian music is mixed with guitar-driven pieces during the Matrix-style fight sequences.

Much like Ico, the controls suffer a little from lack of analogue functionality in much of the game. Not nearly as much as Tomb Raider, but it is still frustrating and can lead to fatal errors every now and again. Fortunately this is tempered by your ability to reverse time and avoid death, though it is important to carefully avoid returning to a moment that will trap you in a doomed situation. Sometimes the positioning of enemies means it is impossible to return to a suitable moment, but one of the main purposes of the feature is to avoid repeating parts of the game that have already been done. The save points are frequent, but even death will bring you to a point forward of this unless you quit the game.

Outside of the fighting, the camera options include a distant perspective that allows you to see your surroundings and work out where to go next (or just to ponder the wondrous architecture). A first person mode lets you do the usual looking around with the right analogue stick, and a click of the left analogue stick zeros the camera from third person manual camera, which can be panned and zoomed at will.

The Prince's voice, a pseudo English accent with the odd pronunciation anomaly and a lingering trail of the voice actor's North American accent, is about the only cringe element to the game. The combination of the prince's supernatural abilities and the magical sands, and a believable story of love, power and tragedy work well. This is where Sands of Time is most different to Ico, whose namesake and his companion Yorda draw the player's empathy right to the tearful end. Sands of Time is far more lighthearted; even Farah's cursory apology whenever she accidentally shoots the prince in the heat of battle works to keep the mood upbeat. As does her revenge should you run with the temptation to attack her.

The frame rate of the PS2 version (30 per second) is typical for the PS2 considering environmental content, but the result is impressive given the additional lighting and other visual effects. The Xbox version holds at 60 frames, but Sands of Time is exclusive to PS2 this year in PAL regions. The seamless environments demonstrate the focus of the developers on the PS2, although some glitches with sound indicate a less than perfect version that may well be improved for further PAL releases.

Sands of Time is completely linear. The default tutorial prompts make for a quick beginning to the game, but their timing leaves the challenge out of figuring out how to get from A to B, for which there is only one way. Without the tutorials, the well considered platforming often needs brief musing over before the next step is identified, though there is one major issue that is a potential spoiler. At the frequent save points, a vision is passed by standing on a vortex of sand, in which the required steps are revealed until the next save point. We recommend looking away, as with instructions as to what to do, the challenge is reduced to believing the prince's supernatural abilities will allow that wall to be traversed, or that ledge to be landed on. Since you can go back to the vortex at any time, it is possible to repeat the vision should you become stuck for too long. But sticking it out yields the greatest satisfaction, followed a little further behind by using the lack of intelligence of the sand creatures to cause injury to each other. The story, too, brings strong emotion into the game, and seeing the relationship of Farah and the prince, and his own maturity progress, is both compelling and satisfying.

Having taken you back to the fist part of the Prince of Persia series, Sands of Time includes the full version of the first release, coded entirely by producer Jordan Mechner, as an a secret unlockable.