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Angelina Jolie may have leapt onto our screens twice as Lara Croft in big budget adaptations of the Tomb Raider series of computer games, but it’s doubtful if any of it would be here without Prince of Persia. It was 1989 when the original Prince of Persia arrived on our Amigas, Commodore 64s and Spectrums and its swashbuckling mix of fighting, jumping, and puzzle solving revolutionised the platform genre long before Core created its anatomically intriguing leading lady.

And while the influence of Prince of Persia on the Tomb Raider series is plain for all to see, it has been Lara who has gone on to bigger and better things (depending on your view of the two movies). But on our computer screens, at least, Prince of Persia is no longer prepared to play second fiddle.

Now, the task of updating a timeless classic can be thankless one, but fortunately, developer Ubi Soft has avoided changing too much of the winning formula. The Sands of Time sticks closely to the strengths that made the original such a favourite, but this time renders everything is beautiful 3D and adds a few new tricks along the way.

Set against a mystical Middle Eastern backdrop, the story tells of a young Prince who deserts his father’s victorious army to search the defeated Maharajahs’ treasure vaults for a gift suitable for a King. Surprisingly quickly, he stumbles onto The Dagger of Time, a magical object that can literally pause and rewind time; but trouble strikes when he is tricked by a dying Vizier from the opposing army, who convinces him to use the dagger to unlock an even larger treasure, a huge hourglass. Of course, the result is disastrous and the sands of time spill from the hourglass, destroying the kingdom and turning its citizens into ferocious demons.

So ok, the Prince isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but without his limited intellectual capacity, we would miss out on what is one of the most important developments of the platform genre in recent years.

The game starts with the Prince battling the newly created demon hordes and escaping the crumbling vaults. What will immediately strike the gamer is the fluidity of the animation. The Prince glides like a cat, gracefully leaping over enemies while striking them from above, running along walls and jumping gaps that suggest Newton may have got his theories all wrong.

Controls are complicated, yet intuitive combining the keyboard and mouse much like a first person shooter. The real beauty of the control system is that every movement can be combined, whether it’s gaining height by leaping back and forth between vertical wall faces, or sprinting along the side of a wall before back flipping to a nearby ledge, the Prince can do it all. This is undoubtedly the most nimble character ever to have graced a computer game.

Despite this, death at some point is inevitable and this is where the Dagger of Time comes in. Whereas in most computer games a mistimed leap means certain death and frustration, in The Sands of Time the dagger can be activated to wind back events by around 10 seconds. The dagger can be used three times before it conks out, but it can be replenished by killing demons.

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