I should make it clear from the start that this isn't as much a review of the game as a review of the experience playing it on Steam. If you're gonna mald over that, you can read another review; there's no shortage of 'my childhood nostalgia' posts for these games on Steam. If I were to rate the game itself, it would probably be 6 out of 10; the game is decent. The graphics are good for the time, the soundtrack is fantastic, and the lack of story focus or cinematic sequences in favour of raw gameplay is actually welcome. On the other hand, the camera was designed by a gay rattlesnake named Fabio Enchilada, and the combat is pretty repetitive and flawed. Overall, Sands of Time feels like playing the old Jordan Mechner Prince of Persia games but in 3D, and that's good.

What is bad - and the reason for the 'Not Recommended' - is the experience of playing this game on Steam, and the wider problem these games have on Steam at large. This download is essentially Ubisoft charging you money for the abandonware version of this game, thrown onto Steam with NO fixes whatsoever. To get it working you'll need to play around with patches and configuration files yourself, and you will never get proper controller support regardless (the game natively supports any controller, but very poorly).

This is part of a larger problem on Steam and I say it needs to be fixed. If you pay for a game it should be a good experience that requires no jury-rigging to enjoy. Unfortunately, because gamers are masochists and even now some nerd is probably getting ready to comment, "Bro it's only $10 bro, publishing games is hard bro, I don't respect myself enough to expect good service bro, I want Yves Guillemot to piss in my mouth bro," it has gotten to this point and companies like Ubisoft have learned to take full advantage of that. Why WOULDN'T they charge you for the same file you can find on MyAbandonware and probably have an easier time configuring? Now they can even sell you a remake of this game, because their dumb audience never thought to demand that old games be properly curated and fixed to work well on modern systems and the remake will ostensibly 'fix' those issues and 'introduce Prince of Persia to a new generation of fans' and all that PR drivel.

Gaben needs to step in personally; Steam shouldn't allow companies to publish broken, out-of-date games on Steam and leave the fans to fix them.

I should make it clear from the start that this isn't as much a review of the game as a review of the experience playing it on Steam. If you're gonna mald over that, you can read another review; there's no shortage of 'my childhood nostalgia' posts for these games on Steam. If I were to rate the game itself, it would probably be 6 out of 10; the game is decent. The graphics are good for the time, the soundtrack is fantastic, and the lack of story focus or cinematic sequences in favour of raw gameplay is actually welcome. On the other hand, the camera was designed by a gay rattlesnake named Fabio Enchilada, and the combat is pretty repetitive and flawed. Overall, Sands of Time feels like playing the old Jordan Mechner Prince of Persia games but in 3D, and that's good. What is bad - and the reason for the 'Not Recommended' - is the experience of playing this game on Steam, and the wider problem these games have on Steam at large. This download is essentially Ubisoft charging you money for the abandonware version of this game, thrown onto Steam with NO fixes whatsoever. To get it working you'll need to play around with patches and configuration files yourself, and you will never get proper controller support regardless (the game natively supports any controller, but very poorly). This is part of a larger problem on Steam and I say it needs to be fixed. If you pay for a game it should be a good experience that requires no jury-rigging to enjoy. Unfortunately, because gamers are masochists and even now some nerd is probably getting ready to comment, "Bro it's only $10 bro, publishing games is hard bro, I don't respect myself enough to expect good service bro, I want Yves Guillemot to piss in my mouth bro," it has gotten to this point and companies like Ubisoft have learned to take full advantage of that. Why WOULDN'T they charge you for the same file you can find on MyAbandonware and probably have an easier time configuring? Now they can even sell you a remake of this game, because their dumb audience never thought to demand that old games be properly curated and fixed to work well on modern systems and the remake will ostensibly 'fix' those issues and 'introduce Prince of Persia to a new generation of fans' and all that PR drivel. Gaben needs to step in personally; Steam shouldn't allow companies to publish broken, out-of-date games on Steam and leave the fans to fix them.