Ok, my wife and I picked up "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" for the PS2. We absolutely love the platforming elements of this game that require you to run along walls, avoid traps, jump from ledge to ledge, etc. We also enjoy the fighting sequences, even though it's little more than button mashing. We're just about to finish the game and, before we move on to the next Prince of Persia game, we have a couple of questions we can't find the answer to:

(1) Do the other games allow you to save your progress at will? We are not fans of games that force you to save only at select intervals. There are times when we just want to wrap up, but we're "forced" to play until we hit the next save point.

(2) Do the other games still have an issue with positioning as to where you're allowed to jump? That's poorly phrased. Let me explain. Let's say you're hanging on a pole and you need to jump across to a ledge. It would appear that it would be safe to jump from almost any point on the pole and still land safely on the ledge. However, pressing the "x" button to jump while hanging on most points along the pole does nothing. Instead, you need to find the specific point on the pole that they've designated as the place to jump. This is remarkably annoying. Have they fixed that?

Thanks in advance.

Obligatory "skip Warrior Within, aka Price of Persia Xtreme!" post.

I would think most games like this and GoW, you must get to a designated save point.

Why? I have read that it's "darker" than Sands of Time, but I haven't read anything really negative about it.

Also, it appears my "save point" question has been answered, but what about my other question about the game requiring you to be at a very specific place to effectuate a jump?

It isn't bad, but some of the battles get tediously difficult (especially early on) and the goth makeover is a tad overdone.

1. there all the same. designated save points. (i kno what you mean. sometimes im to lazy to finish so i have to start from previous points)

2. thats something they never fixed either that kinda pissed me off

Yeah, Warrior Within totally sucked. The combat was a complete chore, and I made me never want to listen to Godsmack again.

The combat in WW was much improved over SoT. Sure the heavy metal soundtrack and goth/half-naked chicks were a huge step backwards, but the combat was definitely improved. Combat in SoT consisted of like 2 or 3 combos total. The combat really was the only weakness in SoT.

TTT was the best of both worlds. It goes back to the more "Persian" atmosphere of SoT while retaining the improved combat of WW.

yea i only liked the 1st and 3rd one cuz of that reason

Thanks for the info. I guess we'll skip WW and go right to TTT. Thanks again.

See. You just dismiss post #2 outright and move on and end right back at post #2.

i really liked Warrior Within after you became skilled there was about 8-10 different ways to take a guy out... particularly liked the stand behind and grind his neck until you retrieved his sword and decapitated him with his an your sword in a scissor move...

running from the Dahaka...

it was cool a hell...

i liked all three... but WW and the TTT were the best 2 of the 3...

I also like WW. Once I got past the "hardcore" tone that initially annoyed me it was just as good as SoT.

On second thought, I think we're stopping after we finish Sands of Time and we're going to ignore the other releases.

We just finished the part of SoT where you have to turn the little mirrors to shine the light into various areas of a room in order to unlock certain doors, etc. This was the most frustrating video game experience I've had in a long time.

First, let's say you're hanging on a pole and you're trying to figure out where you're supposed to go. Further, the distance between your feet and the ground looks to be about twice the size of your body. There are times when a fall of this distance will kill you, and there are times that a fall of this distance is required. And, there is absolutely no way to tell in advance if any given fall is a "kill" or a "necessary" fall.

Second, as I mentioned above, it is ridiculously annoying that they require you to be in a specific spot in order to jump. This level was filled with beams and bars that you had to jump to and from. You can be hanging on a bar of a certain length, and looking at a beam of equal length. In looking at the beam and the bar, it would appear that you could jump from any spot. Wrong. Pressing the "x" button does absolutely nothing in 99% of the bar/beam. You have to inch side-to-side until you find the "sweet spot" that they want you to jump from. Annoying!

Third, there are times when using L1 (using the "sand") to turn back time doesn't work. If you're surround by a couple of guys and they knock you to the ground, hitting L1 gets you to the point where you're standing up and then, without having any time to move, they just hit you back down to the ground.

I was really enjoying this game, but it just gets so frustrating at times. I rarely get frustrated with video games just because I can't figure them out. I have patience for that. What does frustrate the hell out of me is when I know what to do, but limitations in the game (or glitches) make it impossible to do.

I think I'm at the 70% point in this game. Unless the last 30% really impresses me, I think this will be the last one in the series for me.

I think you are in for some more frustrations. Small spoilers:

Wonderful. Maybe I should just toss the game in the trash before I get more grey hair than I already have.