Ultimately, it's all about balance. Hollywood promises us that the hero overcomes the odds, escapes certain death and gets the girl. Meanwhile, games tell us that for every snatched victory there must be a thousand heart-rending defeats. The defining emotion triggered by adventure games is frustration. We scream inside as our digital alter-egos are shot, stabbed and squashed (sometimes all at once!). We grind our teeth to dust as they stumble into the same yawning chasm, again and again, until we're sticking heated pins into level designer dolls, boiling with righteous fury and ready to kill kill kill! But it doesn't have to be this way. Prince Of Persia does things differently, giving you the chance to erase mistakes. So, it's a giant leap forward? Hmmm, kind of...

Judged purely on aesthetics, Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time is nothing short of astounding. It's so polished that you almost have to shield your eyes. Barring the introductory preamble, the game takes place in and around a vast, crumbling palace bristling with traps and infested by creatures transfigured by the sands of time. Every area is stuffed to bursting with opium-laced visuals, thanks in part to a technology-sharing deal with the Splinter Cell team. You'll squint as the sunlight pours through the windows, gasp as chiffron flutters gently in the wind and squeal girlishly as the prince rips his shirt off. It's essentially just fancy window dressing, but no less enjoyable for it. Where Prince Of Persia really shines is the way it combines elegant controls with immaculately blended animations, enabling you to attack the environment with the sure-footed skills of an acrobat. Example: the lever you've just pulled has opened a door further down the corridor... But to get there you have to negotiate the defence systems that the lever also activated... Start the clock... Pressure-sensitive spikes sprout from the floor as the prince traces a perfect arc along the wall... As you land on the ground, the stonework crumbles beneath your feet... Take off just in time and you catch a flagpole, circling it once before letting go... Getting trickier now... Spring back off the wall to catch a higher ledge, hopping from side to side as buzzsaws grind past... The door beings to close as you roll under the last rotating blade and... yess! Made it! Nine from the Russian judge, and hungry looks from the girls.

Prince Of Persia is at its best when you're using all the prince's athleticism. The most enjoyable sections feel like the equivalent of free running - the urban extreme sport which involves hurtling across rooftops. And it's all thanks to the coherence of the level design and responsiveness of the controls. You instinctively learn to evaluate the environment in terms of gymnastic possibilities, meticulously planning the complex routines which will take the prince from A to B - usually via every other letter in the alphabet.

Here comes the clever part. When you mess up, instead of reaching for the reset switch (with sausage-fingered lack of co-ordination) you simply hit L1 to rewind time. The last few seconds of action spool backwards, returning the prince to relative safety. It's impossible to underestimate just how liberating the effect is. Suddenly you're free to experiment without worrying about rage-inducing instant deaths. The result should be one of the least aggravating games ever, and yet we still found ourselves swearing up an absolute storm. Which is weird because the game goes the extra mile to cuddle you through is trickiest challenges.

Prior to each new area, the prince receives a vision revealing how to negotiate the puzzles coming up next. Factor in clues given by cutaway cameras and non-player characters and, in theory, you should never get stuck. So why did we find ourselves utterly confused so often? Obviously rank stupidity can't be ruled out, but it's not just that. Sometimes the sepulchral architecture is just too complex, making it tricky working out where to go next. Matters aren't helped by some camerawork that plays merry hell with your sense of direction. More troubling, though, are the set-piece puzzles which fail to make clear what you're supposed to be doing.

But our biggest reservation is over the combat. It's in there for two reasons: so you can let off steam after the knife-edge acrobatics, and because duelling was such a major part of the original. Initially, it seems like good swashbuckling stuff with a logical lock-on system that enables the prince to showboat while he cuts and thrusts his way through wave after wave of sword-fodder. And that's precisely the problem. Even using the dagger's magical powers to freeze enemies and unleash smart bomb attacks, it isn't long before the swordplay starts to feel like busy work designed to pad out the adventure. Sure, the dagger needs to be recharged with magical sand sucked from the monsters, but sweet fancy Moses do we have to fight so many of 'em?

Fortunately, these criticisms don't spoil the overall enjoyment. Bounding between collapsing stalactites in the cavern section or barrelling around the prison tower's retracting platforms is a truly invigorating experience. One final though. Halfway through the game you clamber into the sunlight. Seeing the palace's vast design from the outside, hearing the wind howl, it occurs to you that Prince Of Persia is the amphetamine-charged answer to Ico. Go get some.

Graphics 90%
Glittering with jewel-encrusted genius.

Sound 80%
Eastern themes and decent voice acting.

Gameplay 80%
Acrobatics are incredible, combat less so.

Lifespan 70%
Handsomely proportioned, questionable replay.

Overall 80%
Innovative, original and enjoyable. Prince Of Persia is only let down by some niggling flaws.