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Developed and published by Domark in 1991.
Undoubtedly one of THE defining moments in computer game history, Jordan Mechner originally released Prince of Persia on the Apple II home computer back in 1989. The undeniably exquisite (for the time) hand drawn, rotoscoped animations of the player character had to be seen to be believed.
Fast forward a couple of years and the Amiga received an excellent conversion. I had never heard of the game as a child and I can still remember that particular Christmas morning having received my brand new Amiga 500 and a box of games to try; having just come from the Commodore 64, this blew my mind!
In fact, the game had the ability to wow any onlookers, including my parents. Even today, they remember Prince of Persia as well as I do.
Having heaped praise and superlatives on the game, let's consider just why the game is worthy of such praise, animation aside.
Firstly, the multi-levelled platform climbing concept is utterly brilliant. The tension as you must time your leaps across death-defying drops before scrambling to giddy heights among the mouldering dungeons of the evil Jaffar was unparalleled. Death was always seconds away, usually in the form of a mistimed jump, or coming to a grisly end between the teeth of those infamous metal jaws; the thunderous clanging as the jaws met was truly terrifying!
Peril also came in the form of armed palace guards. Each an expert swordsman, the combat requires the player to block an opponent's strikes whilst looking to land strikes of your own. In a twist of fate, it is perfectly possible to force opponents into the very same traps that are there to kill the player; there is nothing sweeter than forcing a guard between the jaws of the guillotine, or into a spike trap.
Hidden throughout the levels are various potions that can be drunk to regain health. There are also special vials that can increase your maximum health, but there are also vials of poison that will damage your health, so you must pay close attention to the colour of the bubbles that emanate from the top of the bottle.
To make things harder, the game has a strict one-hour time limit in which to complete the game. This does not afford the player many mistakes, as death will result in the level restarting.
I make sure to make guards suffer where possible, purely for your delectation (killing them with the sword is just boring!)
This is my tribute to one of the best games ever made.
#retrogaming