Prince of Persia: Sands of Time was undoubtedly a masterpiece. It was close to flawless in every way. The visuals were great and blended into gameplay perfectly. The gameplay was magnificent, challenging, fun and varied, very satisfying. Translating a 2D platformer into 3D can't have been easy, but the addition of the Dagger and the Sands of Time was brilliant and whoever came up with that is a bonafide genius. The sound (dialogue and music) were phenomenal, setting the tone of the game, immersing us and selling the characters....all two of them. I believe that it's phenomenal success is the reason Ubisoft went down the "parkour" route with all its games thereafter. I loved the framing device of the Prince's unreliable narration, the setting, the tone of each different zone, the time travel, the agility.
Another thing that bugs me is when people describe the flowing, freeform combat we now see more often as "like Arkham". Arkham-like combat, as in the Arkham games, Mad Max, Shadow of Mordor, Sleeping Dogs and others. It should be called "like Prince of Persia" because Sands of Time did it earlier and Arkham-combat was a copy of it.
PoP is a sublime, genre-defining, polished masterpiece that deserves a spot in any "...of all Time" lists. It is up there with BG2, Deus Ex, HL2 and other benchmark setting titles for their quality, attention to detail, superb execution and the obvious effect they had on the industry.
Seth Carter said:
See, the thing with this thread is you're not providing any actual qualifications. Not even so much as a list of games you do consider valid masterpieces by whatever arbitrary criteria you're using.
To be fair, it doesn't really need qualifying. It's pretty obvious when a game is a masterpiece. It often defines or showcases the best of a genre, it is a near flawless execution of a good idea, where each element (visuals, story, sound, gameplay mechanics, setting, etc) all come together to create a whole greater than the sum of the parts. While it may be subjective, the majority of people will agree the majority of the time on the games that qualify or at least on what qualities a masterpiece needs, and it doesn't need more explaining than that.