I was enjoying playing Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands as I played it this weekend for review. That doesn't mean I wanted it to glitch near the end and force me to start over. Too bad for me.
This post contains videos of the inescapable room I found myself in while playing a finished Xbox 360 copy of The Forgotten Sands.
These videos are, I guess, SPOILERS, since they show things that occur in the final hour of the game. They are light on narrative spoiler, but hey... just know this: By watching these clips you may also discover how I got trapped in an inescapable room. And, until Ubisoft patches the game (let's hope they do), it's best to be forewarned.
Please note that I seem to have been caught in this glitched room because I let the Prince fall and die, and because the game was autosaving, for some reason, while I did that. A reporter friend of mine who was also playing the game for review did not encounter the same glitch — another says he heard of one who did. My friend probably avoided it because he didn't die at the spot I highlight in the second video of this post. So my advice to you is this: Don't die there!
The first video, posted up top, shows the glitched, inescapable room.
The second video is a surprise. What you see in this clip is part of my second play-through of The Forgotten Sands. Because I had been caught in the glitched room during my first play-through — and because the game only allows one save file and no chance to restart from any other file — I had to start The Forgotten Sands over from the beginning. Several hours later, and about 20 minutes before I encountered the area where I died and was deposited into the glitched room I reached the room you see in this clip. Note that this is, in fact, the glitched room — except that it isn't glitched here. It works fine and is, thankfully, escapable. This is how the room is supposed to work. After you get through it, you reach a climbing section that leads to the place where my glitching problems began.
The third video shows the late-game sequence where I died during my first play-through. I call out the specific jump that did me in, the jump that respawned me not at the base of this climbing sequence but in the glitched room. This video shows you where not to die, so that you can avoid the glitched room.
Now that we can all see my follies, let's hope Ubisoft spots the bug responsible at squashes it. Players beware; it'd be a pity if this ruined your experience of an enjoyable game.