including doumbek, kora, kanjira, mbira and duduk alongside custom-made instruments. It also had contributions from percussionist Bashiri Johnson, and contrasting vocal tracks by Azam Ali and Judith Bérard. A digital soundtrack album was released on May 18 alongside the game. Reception Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands received "generally favorable reviews," scoring a 77 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic, based on 24 reviews. For their work on the game, McCaw and Krawczyk were nominated in the "Videogame Writing" category at the 63rd Writers Guild of America Awards. At the 2011 Game Audio Network Guild Awards, the music was nominated in the "Best Original Instrumental Song" category for the track "The Palace Gates", and the "Best Original Vocal Song – Pop" category for Zahra's theme. IGNs Craig Harris was very positive about The Forgotten Sands, with his main complaints being some occasional inconsistencies with the controls and infrequent frame rate drops. Official Nintendo Magazines Neil Long called the game a return to the well-liked Prince of Persia formula, citing its platforming and puzzles using the Prince's magical abilities as highlights. Justin Cheng of Nintendo Power similarly called The Forgotten Sands a return to form for the series on a Nintendo console, though he felt the use of sand powers and the combat were underdeveloped compared to the platforming. Ellie Gibson of Eurogamer was positive overall, citing it as a far more polished Wii game than others from popular franchises, with her main enjoyment coming from "making the Prince skip gracefully around well-designed levels, just like in the old days." Tom McShea, writing for GameSpot, enjoyed his experience with the game and praised its overall design particularly in later more challenging sections, with his main faults being with the combat system and notable issues controlling the camera. Matt Miller of Game Informer found the Wii entry entertaining and enjoyable despite a slow start, feeling that Ubisoft had not promoted it enough as he felt it was a high-enough quality to stand on its own. GameTrailers felt it inferior to the earlier Sands of Time trilogy, but also better than many other titles on the Wii at that time, but still a high-quality game with good production values deserving of its place in the series. Bob Mackey of 1Up.com was less positive than many reviewers, finding the use of motion controls impacted his enjoyment of the game overall due to their