Prisoner of War

"There is nothing in this game worth buying it for - stay away."

Prisoner of War is one of those games, that along with a load of hype – you are likely to buy; as I did thinking that it would include daring missions to escape the Nazis of WWII and other missions along those lines. Instead, what I got was a game that had incredibly slow pace and ended up being the game that bored me to death and didn't allow me enjoy myself at all – never mind not being as a I hoped when I first paid money for it.

The story is simple, although yet another of those WWII plots that sometimes make little sense and in reality it just wouldn't happen. You start of as Captain Lewis Stone, the fearless American wartime hero who has been shot down over Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, he survives and is forced to go into a prisoner of war camp. This is where the plot gets intriguing as the camp is completely empty bar an Irish guy and some other unlucky bugger who was caught. They call this place Stalig Luft and your mission is to escape – destroy some super weapon and break/sneak into Colditz Castle for reasons which only the developer will know about. One word of warning, your character can be so pushy that instructions like “Don't climb that fence, or I'll shoot you dead” won't mean anything to you as the poor shooting begins. Some people could say that it is down to your personality – but there is nothing else to do other than get your character killed, the plot just simply fails.

It would be unfair to call the gameplay of Prison of War distinctively average: not unfair on the game but unfair on all the other mediocre games that you currently see on the market. I would call this below par average, with nothing selling the game and nothing making me scream loudly before returning the game to the shop. The entire game is time-based and you must return for roll call each morning and evening. This I am not complaining about, especially because this did happen in prisoner of war camps during WWII. The only awkward thing is the fact that whenever you start to do anything useful and actually get on with the game then it will be time for the next roll call and you must stop otherwise they hunt you down and catch you. Perhaps this is just me being bad at the game, or perhaps it's an idea that should be changed to allow more enjoyment from being taken from this game. This time limit and that lunch and other wholesome activities is included means that when you need to speak to one of your fellow prisoners (IE the other guy locked up in a suspiciously empty camp) you have around an hour game time when they are free to talk – this doesn't last too long and this can get frustrating. Another part is that some of the time you have nothing to do – which is a waste of time waiting for something to happen. This is not only extremely boring but it also pointless. You could be doing something constructive or relaxing playing a game that doesn't leave you reeling in frustration.

The controls of the game are very fiddly and hard to get used to. Throughout the first half of the game you will fid that you are making a load of mistakes because you cannot get used to the controls. Why should this be the case? There are many games with the same camera movement as Prisoner of War that has controls that are just highly easy to use – yet this one falls down dramatically and makes me pause the game every five minutes (this can be a good thing as it takes me away from the boring and highly suspect gameplay) just to check what controls I need. I do not enjoy having to do this and it ruins the game for me. Another distinct part of the game that is tough to get used to is the camera movements. Moving the camera takes a lot of effort and I found myself struggling to get the best view of the game – meaning that precious time (I have already gone through that portion of the game) is wasted just getting the camera in the correct position. The developers could have made sure that this was user friendly and perhaps they could have used a benchmark of other games with the same layout yet have good controls and user friendly layouts.

The graphics and sound is nothing special to the Playstation 2, and they don't fully optimize the power that the machine can cope with and don't fully involve the gamer into the game. The graphics are in such a state that sometimes the lip-synching is out on my copy. This could be a one off or it could be a fault by the programmers, I would have to check on other copies. The sound is average with your usual American hero actor playing the part of Captain Lewis Stone. The only good part with the sound is that everything is clear and understandable, which is the bare minimum you need from a game. That is if you understand the Irish accent of course, if not I would advise you using subtitles if you desire to play this game.

Overall

Overall, I am giving this game a rating of 3/10. It doesn't deserve low marks because I am kind and I dislike giving games really low marks. However, I really disliked playing this game and I would strongly recommend that you don't play it at all and never spend any money on it; I don't believe that it is worth it. If you must play it, just to spite me then at least hire it out first from your local rental store. You probably will dislike it, and it will save you money. For me, there is little replayability with this game at all; as I would be amazed you can even be bothered to complete the game. If you can stomach the plot, the irritating “I can do what I like, I am an American pilot and they are just German” attitude of your character then I salute you. I didn't have the patience for it.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/03/04