Prison Break Impressions

Prison Break fans should attest that the best seasons of the show came early on while the concept was fresh and the characters were...well, breaking out of prison. So it's good news that the upcoming Prison Break game will run in parallel to the first season of the show and add to the existing story arc while incorporating stealth and action gameplay. We got to see it for the first time at GamesCom Cologne and wanted to see what the Schofield brothers were up to, so we went deep undercover to find out.

You'll play as Tom Paxton, an agent of the mysterious "Company" who's sent in to the Fox River State Penitentiary to find out more about Michael Schofield. Schofield has come to the prison under mysterious circumstances--he performed a bank robbery, but as a brilliant structural engineer, he had no reason to do so. It's therefore your job to find out what's really going on while digging deeper into the Company's real motives.

Our demo started as Paxton and Michael Schofield boarded the same bus heading for the prison. Paxton is busy taking voice notes of everything that's going on because he's dubious about the Company and its ulterior motives. Michael, meanwhile, immediately rendezvous with his brother, who he's really there to break out.

The game contains many different types of gameplay. When you get grabbed, a quick-time event is initiated where you have to press the right buttons to escape. There's also fighting--first against T-Bag and then training with C-Note using weights and a punching bag. The prison has an underground "Fight Club," supported by the guards, and you can enter it and take on tougher enemies, earning currency to buy new tattoos for your character.

Supporting all this is the need to build up relationships in the prison so that you can find out what the Schofield brothers are up to and finish your assignment. Nearly all of the characters in the game are voiced by the original actors, with the notable exception of Dr. Sara Tancredi. The character likenesses are excellent, and developer ZootFly has built an engine that's great at doing characters.

Prison Break will be released on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 in 2010. We hope to bring you more on the game in the coming months.