The Great Escape Hands-On

On our tour through Gotham Games' E3 2003 display, we stopped to take a brief look at The Great Escape. The game is based on a 1963 film starring Steve McQueen about a group of soldiers trapped in a Nazi POW camp, all of whom happen to be experts in the art of escape. The plot of the game will be broken up into three sections, starting with each of the game's four main characters being captured. From there, they will band together, and plot their escape from the confines of the camp. Once that has been achieved, each soldier will have to then make their way out of Germany, into friendly or at least neutral territory.

The Great Escape will contain 20 missions in all, ranging from lots of stealth-based escape missions, to occasional vehicular and combat-related missions. Much of what we saw of the game stayed true to its stealth-elements, involving tasks such as peeking through a keyhole to see what enemy soldiers were plotting, or having to use a hacksaw to free one prisoner so he could distract a Nazi guard while we sawed through another set of bars to escape ourselves. One mission in the demo did involve a bit of rough-stuff, as we had to ambush a solider on a motorcycle as he came up a remote path, and then flee off to safety as the Germans pursued us. Though there are four playable members of your team, each mission only features one of the characters at a time, without any apparent co-op functionality.

Despite the short amount of time we had to play The Great Escape, it still managed to show us some appealing gameplay concepts, and could prove to be a worthy-entry into the stealth-action market. The game is at this moment slated for a July release, and you can expect further coverage of The Great Escape in the weeks to come.