Alcatraz: Prison Escape Review

Alcatraz: Prison Escape is a short, ugly, boring first-person sneaking game that would at least be sort of average in its awfulness if it were satisfied with being just short, ugly, and boring. Instead, as Alcatraz rolled off the assembly line, someone at the budget game factory added a thick topcoat of bugs. There are game-killing bugs, bugs that are merely annoying, inexplicable events that we'll call bugs for lack of a better explanation--pretty much the entire species of computer-game bugs is included at no extra charge other than whatever you're asked to pay on top of the zero dollars that Alcatraz is worth.

Your goal in Alcatraz is to escape from five different prisons. The packaging implies that you're going to have to use some deep problem-solving skills to enact these daring escapes. In reality, all the problems that need to be solved are of the strictly linear wander-around-until-you-find-the-key variety. Granted, sometimes you have to find the object that will unlock the stationary nonplayer character who will then cough up the actual key, but that's really just another find-the-key task.

Most games that use this raggedy old puzzle structure at least use it mostly to supplement a more compelling gameplay element, like some form of combat. Alcatraz, on the other hand, has nothing else going for it. Well, technically, you're supposed to tiptoe around, avoiding the few guards who patrol each prison. Somewhere along the line, "sneaking" got the reputation for being a thought-provoking alternative to fighting. While that argument may have some validity in a much better game, the deep strategy involved in defeating one of Alcatraz's robotic guards is to wait until his back's turned before walking over to him and punching him in the head. There isn't much to it, and since the guards have absolutely no reaction to the sight of fellow guards sprawled out unconscious on the floor, you don't even have to think too much about where you're going to take guards out--the middle of a well-lighted cellblock is as good as anyplace else.

Alcatraz's bugs actually present the biggest challenge to your escape. For instance, guards will often get stuck walking in place. They're not stuck on anything obvious; they just become mysteriously rooted to a wide-open spot, moonwalking for all eternity. Unfortunately, this curtails their normal patrol routes and can make it tough to get behind them to administer a traditional head-punching. On the other hand, since they can't chase you, you can usually just dart right past them and find a safe place to wait out the brief period of extra guard alertness that accompanies their alarm cries.

As you play, Alcatraz will crash to your desktop frequently. Saved games appear to work more or less at random. You never can tell if one of your saves is ever going to load again, which is significantly more nerve-wracking than any obstacle in the game proper. In fact, the statement that Alcatraz is short is really just an educated guess. Each of the first four levels takes about an hour to complete. Just at the beginning of the fifth level, we encountered a new bug that corrupted all of our existing saves. At that point, replaying the first four levels became a requirement for attempting the fifth and final level. That requirement was not met. So in the spirit of full disclosure, level five might be 10 hours long, bug-free, and incredibly fun. But don't count on it.

In the past, the LithTech graphics engine has generally proven to be an obstacle to a game's success, though good games such as No One Lives Forever and Aliens vs. Predator 2 have somehow managed to succeed in spite of it. Alcatraz has no such luck. It doesn't look good. It also doesn't play well, and it barely even works. A few tired deathmatch and capture-the-flag multiplayer modes are included, but after a week of searching at different times during the day and night, not a single server or even another player was ever found on the matching service. Alcatraz is a lonely, grim experience.