Prisoner of War Review

The suspenseful sneaking gameplay and strong dose of character interaction make Prisoner of War a game that's by all means different from most others out there.

The idea of being trapped in a Nazi prison camp probably doesn't sound very good, but the idea of busting out of one possibly might. Escape is the goal in Prisoner of War, a short but original and often entertaining adventure game that challenges you to free yourself from the clutches of the Germans during World War II. Prisoner of War features real-time gameplay and an open-ended mission structure, as well as a strong cast of characters, making it better in many ways than your average game. It's hurt somewhat by an uneven presentation and unconvincing artificial intelligence for your German captors, as well as by the game's brevity, but Prisoner of War is still appealing.

Captain Stone will need the help of other inmates to escape from prison camp.
Captain Stone will need the help of other inmates to escape from prison camp.

The game begins as flight jockey Captain Lewis Stone, a rough-and-tough American with a slight Irish accent, is shot down. He's fortunate enough to escape with his life, but he lands right on top of his enemies, who take him to an internment camp for safekeeping. Impatient Captain Stone immediately starts planning his escape, and that's where you take over. The Nazis expect you to stick to a certain routine throughout the day, but to what extent you do so is for you to decide. Contrary to Stone's personality, this is a game about being patient. You'll have to observe your surroundings carefully. You'll have to keep your jailers from getting suspicious by being where you're supposed to be at the appointed times, and then sneak around through the compound when the guards aren't looking, procuring useful items and finding a viable escape route. The presence of an onscreen compass and what's essentially a radar display, which clearly indicates all guards in the vicinity and shows where they're looking, makes the sneaking a lot easier than it would be in reality.

By now, stealth elements are common in games. Many games expect you to silently move about and strike only when the enemy isn't looking, in an attempt to even the odds against a superior opponent. Prisoner of War is very different from stealth games like Thief or Metal Gear Solid insofar as it's completely nonviolent. Stone may look and sound tough, but he's not interested in snapping any necks, stealing weapons, or knocking anybody out. He's just trying to get out of Dodge, and you'll help him do this by staying as far away from trouble as you possibly can. Even when Stone picks up something like a crowbar, he'll use it just to pry open padlocks.

As a matter of fact, the game goes so far toward being nonviolent that even if you're seen trying to escape and are shot by a German guard, you'll just end up in the infirmary, rather than the morgue. At any rate, because it forces you only to sneak and never to fight, Prisoner of War could be described as a thinking-man's game. Nevertheless, for a game that takes place in the notorious German prison camps Stalag Luft and Colditz Castle, the lack of any real violence in Prisoner of War seems rather bizarre. It's rare to find Nazis in a game where the goal isn't to kill them. Actually, if this game taught you everything you knew about World War II, you'd wonder why Stone was even trying to escape in the first place. Aside from some barbed wire and some armed guards milling about, nothing seems especially unpleasant about the Nazi concentration camps in Prisoner of War, where you eat three square meals a day, show up for afternoon exercise, and have free time in between.

If nothing else, you'll want to try to escape because you won't finish the game just by showing up for roll call and then going to the mess hall for breakfast. Escape doesn't just involve staying hidden, but requires a lot of character interaction. You'll meet and deal with many other inmates, as well as some crooked guards, during the game. Conversations with these occur as in typical adventure games, where you can choose from several dialogue options at any given time. There's not much role-playing--you'll basically want to listen to everything everyone has to say. Friendly characters will help you out to some extent when you're stuck and will fill you in on what to look for, and where. And you'll enjoy listening to them, because the friendly characters are all brought to life with expressive voice-over and a variety of authentic accents, to boot. The same unfortunately can't be said of the Germans, who speak in English but with forced, phony German accents.

The actual sneaking mechanics are done reasonably well, though the game can often prove cumbersome to control. Multiple control schemes are available, depending on whether you wish to use a gamepad, a mouse, a mouse and keyboard, or just a keyboard, but all of these seem to be ported over from the console version of Prisoner of War, and none are ideally suited to the PC. The camera in Prisoner of War must be manually adjusted as you run around--it doesn't just stay put behind the main character, as in third-person games like Max Payne. This can be a real problem, especially when you go into closed areas and also when you have your back against a wall or other obstacle. In terms of Stones' abilities, he can scale short walls and fences and can even crawl under things like beds, where the game switches to a first-person perspective. You can also survey your surroundings from a first-person view, but you can't actually move about from that perspective--not until you unlock a particular secret, anyway. Stone's motions are nicely animated, and one of the better touches in the game is that bumping into things like chairs or boxes causes them to shift, creating a noise that can alert nearby guards.

Bumbling German guards will give up pursuit if you evade them for a few moments.
Bumbling German guards will give up pursuit if you evade them for a few moments.

Possibly the best aspect of Prisoner of War is how it sounds, between the generally great voice acting and the interactive, suspenseful soundtrack that grows more and more tense depending on how precarious of a situation you've put yourself in. The game's graphics aren't quite as impressive, but they're still pretty good. The environments in Prisoner of War look fairly detailed, though a Nazi internment camp isn't much of a sight. But the varied weather effects and the cycle of day into night and back again do look quite convincing. The character models are pretty simple, and even though they move their mouths when they speak, they don't quite succeed at having the realistic appearance the game is going for. You'll still be able to recognize key characters from afar. Unfortunately Prisoner of War's frame rate is rather inconsistent and at times will bog down pretty severely, even on a high-end system, which can make life much more difficult in high-risk situations.

Prisoner of War has some decidedly interesting qualities, and even though it's a relatively short game, it's still worth a look. The missions are open-ended but not overly difficult, since being captured (or getting shot) isn't terribly punishing. You end up back at the starting point but should be able to get back to where you left off without much trouble. The game's production values have their strong points, and the suspenseful sneaking gameplay and a strong dose of character interaction make Prisoner of War a game that's by all means different from most others out there.

The Good

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The Bad

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