Generally, game developers don't lose too much
money on a game. Why? It's simple. Shotgun effect. One bad game and 4 platforms
to release it for. You gotta be able to sell at least 35,000 copies on each of
the consoles, and maybe expect 15,000 or so on the PC. Unless you've got a game
that everyone is prepared to ignore, like Daikatana, you can generally
meet these goals and bring yourself some decent cash. (I crunched the numbers on
this some time ago, they may vary based on how exorbitantly everyone's getting
paid.)
Anyway, that brings us to the present, and
the meaningless port of Prisoner of War. The folks here at Netjak had
some interesting things to say about the
XBox version, namely,
that it sucked. As goes the ship, so goes the port. (BTW, if you're wondering
why the scores are so low, if you make a bad game once, you get a bad score...if
you make it twice, and don't fix anything you get an EVEN LOWER score.)
Prisoner of War should definitely stayed on
a console, if it was to see the light of day at all. The PC version is a
disgrace and an affront to gamers everywhere. If you don't read any further into
my review, at least get this into your head. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. If you happen
to be the people who made this game, I'm sorry. You did a bad thing. You do not
deserve to get anybody's money for this. If this game was an essay, I'd write on
it with a red pen, and the message would be, "Needs more work, try again. F."
It is I, and You'll Know Why, the More You Live
The Faster You Will Die.
The basic premise of the game is this. You're a
loser fighter jock. You get shot down. I don't know by what, because in the
opening intro movie, it looks like smoke just randomly appears from the plane.
You get tossed into a German prison camp where every single soldier looks the
same, except for the Kommandant.
You also meet the other two prisoners, O'Brien,
and Clancy. For some reason, neither of them have prison garb, and in fact,
O'Brien's STILL WEARING HIS UNIFORM. What prison is this supposed to be? One for
Executive Prisoners of War? Clancy's got a backwards hat, shorts, and the voice
of one of the guys from King of the Hill.
Anyway, the ever-so-witty Kommandant informs you
that there are 3 basic rules, be on time for roll call, and stay within the
lines. Rule number 3 is to follow rules numbers 1 and 2! Oh ho ho! Man. Whoever
wrote this dialogue needs to quit his job over at Codemasters and get his own
job writing zingers for Bob Sagat to toss out.
However, you, mister, have got a problem with
AUTHORITY. You don't take orders from nobody, and you get it in your
elongated-Bruce Campbell-with a bad haircut-looking melon that you're bustin'
outta this joint, and that no group of gray-uniform-wearing, bratwurst-eating,
same-guy-being Germans is going to stop you.
You ask O'Brien about poppin' outta this joint,
and he gives you advice. Most likely, he gives you advice RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE
GERMAN TROOPS GUARDING YOU, and asks you to get him some contraband in exchange
for a plan, and the soldiers don't care one lick. So begins your adventure into
SimStalag.
Don't Turn Around! (Oh-oh-OH!) The Kommisar's
in Town!
Sneaking around the camp is a joke. Toni Kukoc has
more defensive skill than all these Germans put together. Here's what happened
in my game once. I did my little crouch-walk in front of a guard. Miraculously,
he spotted me. I went around a corner and crouched in between some boxes. The
guard ran around behind the boxes trying to get to me. Only the pathing
algorithm isn't smart enough to run AROUND the boxes. So he sits there like
Superfly Johnson running into a pile of boxes he can see me over the whole time.
After 15 seconds, he says, "I give up." and WALKS AWAY. I was in shock.
For some reason, your character has a little radar
screen in his head which he can use to figure out the guards' range of sight and
position. This made sense in Metal Gear Solid because Solid Snake's
genetically enhanced, and has all sorts of communications help. In POW, you get
a binocular made of lenses from old spectacles. In any case, the guards are so
stupid, it's not like they'll see you anyway, why not just be rid of all that
nonsense?
I don't mind the whole stealth game genre. Not
quite my preferred way of resolving a conflict, but I enjoyed Metal Gear Solid
2, it's not like I'd be averse to this. However, in MGS2 I always had the option
to fight back. There's a whole layer of depth involved with taking body tags off
of people, building up your grip strength, all that stuff. Know what you get in
POW? The option to run or surrender. You never get a weapon, you never have the
option to fight back, which I assume makes sense. But honestly, in a real time
of war, the first time I catch you trying to escape, I'm poppin' a cap in your
sorry behind, ain't no two ways about it.
Your frustration will not let you speak.
The controls suck. The game's totally designed for
a console, and I imagine they kept the same layout for the PC version.
Left-click and right-click are set to be two different actions, like "open door"
and "look through peephole". The little display at the top will change to
represent the action you perform.
Once again, you're in 3rd person. Who the heck
keeps doing this? Why do you think this is a good idea?! No more 3rd person!!!
That's for the console only! Also, for some reason you're set to walk by
default, which moves you at the rate of 3 steps per hour in game time. To run
you gotta hold down another key, and move at the same time. All of this button
pressing makes moving fairly damn annoying, and since moving around and being
stealthy is at the heart of the game, you could say that this game's got major
heart problems.
Additionally, the right mouse button action is
placed on the screen in a position that is higher than the action for the left
mouse button. I'm constantly getting confused by which is which, and hitting the
right mouse button by accident all the time. It'd make sense on a console, but
nobody obviously thought to change it here. That'd require work...and
Codemasters are only Geniuses at PLAY.
The graphics are weak. You get people who look
like they're staring off on some kind of chemically induced high because they
didn't move the character's eyes to focus on the player, and the people don't
blink. Their mouths move kinda of in sync to what they're saying, just a little
behind. Clipping errors are all over the place, even in the intro movies, which
were cheaply done using the in-game engine. Look at the pilot's hand! It's not
even on the controls! Simple, simple stuff people!
The voice acting is bad as well, half the time you
don't know whether you've been imprisoned by the French or the Germans! If there
aren't any German words in their dialogue, like "Schnell!" they sound like
they're French. Ugh. However, I guess the general lack of interest in you
escaping would be more credible if you were escaping from the French in WWII.
Anyway, this game is much like the song "Der
Komissar" originally done by Austrian pop-star Falco, and re-done in
English by After the Fire. It's not very entertaining, but you may get
some sort of disturbing enjoyment from it. For a very short time. In fact, if it
weren't for Tsunami 2265 putting forth such a solidly bad performance, this
would be my pick for Worst Game of the Year. Unfortunately, it currently ranks
second. I sincerely hope nothing attempts to dislodge it from that position
which it worked hard to earn. POW is a POS.
|
Prisoner
of War
