AND ONE TIME, IN A PRISONER OF WAR CAMP
Just the other day I was thinking about what I would have done in
WWII if I was captured and placed in a German P.O.W. camp. But luckily, I can
experience that with Prisoner of War by Codemasters for Xbox. Well,
lucky for you that I am here to tell you to save your cigarettes and contraband
(a.k.a. money) and purchase something more meaningful, like suspenders.
You play Captain Lewis Stone, who is investigating suspicious
activity around German P.O.W. camps. Your partner, Lieutenant Daly, and you are
shot down. Both of you bale out, but Stone is captured by German soldiers and
becomes a temporary resident of a camp. Of course, living in a P.O.W. camp
without a thought of escape is preposterous, so Stone and Daly devise a plan to
escape...only to be captured again. Stone in transferred to another camp and
attempts to elicit the help from other high-ranking captives. As he is their
lackey for frivolous requests, he stumbles upon the German’s plan to build a
weapon of mass destruction. Now, Stone is focused on letting the Allies know of
this plan and must do anything to escape the German’s clutches.
The first thing that made me dislike this game was the opening
introduction movie. Using in-game graphics proved to be a mistake. The scenes
were choppy, the dialogue was off--way off--from the actually moving mouths, and
the characters moved stiffly. My first thought was, Is my Xbox suffering the
same overheating fate that many others have claimed? So I removed the game
and let my Xbox cool; after all, I had just finished five hours with Elder
Scrolls. But I soon found out that it was not the actual console...the
intro movie just plain stunk. So if you think this is a prelude to the entire
game’s visuals, then you have thought correctly. The same problems that plagued
the movie also plagued the entire in-game movies. The makers even went lazy on
a lot of the one-on-one scenes: the two people are talking with one guy’s head
on the left and the other guy’s head on the right. Sure, their mouths are
moving and they are blinking, but there’s nothing going on otherwise! I wish I
had the power to stop time while I had conversations; then I could see who’s
listening in.
I did not like the graphics at all. I compare them to the
ill-fated Spec. Ops series on the PSX in terms that those games brought the
power of the Playstation back a few years. Prisoner of War does the same
thing. There are plenty of Dreamcast games that look better. Beige seemed to
be a common base hue and everything from the roads to the grass was just smeared
into this color. I know you’re suppose to be somewhat depressed while in a
P.O.W. camp, but why beige? Bushes were just atrocious, melding blocks of
pixels together into a badly formed cone. Blocks, people! Blocks have not been
used since Arkanoid! Characters were just okay. Nothing
spectacular, but they did move like they had two wooden splints on their legs.
And on most of the characters, when you saw a close up of their face, you can
tell that they went the extra mile to make the mouths move--if somewhat off from
the dialogue--but their adornments (crops of hair, helmets, mustaches) were just
planted on their faces like they were Mr. Potato Heads.
This game is boring. While I compliment the idea, the story, and
the potential the game carried, I did not care for the way it was presented and
how you had to proceed in the game. The game is spread out over 5 chapters with
little ‘missions’ for you to complete against a game clock. The clock runs a
bit faster than real time, much like Shenmue. Basically you are a slave
because in order to gain the necessary tools to escape, you have to perform
mundane tasks for higher-ranking captives, the friends you make, and the
guards. And by mundane I mean **yawn**. For instance, the very first thing you
have to do is obtain some currency--cigarettes, wine, luxuries, et al--for
someone in the first camp you’re in. So you sneak around a la Metal Gear Solid
trying to get into a building. You have to pick the right time because if they
sound the roll call alarm, you had better be there. Another time, in another
camp you must prove yourself to the Cabin Superiors and they have you play a
tape of American Music over the loud speakers. So you have to scrap across
roads, climb wire fences, and hide under buildings as you make way across the
camp in order to find the administration building to play this tape. You have
to do it at night and still be there for morning roll call. Get the idea? The
gameplay moves much, much slower than Metal Gear Solid with much, much more
backtracking than usual and, even though I know this is suppose to be part of
it’s charm, it detracts from your concentration (no pun intended).
Along the lines of gameplay, I must mention the A.I. If I were a
German, I would be mad because the game portrays the soldiers as dummies. As
you sneak around camp, in areas you aren’t suppose to be, they barely notice
you. Instead, they feel the need to mumble things like ‘I think I see
something’, and ‘What was that?’ Isn’t it their job to investigate!
They’re guarding a P.O.W. camp...wouldn’t they expect prisoners to try to
escape? Two cases in point: A) As I crawled under a building, I found the
stairs I needed to ascend guarded by one German soldier. I rose from under the
building and started to climb the stairs. I crouched and made it to the door
without being detected and the guard was only 5 feet away! B) I made my way
around a building and a guard became alerted and was on his way to Luger me. On
a whim I ran to a bush and crouched and I disappeared. I thought the guard
would look around the corner and leave, but he walked right up into the bushes
and stood right next to me. I swear he even bumped me, but apparently he had
better things to do...like put on some lederhosen, because he left.
This will be a short paragraph about control. It was adequate
for the tasks I had to perform. Left thumbstick moved Stone and right
thumbstick turned the camera, which is becoming a standard these days on the
Xbox, and Stone moved fluidly. The actions are assigned to a particular button
as you approached items you could interact with. They ranged from climbing
fences and placing your back against the wall, to crawling and putting black
shoe polish on your face. I had no issues with the control.
I did find some interesting aspects to the game. I liked the
fact that there were certain times in the day where you absolutely had to be
somewhere. Morning roll call and evening roll call were the most prominent. If
you didn’t make it, you would find the camp on alert searching for you. Believe
me, you don’t want them to find you. The time control made you efficient in
your time management and kept you on your toes. Also, I found it fun to watch
the prisoners file off to different activities when it was time: Lunch,
exercise, free-time, etc. When the bells rang or the soldiers told you what
time it was, the prisoners would shuffle off to the respective yard or building.
Prisoner of War
had lots of promise, but because of lackluster and choppy graphics, tedious
gameplay, and uninteresting characters, I feel the gamemakers did not deliver
what this game could have been. Bits of action would have helped. More
developed characters would have enhanced the story. And some more time spent on
the graphics probably could have helped me rate this game higher. This was
simply the movie Hart’s War being translated for video games.
But multitudes of people wearing suspenders and eating Liverwurst
would have gotten this game a 10.
|
Prisoner
of War
