Prisoner of War
by Codemasters

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Category: Video Games
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Product Summary

• xbox
• Video Game
• action/adventure
• strategy
• first person

Video Game Reviews of Prisoner of War

Customer Review: A lot of problems, but I still enjoyed it.
Summary: 4 Stars

In Prisoner of War you play the role of an American pilot who is shot down over Germany and imprisoned in a Nazi POW camp. What starts as a simple escape attempt turns into sabotage mission when it is discovered that the Nazis are using the POW camps as a cover for a secret rocket research program.

The game-play is kind of a cross between Shenmue and Metal Gear Solid. In each camp you're sent to, (five in all, although a couple of the camps are the same; just remixed a bit.) you'll receive orders from the senior officers of the escape committee. They'll usually have you fetch an item necessary to the escape plans, but occasionally you'll have to do other jobs such as photographing a spy, or sending a radio transmission to London. You'll find that it's usually necessary to question your fellow inmates in order to learn where and when you should go sneaking about.

Like Shenmue, time passes and each NPC has a specific path they follow throughout the day. You'll have to decide the best time to go out sneaking. This is really the best aspect of POW. The missions you're given, may all be linear, but how you go about completing them is up to you. . For instance, a door might have guards posted outside it during the day, but if you wait till night you may find the door unguarded. Also, there's usually many different ways you can get to the location; you'll have to decide what route to take as well as the time.

When sneaking around though, you'll have to keep an eye on the time, as you have to be present at morning and evening role call or they'll search the camp for you. This can be kind of annoying because time passes at a minute of real-time for every hour of game-time. This means that if you leave right after the evening role call, you'll have only about 8 or 9 minutes of real-time before you have to be back for morning role call. I hate time limits and I especially can't stand being rushed when I'm sneaking. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the AI is incredibly stupid and it's not too hard to hide from the search parties.

Any time you hide under something it's virtually impossible for the Nazis to spot you. Here's an example:

Captain Stone: *sneaking through a room full of Nazis*

Nazi Guard: *spots Stone* "Halt prisoner or you will be shot!"

Captain Stone: *crawls under a table*

Nazi Guard: "Where did he go?"

Nazi Guard: "Ah, I give up." *walks away*

Yes, that's what they actually say. (Or as near as I can remember.) This is just one of many instances where the AI just made me laugh.

Much of the time the camera is probably a greater enemy than the Nazis. Usually, it can be completely rotated when you're in an outdoor environment, but when indoors you have no control over it. Also, walking through doors can be quite difficult: the camera will often switch 180 degrees and zoom in on you. Pressing in the same direction will suddenly make your character walk back out the door and things can become quite confusing.

There's really nothing good you can say about the graphics. They certainly don't even begin to take advantage of the Xbox's power. It's funny though, even with these ugly graphics, the frame-rate still stutters quite a bit. Also, the characters look and move like zombies. Watching the credits I was surprised to see that they listed people for motion capture acting, as the animation is extremely jerky and not at all life-like. And the faces all have these weird vacant stares that just made me laugh the first time I played.

The voice acting is another weak point in the game. All the Nazis speak with the most ridiculous German accents. Combine this with the poor animation and weird facial expressions, and you have some pretty funny cut-scenes.

Despite all the problems I still liked POW. However, if production values are the most important thing to you, or if you're an action gamer and must have violence, (Sorry, you never get to kill any Nazis in this game.) then look elsewhere. But if enjoy sneaking games, and originality and innovation are more important to you than production values, then give this game a try. How many other games let you live the life of a prisoner in a Nazi POW camp?

Sound: 7/10 Bad voice-acting. Music does a good job of changing to fit the occasion though.

Graphics: 5/10 Ugly. Looks like a Dreamcast game.

Controls: 6/10 Camera causes a lot of problems.

Game-play: 9/10 I love sneaking games, and despite all the problems it was still quite fun.

Originality: 8/10 Sure it borrows from Metal Gear Solid and Shenmue, but I still found it to be quite original.

Value: 7/10 There's a good 15 or 20 hours worth of game-play and you receive a grade for how efficiently you escape from each camp, so there is some replay value. If you get a good grade you can unlock some stuff. (nothing very interesting though)

Final Score: 8/10 It has a lot of problems, but it was still a very fun experience for me. I must be going mad.

Description of Prisoner of War

The immersive game world is made vivid by the artificial intelligence of its population. Sophisticated detection, flocking, socialization, and other artificial life algorithms work together to create a living, breathing world of distinctively characterized inmates and guards. Your character is able to talk to anyone he meets, pick up and drop objects, climb fences and walls, crouch, crawl, mantle along ledges, peek around corners, tap on walls to distract guards, throw stones, use a telescope, and perform a wide variety of special actions with particular objects. An intelligent context-sensitive action button system ensures maximum control intuitiveness at all times. It is possible to replay any completed level and aim to beat recorded escape times in order to earn new abilities.

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