Games review : The Escapists 2
From Prison Break to The Great Escape, it seems that may of us love the idea of a carefully constructed plan to escape a prison.
When The Escapists first appeared two years ago, gamers fell in love with the simplicity of presentation and depth of gameplay.
Now, there is The Escapists 2 from Mouldy Tooth Studios and Team 17.
Once you've chosen whether or not to customise a few of the inmates, you find yourself locked up behind bars with the sole quest of escaping.
The tutorial level - Precinct 17 - is short, sweet and does a great job of explaining the basics. The first major prison is a return of Centre Perks, now known as 2.0 after a rebuild due to the unfathomable amount of escapes.
This paves way for the larger and more detailed prisons you'll find, as well as the many themed prisons such as on a train, boat, or inside the wild west.
Each in-game day is made up of sections. You'll start with roll-call, followed by breakfast, some free-time and then later in the day, lunch, time for jobs and exercising.
When you've shown your face you get a small green tick to show that you have been seen. You are then free to carry on raiding other cells for goodies. Alternatively, you can spend some extra time in the exercise area to build up your strength or fitness.
You aim to pull together a plan on how to escape and then you can either raise money from getting a job or running errands for other prisoners, or you can save the hassle and try to craft the necessary tools yourself from gear you've 'acquired' from other inmates or guards.
There is a wide range of things to try, from a simple dig outside and cut through the fence, to more elaborate escapes using grappling hooks and cloned key-cards. The best way is for a few friends to help you out.
As for graphics, I'll start off by explaining my hatred for retro-pixel art. For several years I've played hundreds of games highlighting 'pixel art' as some sort of feature, connecting retro-gameplay to old-fashioned or lazy appearance, I've long become sick of games that think it's okay to throw 8-bit pixels at us as an excuse for not trying harder.
There is still a very retro-feel, but it is well drawn, properly shaded with perfectly presented visuals.
The sound is really only background, as the majority of the presentation is done through text and aesthetics. The soundtrack keeps your ears busy without distraction and the oomphs, bumps, and thuds all work well to audibly describe what's going off on screen.
The Escapists 2 will test your patience. If you're expecting to escape every prison in a few days you'll be mistaken, but take your time, learn the prison and plan your escape, and you'll find a refreshing reward and feeling of achievement when your plan comes together. It's worth the modest price tag of £16.99.
Escaping prisons reward you with a key and a special customisation item, while collecting keys will unlock more of the 10 available prisons. There is also a £7.99 season pass which gives three further prisons sold separately for £3.59 each.
It's worth mentioning that there are apparently a handful of bugs. Other than server issues, I've not experienced any and I can only guess they're infrequent and likely to be patched quicker than you can break for freedom.
Bottom Line
Team 17 and The Escapists return with a fantastic sequel. A special mention must be made for co-operative escapes, as with a group of friends it's great fun trying to plot your escape (or make a run for it while they're distracted).
Fans of the original will definitely want to pick up this game, and those few who missed the first edition now have an even better package to entice them into the Prison break genre.
Gameplay : 8.5
Graphics : 8.5
Sound : 8
Story : 8
Value : 8.5
