More like Prison Break: Monkey Boy
Devloped by ZootFly and Published by Deep Silver,
Prison Break: The Conspiracy is a half decent representation of Season 1 of the TV series.
The game takes place in the Prison from the show and has the player taking on
the role of Tom Paxton who is under orders from the infamous government power known as the
company.Now unlike the Lost game, you take control of the popular characters from the series
which makes that game a bit easier to stand, but when you play as a nobody who pops up for
around the corner from action seen on TV, it's hard to put up with the bad fighting controls
which make it no Street Fighter but more of a close-your-eyes-and-bash-the-A-button. kind of game. That,
combined, with the poor gameplay, overshadowed the interaction with the main cast of the show.
I would like to rename Prison Break: The Conspiracy to Prison Break: Fetch Boy, or Prison Break:
Hide in a Dark Corner, or even Prison Break: Monkey Boy. Because this is what the game basically
consists of, P/B Fetch Boy seems to be the only way in the whole game that you get on the good side
of any inmate, P/B Hide in a Dark Corner is the only way you can get across the game itself and P/B
Monkey Boy should be the name over all of them because of the stupidly high jumps Tom Paxton can do
and I clearly remember being stuck on where to go for a while - only to jump up half a building to
carry on! More on the climbing: every single ledge you can grab onto or jumb over sees to have
been painted yellow and maybe this should used for other difficulty levels but not on the hardest
settings. They stick out everywhere and just make it too easy; it makes climbing look even more
ridiculous than it already is. Soon as you climb over on of these bright yellow fences the music
changes pace and there is an annoying camera effect that happens which made me hate sneaking
around. Before that you have to stand (in clear view, I might add) of the guard and wait for him
to look at the wall.
Through all that I forgot about Prison Break: Wants to be Fight Club. There is a meter that defines
how strong you are, but for me it was 'how long do I have to spend in this bloody fight meter?'. Once you
fill it - and this is a Turner Top Tip - close your eyes and go mental on that A button.
The fighting though is just awful with a fast and strong attack, a dodge option and block. There is no
point for any of them apart from the fast attack because if you dodge then you will end up in the wall
or having the camera going crazy on you. The strong attack takes far too long to execute for not
much gain and the block is only used for stopping you falling over in the shows like some prison
bitch because it doesn't stop health going down, and leaves you very little option to strike back.
The animations are horrible. It seems like they have tried to hide this, though because when you run
it looks like you are gliding or sliding across the yard on the soap you dropped the night before.
Facial animations are made worse by the hard to look at graphics and the worst shadowing in a game I
have ever seen. (No Joke.)
Throughout this game you will find yourself playing in the same sections of the prison over again and the
only reason ZootFly can come up with for stopping you going back to where you may have been in a past
level is that there are a few boxes in your way. You will also find a number of time consuming mini
games that are not fun or actual games - they are more for making you want to pul your own eyes out. If you try to unscrew or
lock pick something slower than a snail, then the army of cleaners that Fox River State Penitentiary
seem to have will rain down hell on you; honestly there are more cleaners and caretakers then there
are guards.Things like that make it seem like more of a school than a prison.
So, if you have never watched Prison Break before then I recommend you do but don't play this game first -
and if you are thinking of picking this up then grab it from the pre-owned section where I left mine.
Im a fan of Prison Break but the game is bad beyond belief.
* - Ben-roy Turner
