At a glance...

Reviewer	Platform	Publisher	Developer	Players	Screenshots
Matt Bailey	Xbox	SCi	Pivotal Games	1	Here
Requirements				Also on...	Buy from Amazon.co.uk
At the time of writing, we did not have a requirements section.				PS2, PC	Click here to buy The Great Escape.

The Great Escape review

Bringing out games licensed on films is commonplace in the industry - look at recent examples like Enter the Matrix and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - but to bring out a game based on a 1963 to a media mainly aimed at children, teenagers, and young adults (i.e. the 5-24 category) seems a bit strange. In fact, to put it in perspective, none of the people in that category would even have been born when the film was released, indeed neither whether many of their parents, and even a few grandparents. That's how old it is. So, you would think the licence brings no bearing on the sales of the game; well, it would probably be true if it wasn't for the fact that recent generations know about the film's existence, and its catchy film tune. Still, it isn't going to sell itself like a Matrix-licensed game does.

Anyone with any knowledge of the film will be aware that the game involves a large amount of stealth. Also the game is set at a prisoner of war (POW) camp. Many of you are probably now thinking of Codemasters' recent PS2/Xbox game Prisoner of War, and yes, this has a similar (admittedly, the original) concept. Sneaking around to and from objectives while avoiding guards may sound similar, but in The Great Escape there is a movie tie-in, a British approach (rather than the American in POW), and some features which take you away from the usual stealth-based on-foot action. Some of these action-based tasks include the opening dogfight where you take the place of the gunner in your bomber, as well as taking control of a car and a bike. However, all these extra parts to the game have one thing in common - awful controls. There is heavy use of the right stick in all the situations, and it just isn't intuitative; using the right stick to turn the bike left or right while moving the bike backwards and forwards with the left stick just does not feel right. Moving back to the main gameplay; I have probably misguided you a bit in comparing it to Prisoner of War, because only a short while into the game you actually break-out of your POW camp, but the gameplay remains similar and repetitive; you spend most of your time avoiding being seen travelling from point to point through each objective. This sense of just completing a list of items means the tense moments of the original film are lost in the game. The stealth itself is also momentum-destroying thing in The Great Escape; with no Splinter Cell-style stealth meter it is very hard to tell whether you are actually hidden from enemy view, and even then you are faced with AI which seems stupid and sometimes does not react, yet at other points manages to catch you when looking away from you. The lack of consistency really makes the game difficult in an annoying way.

In terms of longetivity, the game offers three difficult modes, and on completing any of the three unlocks the Great Escape mode - which is actually just all the missions again, but now they have a time limit added on. However, the often tedious gameplay will mean you are unlikely to play through the game more than once - even to try out this extra mode.

The Great Escape is not a pretty game. While the graphics are not awful, but are certainly not good. The models and animations (the latter of which can often make the characters look lifeless) are of poor quality, while the textures are a bit better. Lighting also is not bad, but overall the graphics are clearly far short of what the Xbox is really capable of. This is made worse by the occasional low frame-rate jutters.

The game's sound is one of it's best qualities - the voice acting isn't bad (if over emphasising the British accents a bit), but the quality is slightly sub-par, sometimes sounding muffled. The famous theme tune is there, along with some other worthy tuned to accompany play. Nothing truly tremendous, but it could have been a lot worse.

Ratings

Graphics	Not bad, but certainly not good either. Despite this the frame-rate does occasionally drop to an unplayable level for a short moment.	6/10
Gameplay	One objective after the next – the lack of flow and pace means the glory of the film is often lost.	6/10
Value	At the time of writing, we did not have a value for money ranking.	0/10
Lifespan	Not that long a game – although it may keep you for some time with the frustrating stealth – and not one to be replayed despite The Great Escape mode.	6/10
Audio	Voice acting and soundtrack are quite good, although the voices themselves sound a bit muffled.	7/10
Overall	With a licence too old for most people to remember the original film, the game had to stand out on its own merits, and has unfortunately failed to so.	6/10

Click here to buy The Great Escape from Amazon.co.uk.

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