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For some years now it?s been the norm that the biggest action movies, particularly those that screen during the summer, get poorly made games to cash in on the publicity. These games tend to be some of the worst in their genres, but I got excited when Gotham Games announced that they were doing a game about The Great Escape ? one of the best action movies of all time. The Great Escape is by far not a new movie, because it hit the cinemas in 1963, but even today this is the kind of movie that aspiring directors can only dream of getting close to. It?s hard to say what made the movie great, but over the course of the three hours it lasted you got to know a group of POWs who had been shot down over German soil. These guys had charisma, and a burning desire to get out. The movie had an excellent cast, including Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, and many more. During the course of the movie you?re shown the many intricate facets involved in breaking out of a prison camp, and it really made you impressed at how these guys made everything happen. That was then, this is now.
Even though there are a lot of similarities between the movie and the game, there are also some pretty radical differences. The movie took place almost entirely in one prison camp, but the game opts for something different, because throughout the game you in turn play as some of the main characters of the movie, and each of these have agendas of their own. At least during the first half of the game you actually play far from the big prison camp shown in the movie. The entire game consists of 22 missions, which are actually reasonably diverse, and will have you sneaking through towns, burning code books, escaping from small camps, escaping from larger camps, and escaping from downright huge camps. You?ll steal a tank, mow down vicious ?Gerrys?, and sometimes just run past obstacles and such. It takes a couple of hours of playing until the story gets really similar to that in the movie, which is unfortunate because I?m sure more players would be drawn into the game had they used more of the magic that the movie got so right.
Like in the movie doing a successful escape requires you to do numerous things beforehand. For instance, in one mission you may need to find a pocket-knife and a ?goon uniform?, get past the guards, cut the phone wire, get a passport, and head out. Sometimes during the missions unexpected things happen, but as long as it?s not a bug in the AI, it usually just adds to the fun. The sad thing is, there are actually bugs in the AI, pathfinding, and collision detection, so it?s not seldom that the guards notice you when they shouldn?t have; a guard can run for long period of time against a wall; or bullets can go through rocks, crates and such?
The game mechanics in The Great Escape aren?t too bad, but the game could?ve had so much more. The characters are viewed in third-person, and you move just like in Hitman, a game with notable similarities. You can change between standing normally, crouching, and crawling. Additionally, holding the CTRL key activates the stealth mode, where you move slightly slower, but make less noise. The key is to know when you can run normally, and when you?re better off being quiet. Timing and quick thinking is critical in The Great Escape, and to facilitate this you get to look through keyholes by standing next to a door, and pressing shift + w. You then use the mouse to look around, and that?ll let you figure out the guards? patrol route. The inventory can be brought up by pressing the F key, where you can for instance change to a ?goon uniform?, equip a Luger, or ready your passport. Aiming in the third-person mode is pretty awkward, but by pressing the right mouse button you enter a temporary first-person mode where aiming is easier. It seems to me that the controls could easily have been simplified, because the gameplay doesn?t feel as ?fluid? as that in Hitman. Another annoyance I feel is worth noting is the fact that on the normal difficulty you only get two saves. It?s understandable that the developers don?t want gamers to save every 15 seconds, but it really is very annoying when you?ve almost finished a difficult level, and end up having to do a lot over again because some guard got x-ray vision.
Sneaking as you might?ve guessed, is something you?ll do a lot of in The Great Escape, so obviously it?s important to rely on dark places, and such. Splinter Cell and Thief were great this way, because it really felt like you were hiding in the darkness, but I can?t say The Great Escape does an equally good job. A nice detail is that all the characters use volumetric shadows, with no pixelation problems or anything. However, the rest of the maps are lit using lightmaps, so the dark areas usually just seem dark because of the textures, not because dynamic shadows are used. The textures themselves look mostly okay, but not really vibrant, crisp, or anything remotely close to Half-Life 2, etc. I do wish the character models had more polygons and used more realistic textures, because even when I just saw the movie a couple of weeks ago it wasn?t easy to tell who was who in the game.
I really do wish this game had been released with for instance the Source engine, because the whole cinematic aspect of the game doesn?t do very well. I?m assuming most of you have seen the complex and realistic characters in Half-Life 2, and if Steve McQueen, James Garner and the rest had been recreated like that I?m sure it?d make people?s heads spin. Dynamic shadows, like those in Splinter Cell or Deus Ex 2 would?ve let the developers make the whole sneaking mechanic so much more realistic. And while I?m being an armchair game designer ? how about being able to choose between a quick and a full story mode? At least during the first half of the game you never really ?connect? with any of your fellow POWs like you did in the movie, so if such option was implemented those who want more cinematic sequences could've played the full story mode and get just that.
However, what?s nice is that many of the sounds and voice-overs are recreated, or even copied from the movie. I?m not entirely sure, but it sounded a bit like the sounds used were sampled at a fairly low quality, because the midrange (voices and such) sounded more metallic than it should. The theme from the movie is obviously included in the game, and put to good use, so it doesn?t sound like that?s the only song they had.
Conclusion:
In retrospect I must say this title disappointed me, but that may be because I had unrealistically high hopes. We?re slowly getting to the point where we can have games with cinematic qualities, but in that regard this game falls short. The Great Escape has some interesting missions, and nice, yet unpolished game mechanics, but it could still have been so much better. I do think that this title is a step in the right direction, particularly compared to Prisoner of War, but perhaps in about a year when more developers have gotten used to Dx9 technology we?ll see a prison breakout game done the way it should.
The Great Escape?s graphics and controls seem and feel somewhat like of a console port done quickly, but once you?ve gotten used to the controls and manage to get past the first couple of hours you?ll probably find this game to be an okay diversion.
