|| VALUE REVIEW || The Great Escape (Xbox)

Developed By : Pivotal Games                                   Published By : Gotham Games
Category : Action, Stealth                                               Release Date : July 22, 2003

Video games based off of movies are quite a common thing. We have the Star Wars games, the Spider-Man games are both classics and flops, and just think of the countless Bond games based on the movies as well as the original ideas. However, the vast majority of these games have one thing in common : their source material is rather recent. The games usually come out just around the time that the movie does, if maybe a short while later. And then...there's The Great Escape. A game released in 2003 who's movie came out almost exactly 40 years earlier in 1963. 

Now, naturally the first question to come to mind is going to be why make a game so long after it's source material has been out? I'm not really sure. I was never into watching the older movies, but it's an iconic enough film that I had heard of it. The best theory I can come up with is that maybe they were just hopeful to bring an old classic to a new generation, and they thought the best way to do so was by utilizing a medium popular with that newer generation. 

No matter the cause...I don't think it worked. After booting up the game, within the first few missions I had a very mixed feeling on the game, but it only declined from there. The game (apparently) roughly follows the plot of the movie. During an air battle in World War II over Germany, a plane is shot down. Those left on the plane parachute off to safety before it goes down, but end up being taken prisoner and placed into a POW camp. From there, it's plain to see your goal is to escape the prison. 

This is done through a combination of stealth, combat, and vehicular scenes that make up the games 18 levels. You'll sneak around the camp trying to set up a disguise as a German guard, stealing or moving vehicles, and even gunning down some troops. It's a mixture that is sometimes enjoyable, while at other times is pretty lacking.

Looking at this game a decade and a half after it's release (and in turn, half a century after the release of the movie!), it's not all that horrible. While the character models aren't the most refined looking things, for such a small studio that only focused on the Conflict series of war games, the characters look pretty decent.

The Great Escape was a game that I just couldn't bring myself to finish in the end. The stealth sections were extremely repetitive, and were more often flops than good executions. While the gun and vehicle sections were very much the highlight of the game, there were too few of these that were broken up by too many lowlights.

For whatever reason, if you find yourself needing to pick this game up and beat it, I guess the best thing that can be said about it is it's extremely cheap. I was able to grab a CIB copy from my local retro store for only $4. Compelled to pick it up sealed? You should be able to do so for no more than $15. In the end though, don't bother with this one. From what I've gathered, the entire plot and ending of the movie was altered just for the video game, and a fair amount of the events were tweaked as well. You could probably spend the same amount of money and get yourself a copy of the movie itself, which is exactly what I suggest you do.

Retro Grade

Game also available on Playstation 2