iTuesday Review: Prison Escape for iPhone

 

Those of you who are regular readers of iTuesday probably noticed my absence during the last two weeks.  The short version of this absence is that my regular day job gets pretty busy during this time of the year and I didn’t have time to devote to writing a high quality review. The problem is that during this time away from CBR I also hadn’t been downloading new iPhone and iPad games to review once my schedule cleared up. Knowing iTuesday was approaching fast, I turned to the most downloaded free games page of the App Store to find something that seemed interesting.

What I found was Prison Escape. In Prison Escape you play as three prisoners fleeing the big house. Before you play the game you can see the prisoners bios. The bios tell you their name, weight, height, crime – all that sort of stuff. Going into the game I assumed each prisoner would have different abilities. Maybe the tall lanky one, Mad Mickey, could reach or jump higher or something. Maybe the fat one, Big Edd, would be tougher or have more life. I wasn’t really sure, but I figured it would be stuff like that.

Big Edd…. sounds like he would be the muscle of the group!

In the first round you’re on top of the prison with a catapult. The object is to catapult the prisoners one at a time and land them in a moving getaway truck. Contrary to what I had assumed, all the characters seemed to behave the same. They looked different flying through the air, but seemed to land in the same position depending on how far back the slingshot was pulled. This first round is near impossible to get all three prisoners in the truck. Truthfully, it just gets frustrating. Now some games can take a while and are challenging, and that’s ok. I know there were some rounds on Angry Birds (probably the most famous game that uses a slingshot), for example that took me ages to complete. Prison Escape is different though. I got bored of repeating the round over and over pretty quick. The first round did not impress me.

So here’s the worst part: That’s it! There is no second round. This is the entire game! The page in the App Store says there are more rounds coming soon. So who knows what the update will be like, but right now I feel like the game is incomplete. Prison escape is just one round, and its an annoying round.

I often times have a hard time coming up with a rating for a free game. After all, Clearance Bin Review’s concept is that we write value-based game reviews, and at free you can’t go wrong. Many times I ended up adding a point or two to free games as the price makes it a better “buy”. This is one case where I would really recommend not wasting your time and find another free title, or at the very least wait for the update.

Final Rating: 3/10

CBR Break Down:
Console Played On: iPhone 4
Approximate Time to Completion: 1 hour….ish
Price Bought at: Free
Current Price: Free
Recommend Purchase Price: Time is money… don’t waste your time.