Why the Germans bothered taking prisoners during the Second World War is beyond me, truly. They should have simply put them on a boat and sent them across the channel back to Blighty and saved themselves a whole lot of bother.

The reason I know this is because I have watched many films that document the ease with which captured POW's tunnelled under the wire, climbed the fences or created ingeniously realistic copies of their captor's uniforms and walked out of the front gate. In reality of course the POW camps or Stalag Lufts were hard places to exist and knowing that your friends were still fighting the war without you was a big motivator to escape.

The stories of ingenuity, bravery, guile and cunning that have emerged after the war about those that managed to escape has given rise to many films and books and now a videogame. But is this title from Codemasters worthy of escaping on the wings of freedom or should it be sentenced to life as a true jail bird turkey.

The story behind the game has you take the role of Captain Lewis Stone of the US Army Air Force. Whilst on a reconnaissance mission with his friend and crew mate affectionately called JD you get shot down by anti aircraft fire. Your mission had you taking photographs of German installations in and around POW camps. The brass back home think that the camps are being used as a shield for German development and production of a new V Rocket weapon to strike at the allies with. The Germans know that the allies will not strike at the installation for fear of killing all those in the camps. After bailing out of your plane as it crashes to the ground you are caught by a German patrol and taken to a small holding camp before being transferred to a Stalag Luft. It is here that your game begins and that you will begin to plan your escape from imprisonment.

Now before you get ahead of yourself and start to envision a Castle Wolfensteinesque escape plan that involves you blasting everything in sight wearing a grey uniform that goose steps I should probably tell you there is about as much chance of that happening as there is Microsoft being bought out by Pizza Hut. I can say that with the assurance of knowing that Bill Gates probably owns shares in Pizza Hut and that there is absolutely no violence in this game what so ever. You hear that right, maybe I should repeat myself. There are no guns, there is no punching or kicking not even the slight chance of you hitting a Kraut over the head with something heavy. If nothing else this game could hold the record of being the first game to be set during World War Two featuring the Third Reich and the only person that can get shot is you. The entirety of the game is based on your ability to move stealthily, gather equipment and supplies from the Germans without them suspecting anything and to generally be as cunning as a fox.

There are five missions in total to complete each with an increasing level of difficulty. Five may not sound like many but each one will take a good few hours to complete. However once each mission is complete you will be able to progress through them at some speed should you want to play them over again.. Each mission is comprised of a number of individual tasks that will eventually lead up to your readiness to make an escape attempt. However you will have to maintain the image of a regular POW following all of the rules and this will mean being present at role calls morning, noon and night, following the other inmates to the mess hall for two meals every day and also for mourning exercise. The night time will provide you with the most time to explore but be warned if you are caught it will be straight into the slammer and should you fail to return for morning role call the camp will be searched systematically by loads of troops with big guns. Once caught every thing that you had gathered and scavenged will be lost and you will have to start again. Of course you can try to bribe guards or buy items from other inmates but that will require currency in the form of contraband items that you will have to loot from the camp anyway.

The game is very linear with no variations in the order of which the sub missions can be completed. The Germans that patrol and guard the camp follow the same patterns every time you play and will always fall for the same trick no matter how many times you try it. During one level I through stones at a bin for around ten minutes to distract a guard just to see if he would do anything different but he just kept on coming over to have a look and then satisfied that nothing was out of the ordinary returned to his patrol only to start the routine seconds later. You can get caught a limitless number of times and still not have the Germans take any special attention to your actions. More than this during my numerous trips outside of the allowed areas I was shot numerous times. In fact there was probably at the end of one hour trying to be killed more lead in me than there was in all of the Germans guns combined. Always there were two warning shots and the third shot that hits you in the leg sometimes from impossible angles which will put you into the infirmary which will auto cue the nurse to tell you that maybe it would be wise to follow the rules in the future. In fact the nature of the strict linearity of the game means that once you have completed the game you will need to suffer from a case of amnesia to experience anything new, meaning replay ability is almost non existent. Almost non existent only because the better you do a mission then the chance of unlocking a secret or cheat can be uncovered. These are nothing new other than the ability to turn up or down the vision ranges of the guards and other such related game controls. Once they have been unlocked though the game will be dead and buried.

The sub missions and all other information can be gained by talking to the other prisoners in the camp but be prepared for a surprise. All of the voices are so badly stereotyped or have the accents overdone to the point the game will begin to sound like an episode of 'Allo 'Allo. At first it provides an aspect of humour but will all too quickly begin to detract from the game. Not one of the European of American accents have been untouched and so what follows soon sounds like an episode of the goon show.

The graphics are nothing short of being superb. This is easily one of the best looking games on the Xbox that I have seen. Attention has been paid to small details that enhance the feel of the period of the Second World War. The uniforms, objects, vehicles, textures and in game decorations all keep the feel and presence of a natural and believable charm. There are so many small touches that it would take me too long to describe them fully but a few to watch out for are the weather effects, the way guards interact with each other and also for things like rodents.

Music is also a feather in the cap of this game although not a perfect one. The soundtrack is as you would expect for the setting, very imperialistic styled marches with heavy undertones. When certain actions are undertaken or performed then the music will change subtly to reflect the hope and expectation that arises from your attempts to secure freedom. The only thing that can destroy what would be an emphatic thumbs up for the soundtrack would be the bugs. Every now and then the music will get caught in an endless cycle that can have you mistaken for thinking that your Xbox is on the blink. Its worst effect is when it will get stuck into playing the same split second of audio over and over again. There are two ways of breaking this cycle, one is to do something that will change the music score the other is to switch off your Xbox

The control system for the game is good but not brilliant. The controls are simple and easy to manipulate even at speed but from time to time things will happen that will make you frustrated. This game being based on your sense of timing and stealth will at numerous times require you to perform a task or action with minimal margin for error so when you have to combat the control system and the game too it can become a little too much. This can be most notable when trying to get through doorways in a hurry or trying to collect different objects. Another small but annoying aspect of the control is the analogue movement. Using the Thumb Stick of the Dual Shock controller you can vary the speed at which your character moves however there is such a fine difference between creeping along and a full sprint that when required to move slowly and quietly to avoid detection expect to redo it a number of times before getting right.

All in all this is a good game but should only really be undertaken by those with a lot of patients as the tedium of camp routine can bore you senseless. Even with the time skip function you will spend ages just going through the motions of POW life. The strict linearity of the game and the way in which the guards will stay consistent with an almost German efficiency also severely limits replay options. Speech will crack you up then wind you up the music will provide entertainment before doing its impression of a broken record player. The controls will be fine until you need to do something right first time vital to your escape. A great idea, and not a bad game but the experience needs to be more than this offers. With luck lessons will be learnt and Codemasters will return with a sequel and should this sequel have the faults fixed it will be a truly great game. This however is just an average to good game.

Reviewed by AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).