World War II being one of the darkest times in human history, has served as the
foundation for countless games--almost a genre unto itself. Whats different about
P.O.W. is that its a World War II game without any death. As a downed pilot turned
prisoner of war, youll spend your time adhering to the established rules of a German
camp, gathering intelligence for the allied war effort, and planning your next escape
attempt. The worst that will happen to you is a few days of hospital stay to recover from
your wounds. Dont expect to see gas chambers or golden stars, either. As Codemasters
is quick to point out, the military prisoner camps were much different, much kinder, than
the death camps weve come to associate with the Nazi regime. While not trying to
skirt around Germanys role in WWII, it does allow a sigh of relief from those of us
without the heart to play an interactive version of Schindler's List. Instead what
youll find are meticulously reconstructed P.O.W. camps, from the physical
architecture to the life of the prisoners, and a game that forces you to rely on your
skill as an information gatherer and escape artist over your ability to disembowel a man
with your thumb. A newcomer to the life of the P.O.W., you assume the role of Lewis
Stone, an Allied pilot shot down and captured during a reconnaissance mission in 1941.
Finding yourself behind bars without any specific release date in sight, you immediately
set about attempting, and repeatedly failing, to escape. Unable to further yourself
through other means, being unable to read German and being short on English literature,
you set about to dutifully improve your skills as a Houdini wanna-be, until you stumble
across evidence that Germany is conducting some sort of secret research. Safe from the
Allied bombers that wont drop their load on a P.O.W. camp, Stone and his fellow
prisoners find themselves sharing turf with the scientist developing the U2 Rocket
(and possibly more). With this information in hand, you must escape, and you must
escape now.
Oddly enough, though other games are claiming increasingly
expansive universes, P.O.W. stakes claim to a relatively small part of the world. The
entire game takes place, basically, between the confining bricks of a prisons walls
(or barbed wire, as it may be), though there isnt any doubt that your character will
be moved about quite a bit. In fact, the size of the camp is one of the more important
elements of the game. Press a key or two, and up pops an information screen with the tally
for your daily ritual, including times for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and morning and
evening roll call. Get too busy taking snap shots and miss any of those, and you may find
yourself on the guards most wanted list. Whats more, theyll pay more
attention while looking around for you; they might even notice that military uniform you
swiped earlier in the day. Figuring out the holes in the system without getting caught is
part of what makes the game all the more interesting.
One of the games selling points is Codemasters focus
on AI. In total there are 12 friendly, and about 50 not-so-friendly, AI wandering about
the camp aside from yourself. Each of them has his own intelligence, personality, and so
forth. No mindless look-alike guards in this game they all have different
intelligences, even to the point of some noticing things others might miss while on
searches. Identifying which guard is which, and who might be bribable, is another element
youll have to master if you want out of your camp with the proof of the U2s
development. Aside from paying off the guards, or avoiding their notice, youll have
to get around them in other ways too. Slip on that stolen uniform, and youll notice
that the guard towers dont care about you walking through the gates as much.
Dont run into anyone though, or they may notice that your German is about as good as
my French, and that all you know how to say is, "I dont speak German, do you
speak English?"
If youre found out, you may end
up hiding underneath a car as the enemys boots crunch the gravel at eye level (sort
of creepy, actually). With no death to signal success or failure, time is your only real
enemy. The number of days it takes you to complete your goal will determine how well you
do in the game. The more you get caught, or shot, the more time youll spend in bed
or in a cell. With a strong gritty appeal, its realistic recreation of the P.O.W. camp
physical layouts, and nonviolent espionage outlook on your role in the game, P.O.W. has a
lot of interesting things going for it.
As I try to do at the end of each
demonstration, I asked the programmer what his favorite scene is. He lead me through the
nighttime shadows past the enemy spotlights, mounted the rungs of a ladder onto the roof
of a nearby building, and peered down with his camera to take a few snapshots of a rocket
standing erect on its launch pad. Stray flecks of snow drifted into the screen, and the
nighttime chill seemed to make its way onto my arms. Odd thing, considering there were
literally thousands of computers, televisions, and people all together in a confined
space. It should have been like a sauna, but P.O.W. has its own little climate and feel
that it brings along with it. P.O.W. looks very promising. Its due out on the Xbox
sometime this month (June), and in September 2002 for the PC. The PS2 version isnt
being released, as of yet, inside the U.S.
Aaron
Stanton (06/06/2002) |