World War II: Prisoner of War (Xbox)

by Codemasters

Product Features

• xbox
• Video Game
• action/adventure
• strategy
• first person

Product Details

• ASIN: B000067DPH
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches ; 6.1 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #22,112 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

On arrival at the prisoner of war camp, circa 1941, you will be introduced to life as a prisoner in Germany, as well as a variety of interesting characters from around the world. Soon you will be devising a cunning escape plan involving the theft of German tools from the German's own living quarters. There are three meticulously modeled, fully 3-D, historically realistic prisoner of war camps, including the infamous Colditz Castle. These camps are rich, detail-packed environments, brought to life with outstanding lighting, weather, and other graphical effects.

The immersive game world is made vivid by the artificial intelligence of its population. Sophisticated detection, flocking, socialization, and other artificial life algorithms work together to create a living, breathing world of distinctively characterized inmates and guards. Your character is able to talk to anyone he meets, pick up and drop objects, climb fences and walls, crouch, crawl, mantle along ledges, peek around corners, tap on walls to distract guards, throw stones, use a telescope, and perform a wide variety of special actions with particular objects. An intelligent context-sensitive action button system ensures maximum control intuitiveness at all times. It is possible to replay any completed level and aim to beat recorded escape times in order to earn new abilities.

Product Description

Prisoner of War is a third-person action game that has players attempting to escape from a variety of prison camps during World War II including the infamous Stalag Luft and the secure confines of Colditz Castle. As an American pilot named Lewis Stone players must learn the daily routines of each camp before plotting a daring escape. An overhead-view radar is displayed in the corner of the screen while the action takes place from a perspective behind Captain Stone as he ducks sneaks and runs away from his German captors.In addition to devising an escape plan carefully noting patrols roll calls and meal times players will also steal cars destroy communications equipment and work with a variety of fellow prisoners to distract the enemy's attention. As Stone uncovers more about what the Nazis are planning he vows to find a way to rendezvous with Winston Churchill's Special Operations Executive before it's too late.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I was so excited about this game I bought it without testing, August 18, 2002

By 

James J. Bell (Chamblee, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: World War II: Prisoner of War (Xbox) (Video Game)

O.K. When someone gives a game only 1 star - they can sometimes have an agenda. My only agenda is to inform gamers how dissapointed I was at this game and let the gamer make-up his or her own mind. I was very excited when I brought POW home and placed the disc in my XBOX. The intro scene was well done and signalled that CODEMASTERS were capable programmers. Then I played the game. The graphics are seriously below par for an XBOX title. The poor quality of graphics made it impossible for me to forget that I was staring at my 35" SONY instead of having the impression I was back in 1942 in a German POW camp. If I thought the graphics bad - imagine how I felt when I played the game. The gameplay is absolutely awful. MOVEMENT - think Halo for the LEFT THUMBSTICK (which is cool.) However, for whatever reason, the RIGHT THUMBSTICK only allows you to look left or right - not up or down. HOWEVER...the values are reversed - to LOOK LEFT requires that you PUSH RIGHT - and vice versa. I know what your thinking because I thought the same thing - there has to be a menu that allows you to change the polarity of the RIGHT THUMBSTICK - NOPE! With Halo I was effeciently killing bad guys in no time. With POW I was taking my frustration out on the innocent XBOX controller within 10 minutes. Oh, and it only gets worse. To climb over 1 wall/fence requires you to stand facing the fence. Then, press the LEFT THUMBSTICK forward and press the A button to jump and grasp the ledge (if a wall) or grab hold of the fence. Next, press the LEFT THUMSTICK forward once more to climb to the top of the wall or as many times as needed to climb over the fence. Next, the camera angle automatically swivles 180 degrees - to the other side of the wall/fence. Now, you must press the LEFT THUMSTICK down once to grasp the ledge and again to drop to the other side. You cannot imagine how clumbsy this feels. In the early levels - when guards are not overly aggressive/smart - you can ignore this clumbsy requirement - but later you'll be quite frustrated. If you press and hold the LEFT TRIGGER you are in FIRST PERSON VIEW ONLY MODE - meaning you can look side-to-side and up-and-down using the RIGHT THUMBSTICK - think Halo's RIGHT THUMBSTICK but without the ability to move when the LEFT TRIGGER is depressed. Now, you've finally scaled a wall and you stealthily enter a building looking for currency and useful items. Well, when inside buildings your point-of-view becomes fixed (from inexplicably some of the worst vantage places - without any room-level zooming capability) - and your RIGHT THUMBSTICK becomes useless - until you enter the previously mentioned FIRST PERSON VIEW ONLY MODE by pressing the LEFT TRIGGER. Useful items/loot twinkle and all you have to do is walk next to the item for it to be placed in your inventory. However, your instincts will be urging you to perform a thorough search of the room - open a few drawers - well they must not have had drawers in WWII because all you can do is walk around a static room. So you do just that - but due diligence requires that you walk a few inches enter the FIRST PERSON VIEW ONLY MODE look around for goodies and then walk another few inches enter the FIRST PERSON VIEW ONLY MODE...etc. You quickly discover that the only loot in the room is what twinkled upon entering - this must mean that Germans don't hide things - interesting? The inventory management subsystem was poorly conceived. Anything you cannot fit in your pockets is carried for all to see in your hands. There are hiding places you can find scattered thoughout the camps and you have a personal footlocker in your barracks. It took me forever just to figure out how to examine/use inventory items. Game Saving - you must be in your barracks and next to your bed in order to save your game. The game designers felt that one of the driving forces behind a prisoner of war game had to be the daily routine that a prisoner was forced to adhere by. So they devised a lame gimmick - a timepiece - that helps you plan mischeif around static morning and evening roll calls. So you are allowed to go exploring as long as you do not get caught in a guards vision-cone while in an illegal area as long as you get back to morning/evening roll call. From the moment I began playing this game I was extremely dissapointed. After playing for a day - I knew I was going to get rid of the game quickly before word got out. The graphics are boring. The character controls are the worst in XBOX history - why do I have to press right to look left - (that infuriates me)? The idea of being a prisoner of war trying to escape is golden (and I hope someone pulls it off), but this implementation is shameful. CODEMASTERS quality assurance team should be fired.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very dissapointed after the long wait, August 21, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: World War II: Prisoner of War (Xbox) (Video Game)

I had high hopes for this game but I am sad to say Prisoners of War did not live up to it's expectations. No freedom to do as you wish. You must follow the preset plot. The graphics are good but this game is not worth buying. Try renting it .

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars you would think it would be good.... oh well..., August 19, 2002

By 

Jason C. Mayes "vladthedog" (longmont, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: World War II: Prisoner of War (Xbox) (Video Game)

now this isn't the worst game i've played on the xbox, but that doesn't say much. I was extremely excited about the game for a long time. But it just doesn't live up to expectations. So its a game about escaping a prison camp? sounds intriguing, in depth, etc. But it isn't. You don't decide how you'll escape, or what you'll do period. you jsut follow instructions and go along with the next thing you are supposed to do. I was expecting to be abe to actually choose how to escape, what i would do, etc, but you dont. Maybe I've become spoiled from the idea of freeform play, but I hate being led by the nose in games anymore. I wanna make my own decisions. Aside from that, graphics, sounds, controls, etc are just not up to par either. It looks like an (outdated?) ps2 game. it actually has a pretty low fps and i continually notice it "stutter" when i turn. controls, while not awful, don't do nearly as much as you would expect. they also don't respond as well as you would hope.
This game is definately a renter. Thats why i did, and I got bored within a few hours.