C&VG


Jailbreak
By Konami
Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #66

Jailbreak

It's a breakout. Everybody is trying to bust out of the computer room - trying to get away from Jailbreak.

Konami's conversion of Nemesis - one of C&VG's Games Of The Month in March - was wonderful. Jailbreak, on the other hand, is a complete and utter no-no.

The story is simple. The bad guys have broken out of jail, taking the warden prisoner. Guiding your little copper, armed with a pistol, you must shoot the convicts, rescue the warden and free other hostages. Just for the record, you can also pick up extra weapons, namely a rocket gun and tear gas bombs.

Jail Break

With the rocket gun, you can blast barriers and cars and the tear gas comes in handy for escaped prisoners hiding in buildings. With Jailbreak, I didn't need tear gas to bring tears to my eyes.

A rising scale of points are awarded for freeing the hostages, 500 for a man, 1,000 for a woman - that smacks of inequality, surely - 2,000 for a child, right up to 50,000 for the warden.

But the graphics are awful and the gameplay is boring. Even the game's packaging has been designed to annoy - a naff cardboard box which quickly falls to bits. Yuk!

Konami may well be the King of the Coin-Ops but they'll have to do better than Jailbreak to establish any sort credibility on computer.

When you think of the wealth of games Konami has. It's really surprising that they came up with this for a first outing on their own for the micro. If the lure of the name Konami is too much, then buy Nemesis.