Not exactly a great escape
As well as being saddled with a truly awful title, Rebels Prison Escape turns out to be a pretty ropy strategy experience that pales in comparison with the classic Great Escape, after which it is very closely modeled (just without the inventiveness and clever design). The game is basically a mix of strategy and adventure, where you control a small selection of individual characters who must attempt to break out from a number of different prisons. The story describes how a cruel dictator has thrown a bunch of rebels into prison for daring to disagree with him, and now it's your job to bust them out. Each character has their own personality and mix of abilities, which you must use carefully in conjunction with stealth and other approaches like bribery to make your getaway. You start by controlling one rebel who infiltrates a prison holding one of his chums, and must make your way through the corridors and other areas, by sneaking around and doing at that Metal Gear Solid stuff, like throwing bottles to distract underpaid guards. Amongst the list of abilities your guys have are such expected ones as disguise and lockpicking, but bizarrely enough, voodoo magic also crops up, which takes the game in a slightly surreal direction. This could have been an interesting addition to the stealth genre, and while there are some good ideas here, the overall impression is of a poorly thought-out game. Thanks to its mix of poor level design, wonky controls, tedious story, and sub-par graphics, this is best avoided in favor of something like Commandos 2.
