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The Great Escape for PlayStation 2
The Great Escape for PlayStation 2 turns the 1963 war film into a stealth and action adventure. You follow four prisoners of war who each try to escape German captivity in their own way. In separate chapters, you gather tools, search buildings and study the guards' movements. A castle, a hospital and the Stalag Luft III camp present different obstacles on the road to freedom. You look over the shoulder of the prisoner currently in focus from a third-person perspective.
Each character brings a particular ability. Hilts can pick locks, MacDonald speaks German, Hendley steals items from pockets and Sedgwick repairs equipment. You use those talents within their chapters' objectives; this is not a squad you can assemble freely. Looking through keyholes, peeking around corners and having other prisoners create distractions helps you get past patrols. You can drag an incapacitated guard out of sight so the next patrol does not immediately expose your escape plan.
Later objectives move the action to trains, roads and an airfield. Careful walking and searching for items then also give way to shooting and driving vehicles, including a motorcycle. The tension therefore changes during the escape: first you want to avoid attracting attention, and later you mainly need to get away. Despite the four protagonists, you play the story alone with one standard DualShock 2. There is no shared multiplayer campaign, and you do not need a Multitap.
Region and language
Our PlayStation 2 games are PAL editions and come with a Dutch or English box, unless stated otherwise. By default, you receive the version for the European market. We note it in the product details if the region is different or the box is in another language. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.
Manual
The Great Escape for PlayStation 2 includes the manual unless the product title states otherwise. If the booklet is missing, the title says “No Manual”. This lets you see before ordering whether the game comes with a manual.
The manuals included with our games usually contain at least English and often around six European languages. The exact languages vary by edition, so Dutch is not always included. The booklet explains the controls and the main rules. You can use it to check how to control the game, which actions are available and how its different features work.
The history of The Great Escape
The Great Escape appeared in 2003 on platforms including PlayStation 2. Pivotal Games developed it and SCi handled the European release; in North America, it was published by Gotham Games. The British studio had been founded in 2000 and developed Conflict: Desert Storm in 2002. For this project, the team chose not to put a new military unit in the lead, but the familiar prisoners and escape plans from director John Sturges's 1963 film, with Steve McQueen as Hilts.
The film provided the starting point for locations and characters, but the developers expanded events into separate playable objectives. This also takes you outside the camp, through a hospital, a train and an airfield. Pivotal's original presentation stressed that change of pace: slow, careful sneaking was intended to give way to combat and chases. The prisoners' different abilities offered a way to build varied tasks without giving everyone the same role during the escape story.
The result differs clearly from the squad-based approach of Pivotal's Conflict games. Four familiar protagonists do not mean you constantly command four soldiers at once here. Chapters divide the attention between their own routes and problems. This is also a dramatisation of a film that itself drew on events from the Second World War, not a precise reconstruction of the real escape. This PS2 edition contains the original 2003 adventure and is separate from the older computer game also called The Great Escape.
Similar games for PlayStation 2
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell also asks you to observe patrols and slip past guards unnoticed. Sam Fisher uses modern night-vision goggles, special weapons and a building's shadows to do so. The prisoners in The Great Escape work with stolen papers, simple tools and their personal talents. Both games make you wait for an opening along a route, but here preparing an escape is the reason for repeatedly entering guarded ground.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty shares the sneaking through guarded rooms and hiding incapacitated opponents. Snake and Raiden, however, have modern equipment and receive plenty of information through the codec. The Great Escape is built around prisoners, disguises and practical escape supplies. The changes between heroes here lie in their chapters and abilities, whereas Metal Gear Solid 2 chiefly uses its changing perspectives to tell an extensive espionage story.
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin lets Agent 47 use other people's clothes to move through guarded locations. That resembles MacDonald's use of German and a uniform to avoid immediately standing out. The goal differs: 47 looks for ways to eliminate a target and then disappear. In The Great Escape, information, tools and a way out are the main things to obtain, spread across objectives that follow the film's story.
Conflict: Desert Storm comes from the same studio and divides abilities among a small group. There, you control a military squad including a sniper and an explosives specialist, giving orders during firefights. The Great Escape opts for separate prisoners and chapters, with much more attention to slipping in unnoticed and acquiring supplies. Here, you do not form a line of battle with four soldiers, but try to make an escape plan possible step by step.
Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb likewise alternates exploration, sneaking and direct action within a third-person adventure. Indy can swing with his whip and use chairs or bottles in a fight. During preparations, The Great Escape puts more emphasis on avoiding patrols and obtaining the right items. Where Indy travels towards a hidden relic, the prisoners are trying to leave guarded buildings and enemy territory behind.
