[ Transscript of review for Jailbreak 2004a | Posted by Bean on 2004-07-04 | Score: 9 ]
Dude, It\'s Jailbreak, You Gotta Play It
If you have any kind of experience in the FPS community, you know Jailbreak is as essential to the community as Team Fortress or Rocket Arena. It\'s classic. The FPSer who hasn\'t played Jailbreak (or any of those mods at some time) really hasn\'t fully experienced the greatness that is FPSs. Right? I\'m right. And the latest iteration of this mod is just better than ever, and it really makes me wonder why this gametype isn\'t included in UT games. Epic, please, you know you must.
In Jail...You Won\'t Get...Um...
No. Don\'t worry about it. Now, for the unitiated.
Jailbreak is like capture the flag...instead you are capturing your opponents...by killing them...brutally. Every time you kill an opponent, he is sent to your jail, where he can rot! Mwahaha! If you capture all your opponents, you score a point. But, the people in jail can be free numerous ways. In each base is a release switch, which, when hit, will free everyone in jail, as the announcer will let you know in a variety of hilarious ways. Now, if you are IN jail, there are two other wats to escape. First, you could be challenged to in an Arena by an opponent in the other jail. The winner escapes, while the losers drools (and goes back to jail). Another method of escape is the Escape Route. While not available in all the maps, when it is...you must be careful. Because just because it is called the escape route doesn\'t mean it is. You\'ll just have to try them out to see what I mean (which I haven\'t...see below).
While in jail, it isn\'t all boredom. Players can have little Jail fights, by using shield guns. When they are released, health is replenished, so it is just for gun. Oh, and losers don\'t get bumlove (though that may be an interesting touch). And also, there are the fabled human step ladders. Sometimes the escape routes aren\'t traditionally accessible, so players stack on top of each other. Stuff of legends, that is for sure.
Probably the greatest thing about this mod besides the actual gameplay is the brilliant HUD. You have an easy score tally up top that let\'s you know how many teammates you have outside and in jail, along with the score. But, here\'s the good part, when you press F1 to bring up the Scoreboard, there is this AWESOME mini-map that shows the position of every one of your teammates. This is CRUCIAL, because sometimes you are defending your base, and you really need someone to free your captured teammates. Pop open the map, and you know who is closest, and you can ask them to free the peoples. It is beyond useful.
Additionally, there are little add-ons that just make gameplay more fun. Arena Avenger allows Arena winners boosts to lay waste to their former captors. Celebration Screen allows you to see the captor of the last enemy to celebrate as the enemies are butchered. Llama Hunt makes players who disconnect while in jail, and reconnect to be marked...llamas, so they can be rightly punished. Release Protection protects those who are escaping jail. Those are all on by default. There is another called Teleport, which sends the releaser of his teamates back to his base. Sometimes you would wish you had this on, because sometimes players camp the release switch, but a good defense should prevent this. This is really up to the admin. It adds a different element to gameplay when activated, that is for sure.
Bots are so well done in this mod, it makes me giggle. You can give them the standard team commands, or you can give them commands on behavior. You can tell them to go after the enemies, or avoid them, and various levels of each. And you have hot keys to dynamically adjust the levels (the NumPad /-) and one to set them to Neutral (Numpad /) . Excellent bots!
There are a good amount of maps included, more than enough to satisfy most players. Well done, and worthy of inclusion with the mod. Maps are developed by the strong community too. Music is also very cool too, that is a nice extra. Speaking of the community, servers are sparse, but when you get online, it is a total blast.
So Shwat Else
This mod is just so fun. More servers would be nice, but you take what you can get. Only bug I had was binding buttons. I tried to remap the Jailbreak commands, but it had trouble first time. It only happened the first time I tried. It worked fine afterwards, but then I realized that the Numpad bindings were great, so I left it at that. Worth mentioning.
Also, on some maps, while in Jail, you can shoot outside at your enemy. While fun and hilarious, it seems a little cheap. I would like to run by, not having to worry about 2-3 assualt rifles raining hell down on me. Also, I wasn\'t able to find any of these escape routes. While I wasn\'t in jail much (), I couldn\'t find any. I heard they are around...but...
Anyways, please download this mod. It\'s essential. Besides, I need more players on servers to send to jail. Call me Warden Bean!
Bean
Last edited by a moderator: