5 Comments

1. Mel

   31st March 2008 at 9:12 pm

   

   ok – a bit short

   Reply
2. piledriver

   9th October 2008 at 10:25 pm

   

   Escape from jail! Duh
   4 maps. Usual suspects. Not bad textures, scenery and lighting for its age.
   Loads of ammo/weapons/health/power. Makes you think you’re in for some huge battles. But no, just average ones. Then you’re free! Kinda.

   Reply
3. Technic

   28th May 2012 at 7:52 pm

   

   I don’t know how often I played this neat little mappack already but it’s worth it!
   As the name suggests we start in a jail and need to escape, that’s the story.
   Soon we’ll find the HEV suit and more and more weapons and ammo.
   On the way to reach Barney many cool combat scenes and puzzles await us.
   While the puzzles are quite easy as they are only button puzzles, the combat can be difficult.
   Don’t worry, there are lot of healthkits and HEV batteries scattered around, just break the many crates and you’ll find them if needed. It’s possible you have 100/100 health / HEV power.

   After the very short jail section, you’ll be in a multi-floor warehouse, power station and several short corridors after finally making it to the surface and reaching Barney.
   Mapping is cool, the button puzzles are nice and not that obvious at first.
   Unfortunately there is usually more than one button and you never know exactly what they trigger.
   So you have to backtrack sometimes and find out that a closed door is open now, although you might think it continues elswhere (that’s what I thought first).
   Some buttons can be missed easily, so take your time to examine the environment!
   There’s no cheating required!
   A few nice scripts and the music create a good atmosphere but don’t expect something epic.
   Maybe balancing is an issue here, as it sometimes is just very easy while some combat scenes can be very tough altho you have quite many weapons and ammo and also full heath and HEV power.
   In my eyes it’s just too much ammo and if you’re a skilled FPS gamer the combat should be no problem at all. The end is also disappointing.

   However, it’s really fun to play so you should try this out!

   Reply
4. reaction

   15th July 2023 at 9:41 pm

   

   Jailbreak is a 1998, 4 map long gruntfest which culminates in a bloody battle in a hangar stocked with a tank, plane and trucks. Jailbreak really tries to emulate the Valve feel and does reasonably well at it. There’s some cool set pieces and there’s enough set dressing to make your adventure feel like it has a purpose.

   Given that this is essentially a grunt only series of maps it’s important for the combat arenas to be well suited and in Jailbreak’s case they are. There is also a degree of non-linearity (if you want to kill all the enemies) in some of the early areas too which plays quite nicely as a result. That being said, the music and alarm combo for the first few minutes got old quick.

   Overall, the detailing and texture work is decent for the time. There are a few technical issues though – wonky level transition at the top of the lift comes to mind. There’s way not enough health on Hard meaning it’s very difficult to finish some of the fights without mid-fight saves (you get plenty of 9mmar nades which helps). I couldn’t see how to progress after the “evacuate area” explosion, I had to noclip out to continue.

   Apart from those handful of issues Jailbreak is a treat to play. It’s worth a jam if you like 90s maps, killing grunts and being able to climb into a tank.

   Installed:
   Manually

   Difficulty Played At:
   Hard

   Playtime:
   33 Minutes

   Reply
5. monster_urby

   7th March 2025 at 9:39 am

   

   I remember this one, but I never finished it before because it does something I cannot stand. A lot of action and weapon pickups PRIOR to getting the suit. Back in the 90s when I first played this, I didn’t know about changing weapons without the HUD, so as soon as I picked up the crowbar, I was doomed.

   In spite of that, what we have here is a fairly decent gruntfest through a fairly nonsensical environment. Starting in a prison cell, very cliche in this day and age, you fight through a warehouse loaded with crates, then a set of lab corridors of some description where you can take a side path to get the Gluon gun. I had to cheat to escape this area because the door closed and wouldn’t reopen.

   After that you make your way to a hanger with some fairly well known vehicle prefabs from that time, before being teleported to safety by Barney. The map seems to terminate here, but never actually ends.

   Overall, another typical romp against the HECU with some decent environments, but certainly nothing special.

   Blimey gruntfests were popular back in the day weren’t they?

   Installed:
   Manually

   Difficulty Played At:
   Medium

   Playtime:
   21 Minutes

   Reply

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