Mod Showcase: Jailbreak
Welcome to Mod Showcase. I’m Brickinator and today we’ll be discussing Jailbreak, the prison simulator that thankfully omits showertime. Unlike entertaining gamemodes, Jailbreak elects to do away with foolish notions of gameplay and instead dumps you in a server filled with pre-pubescent prison officers and criminals who have been detained for crimes against eardrums.
The players are split between two teams; one team are the guards who get weapons and authority complexes. The unlucky sods get to play the hapless prisoners to bow down to the every whim of their overlords. One of the guards is designated as the warden. The selection system usually begins and ends at which player got a microphone from their parents for Christmas.
The warden gives commands to the prisoners and anyone who steps out of line gets killed with rocket launchers and flamethrowers, just like in real life. In theory, the warden is supposed to initiate minigames for the prisoners to ‘enjoy’. These minigames systematically kill off the prisoners- think of it as a combination of The Krypton Factor and SAW. The minigames usually malfunction because they were built my monkeys or one of the guards randomly shoots you and forces you to sit in timeout for ages. Am I making it clear enough that I dislike Jailbreak? I can try harder if you like.
Minigames consist of jumping and timing puzzles as well as total luck. When only one prisoner is left, the guards allow him to pick whatever minigame they like and then face off against the guards at it. Yes, Jailbreak aims to create an accurate depiction of modern prisons. This is the deciding moment; if the prisoner is killed, the guards win and celebrate their victory before realising they’re out of a job because the inmates all died. If the prisoner wins, he gets to reflect on all of his comrades who died horribly to secure his success. It’s all very tragic. Nothing conjures up emotion like a guy in a hat being crushed by a carousel and dooming his opponent to a lifetime trapped inside a prison with only the corpses of his friends to eat.
As you can imagine, Jailbreak sticks by its principles and the titular rebellions are every bit as exciting as you might imagine. The inmates spawn with only melee weapons and Engineers and Spies are unavailable as they were presumably hanged before the events of the game’s compelling story. If the prisoners swarm the guards, they might be able to club them to death and win the round. This almost never works, partially because the guards can just gun them down and partially because organising an attack with a team of kids and illiterates is as hard and chaotic as your mum was last night. Prisoners randomly jump out of crevices before being shot all over, just like your mum last night. Nevertheless, this only makes your victories all the sweeter. Taking down an army of heavily-armed guards with only a frying pan is a sensational orgy of blood and metal that climaxes with the death of several people. Just like doing your mum.