Escapist 2 | Review

Escapist 2 is a game where you attempt to escape from prison. The idea is simple, but the game allows the player to use several different methods of escaping the prison.

Escapist 2 is available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Pros:

-The music in Escapist 2 changes to enhance the music in excellent ways. The music throughout the day changes based on the activity, such as having more energetic music during exercise time or eery music during a lockdown. There isn't a single song in Escapist 2 that feels out of place.

-The graphics are solid. All of the prisoners have a somewhat unique look to them to help keep them apart, but none of them feel out of place. The different prisons also do a reasonable job differentiating their graphical styles, though they can look a bit samey.

-Co-op works really well. You can play the game locally or online, and each player is relatively separate. You can work together, or race to escape first, and I like both of the ideas, but I personally prefer to work together. Local co-op works very well, and the Switch version (the version I played) also allows one Joy-con per player, meaning each player can use a Joy-con on its side, rather than needing multiple pairs of Joy-cons.

Cons:

-Some prisons are very boring. When I saw that there was a prison based on a train, I was incredibly excited. I quickly found out that the train level has a very short time limit, and only has the players as prisoners. The escape methods for the train level were also very disappointing. It's clear that effort was put into some prisons than others, but getting my hopes up for a train level was just cruel.

-Text is horrifyingly small. Playing the game in single player is almost tolerable for me, but local co-op squishes the tiny text into something that is borderline cruelty to make someone read. The crafting menu is also incredibly tiny.

-Text is often cut off in multiplayer. The HUD in Escapist 2 is among the worst HUDs I've ever seen. The text that comes from characters in game is often covered by the minimap when playing in split screen. This usually isn't a problem, but anytime there's something being said by a character and you aren't allowed to move, good luck.

-There isn't local wireless for the Switch version. Maybe I'm just in a complain-y mood today, but the requirement to play online or share a screen is irritating. I get that it takes far more effort to program local multiplayer between two or more consoles, but it also makes the product far better, especially for a game that integrates multiplayer into some of the escape methods. I could see playing Escapist 2 on a plane, train, or long car ride, but the lack of local multiplayer means that a more difficult option. And yeah, you can use the screen of the Switch itself for multiplayer, but two people playing on the same 6.2 inch screen is ridiculous when the size of the HUD is too small on a TV.

Overall Opinion:

Escapist 2 scratches the itch that Prison Architect's prisoner mode fails to, but only by a little bit. Escapist 2 is a perfectly functional game, but they focussed on creating more prisons when more effort should have gone into creating a small number of quality prisons instead. There's fun to be had with Escapist 2, but it fails to reach its full potential.

Escapist 2 also has DLC on PC, PlayStation 4, and PC.