1954 Alcatraz

This was a well written story with nice characters! The puzzles were all very logical, and the only time I had to resort to a guide was because I had missed one obvious dialoge out of sheer thoughtlessness. The mood set up in the game is very nice, and carries throughout the game.You really get emotional about the characters and their decisions, which you can decide about. It's a very nice point-and-click adventure game, I thoroughlt remommend it to a fan of the genre. But it isn't a classic. I'd say it's in the same class as Broken Sword 2: not a classic, but really a must play for a fan of adventure games.

I admit I'm behind in the gaming world, in general, often times playing older games a lot or whatever. I'll just offer a little view of this game, which I found very interesting and realistic. This is the first game I tried on this gog.com website and I am very satisfied. So much so that I am going to purchase more in the future. What brought me to the site was "googling" Leisure Suit Larry, because something in the back of my mind wanted me to play Leisure Suit Larry. I looked if I could play for free, but came to this gog.com site and I definitely will just buy some of the LSL games instead. Totally worth it. Can't put a price on fun gaming. Anyhow, I wondered if there was an "adventure" game that had a "prison" theme to it. I saw this title and immediately was interested. There's just something about prison life and a prison break that is entertaining, in my opinion. This game hits the nail right on the head, in those regards. 1954 Alcatraz has excellent old school visuals of what the famous Alcatraz prison really looked like on the island outside of San Francisco (back when it was operational). I believe it officially closed in the early 70s? A big reason it closed, I believe, is because a few prisoners managed to escape (according to the movie, "Escape from Alcatraz," starring Clint Eastwood (which is a really good movie). Before that, Alcatraz never had anyone escape. You would either drown or get shot or caught. It was supposed to be a prison convicts were sent to so you couldn't escape (often times, convicts that had a history of escaping from other prisons [such as Fort Leavenworth, which Joe {escapist in this game} escaped from]). This game is like a combination of movies "Escape from Alcatraz" and "Carlito's Way". Especially "Escape from Alcatraz". Don't want to spoil it, but there's similarities, somewhat similar to how the prisoner Eastwood portrayed escaped in the late 60s. The game puts you right into a movie you are a part of.

A worthy cartoon rendition of 50's film noir characters with a detective plot from Beat Era San Francisco. You play 2 characters, a male and female couple, trying to get the hero off "The Rock"- Alcatraz, unfairly imprisoned and searching for the real criminals so you can go free. Minimal graphics, but an intriguing crime drama enmeshes you in sleuthing right out of Dashiell Hammet. Recommended.

This is definitely a short story. It's a little expensive for the gameplay time so if you want to get it you may want to wait for a sale. I think it took around 5 hours for me to finish. In hindsight I'd only pay around $12 for it. There's a lot going for this game. The graphics are great, the voice acting is excellent and the soundtrack has moments of where it really shines. The puzzle design is pretty good too and the writers have done a reasonable job of using the ability to switch between characters to make the puzzles more interesting. Sadly the plot is dull. There are lots of characters with potential to become really interesting but nothing really gets going. I've played two of the potential endings but they are anticlimactic. The whole thing just lacks substance. If this were chapter 1 of 3 then I'd be more positive. It's just not worth much alone.

Don't know why there are so many bad reviews for this. Sure, it's not the greatest adventure ever, but I found rather enjoyable. Picked it up on discount too, so that never hurts. 69p at time of writing and it's easily worth that.