Prison Tycoon
Mobile Game Review
Title: Prison Tycoon
Developer: Universomo
Publisher: THQ Wireless
Release Date: September 2009
Format: J2ME
Game Features: Run your own handheld prison, achievements, unlockables
Reviewed on: SE W980
Summary
Welcome to Prison Tycoon! Construct, upgrade and maintain your own handheld prison – all the while completing goals for the governor. You’ll start with a small prison with one cell block and easy prisoners to control. Upgrade comfort or security for your prisoners to help make their stay a little easier or a lot harder, it’s up to you what you upgrade and how you want to upgrade it.
Review
So this week my review is THQ’s Prison Tycoon, a simulation game where you’ll run your own prison and control prisoners. You’ll gain access to four different prisons as you progress through the game, earning money and completing the governor’s missions. When you start you’ll pick a prison you would like to play (as long as you’ve unlocked it), then pick a group of easy, medium or hard prisoners once again depending on whether you’ve unlocked them or not.
In-game your prisoners will have a certain number of years to do in prison, usually the easy ones have one year so I’ll use them as an example. By selecting a prisoner you can assign them to tasks such as lifting weights, sleeping or working at the prison workshop. All prisoners have three needs/motives which you’ll need to watch. These are Aggression, Misconduct and Fatigue. If aggression in a prisoner is high, that prisoner will pick fights and can also cause a riot. If misconduct in a prisoner is high then they are more likely to try and escape and the only way to stop a prisoner escaping is by assigning them to a task. You’ll notice if a prisoner is trying to escape as they will have a flashing caution sign above their head. Fatigue obviously is how sleep deprived the prisoner is, if you work them too hard or they’re at a task for too long then prisoners will become tired.
Inside your prison you’ll have the ability to upgrade furniture, buildings, etc. Each object and upgrade will affect prisoners differently. Each object you’ll need money for, which you can get from getting prisoners to work at workbenches/workshops. Each object will also have different characteristics, some will affect misconduct more than aggression and others will be vice versa. You’ll need these objects to lower misconduct and aggression to prevent fights and breakouts. You can also be rewarded money for paroling a prisoner, meaning they can be released earlier if they’ve had good behaviour. Lowering both misconduct and aggression to zero will parole a prisoner.
In each room/building you’ll also have a guard who can calm prisoners down by selecting the guard and selecting a prisoner. Guards can also lose control of some situations especially with aggressive prisoners around. Riots can take place where prisoners will destroy everything insight and then try to escape. In case you’re starting to worry don’t worry, you do have a backup plan to help you take control…though like everything there’s a fee for such things. Guards can summon S.W.A.T teams to help control the situation and I must admit it looks quite funny with little men running around with shields up and helmets attacking people.
Gameplay wise it’s an ok game, though it does get quite repetitive earning pointless achievements and unlocking content. In say that I would still recommend it as a game to try, because it has a comedic humour feel and it can be fun at the start of it. As far as graphics its nothing to exaggerate over, simple models of prisoners, guards and buildings though there is some detail in uniforms of guards/prisoners. The sound is one main thing I did like, as it was like out of a western film and I could just picture the movies of cowboys and quick-draw gun duels as I listened to its theme music bellowing from my mobile’s outer shell. Another plus in the sound department are sound effects for about everything. You’ll hear the prisoners snoring away in bed, hammering or drilling in workshops, and even shooting hoops.
Conclusion
Decisions, decisions… When it all comes down to the point THQ’s Prison Tycoon is I will admit, it’s not a must have game, though give it a trial run see what you think. Hope you took the time to have a read though and I didn’t bore you to death. If you’ve got some feedback I’d love to hear it, so I finish in saying I present to you: Prison Tycoon!
Screenshots
Scores
Graphics: 7/10
Average models, nothing too fancy
Sound: 8.5/10
One of the best things about the game
Gameplay: 6/10
Ok, but repetitive
Overall Score : 7.5 out of 10
