You would think the goal would be to break out of prison. Nope! Let’s break in! It is a city, after all. Without further ado, I welcome you to Prison City, co-developed by Retroware and Programancer, and Published by Retroware. Let the enemy-filled parkour zones sweep you away.

Where to start? You begin this journey as Hal, a former police officer before the city was sealed off and turned into a giant prison. He must remember his training and take on the Techno-Terrorists who have infiltrated and are wreaking havoc on Detroit Prison City. It is up to you, and you alone, to defeat the enemy within.

Prison City is an action-packed single-player game with seamless side-scrolling to transfer to new scenes, filled with unique parkour and powerups, and gives you everything you need. Travel through the various scenes to reach a hidden informant waiting to give you the Warden’s key.

Go through the locked door to fight the Warden or make your way back through the level, but beware, the enemies respawn as soon as you leave the area, creating a real challenge if you fall to a lower level that you once cleared.

You will fight multiple threats on your journey, with the next enemy being more challenging than the previous, creating real emphasis on parkour and being able to dodge lasers, robots, prisoners, and all sorts of Techno-Terrorists, and using your power blade; a primary weapon that acts as a boomerang, moving in any direction that you look at as you shoot.

You also have the option to find three power shards through the level that immensely boost the damage of your power blade, but only until you take three damage. Or, you can find a shield that acts like a star in Mario Kart, making you immortal for a limited amount of time. You can also find a grenade that will eliminate all enemies on screen and damage a portion of the current Warden’s health bar, giving you a few options with how to proceed.

Controls are simple, with a controller being the only option for playing, utilizing almost every button, though several do the same thing. This can be good or bad, depending on your play style and how the controls feel to you, but there is an option to adjust the controller layout to something more suited.

You also can use multiple buttons at the same time to perform the combo moves that are needed to continue the game. An optional beginning tutorial gives you a detailed run-through of all the buttons and game mechanics, which sets you up to beat the Techno-Terrorists.

Who said playing in the 80s wasn’t a ton of fun? The vibrant graphics make each block and texture stand up on its tiptoes with moving objects and explosions. All have custom animated retro art and movement that gives them a natural glow toward the player experience, and weapon shots and explosions follow you and explode nearby, which gave me great excitement.

When I hear the music in Prison City, it reminds me of back in the day playing Street Fighter with my brother, giving some real nostalgic effects to my playthrough. Explosions are deep and rich with sound, shaking my ears to the core and making me fight even harder to survive, but after a while, I did have to turn the sound down as my ears started to hurt, but no matter. It was worth it.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with how Prison City turned out. A unique story starts you off as you fight your way through parkour levels to take on the Wardens. For the price of this game, it turned out amazing. It was better than I could have ever imagined. This game is excellent for enthusiasts who want to play something that looks and feels like it came from the ’80s, and older gamers can get a blast from the past. Very pleased.

Written by: TypicalCambieAU