Prison Break: The Conspiracy

16 cert, Deep Silver, PS3 (also on Xbox, PC) **

I was looking forward to this. Yes, TV spin-offs are often disappointing, but Prison Breakis a guilty pleasure and the premise lends itself nicely to a modern game format.

Set during season one, you play an undercover officer who is posing as a prisoner. This involves building allegiances with other inmates by sneaking objects away from guards, beating up certain jailbirds, and eavesdropping.

Prison Break: The Conspiracyis a part stealth game, part puzzler and part freewheeling sandpit game. Sadly, it doesn't deliver on any: the characters are blandly rendered, the controls are sluggish and awkward and many tasks (like weight-lifting) are tedious.

The stealth scenes are the greatest problem, due to arbitrary character behaviour and inadequate maps and hiding places. Indeed, despite some fun voicework and a decent set-up, this game has many of my gaming pet peeves, including slow pace, button-jabbing and lengthy cut scenes.