You are Captain Lewis Stone, an arrogant soldier who ends up crash landing right into the hands of the Nazi’s in WWII. Your object is to escape, of course, and not become another (drum roll please) prisoner of war.

Graphically the game is brilliant, with a little cartoon style humor in the character design. All the environments are intricately detailed with rich color, and beautiful textures. The lighting is also a big plus, which sets the mood quite well. Animations are also pretty smooth, with just a few hiccups of lost animation in some of the characters actions. Granted this is no graphical wonder, but it did capture exactly what you should be looking for in this type of environment. I mean really, how exciting can the inside of a POW camp be?

Audio in POW ranges from fantastic ambience effects, to pretty decent voice acting. Since stealth is the name of the game, it’s great that the sounds are excellent due to the habit of relying on them for distance and location. The voice acting, while quite comical in the dialog, is really good. It gives one the thought of a bad Hogan’s Heroes episode. (Was there a good one?). The score was also done superbly with orchestration chosen wisely for its main source. All in all, the game gets it done in the sound department.

Controls on the PC version of POW are actually better than it’s Xbox brother, as using mouse and keyboard for the sneaking and precision is the way to go. You’ll also find the menus are easily navigatable, which makes finding your objectives, items, maps, etc. less cumbersome and more accessible. You got to keep in mind to keep things slow, don’t rush to complete tasks, as this game is all about stealth.

The game doesn’t really offer much in the way of options, as the game is a single player affair, be it a pretty lengthy one. Once you beat the game, going back may not be an option, unless you just really want to repeat the linear story line.

Overall, POW let some folks down who didn’t know what they were initially getting into. Most were, for some reason, expecting a Metal Gear clone. The game isn’t about guns, action, blood and mayhem. It’s a game dealing with stealth in its purest form. If you’re looking for a new twist and something new, check out Prisoner of War. Just don’t blame me if the Nazi’s get a hold of you.