Strategy and management games on consoles come around every now and again, and most the time we unfortunately find ourselves having to say something about the controls. “It’s a great game, but it just hasn’t been thought out for console properly”, is the kind of thing that seems to get said again and again. So does Prison Architect: Console Edition fall in to the same trap as the popular prison building game makes its transition from personal computer to console?
You’ll be pleased to hear it does not. The controls are easy to get your head around. You use the D-Pad to open certain menus, select what you want and then either hold X and drag to put down many of an item or just press X once. It’s a simple design choice that other games have done when porting, but it’s not the only one that makes its transition to consoles a step above the rest.
Text is actually readable from quite some distance away. Something that we see countless PC games fall in to the trap of not addressing when transferring the game from the computer screen to the television screen. It was great to actually be able to read what’s happening without having to get out of my chair and move closer to the TV. With both controls and text thought through it really helps make the game accessible to more gamers.
It’s not without its faults though. As the game progresses and you’re tasked with building more and more items you’ll discover a few places being a bit funny about actually opening up and being used. Most of the time this is resolved with redrawing the room assignment guide, but it isn’t always straight forward as to what the issue is. When I was making some rooms I found I had to draw a square and then remove the block where the door was. It was a small issue, but one that wasn’t explained at all and slowed down the building process slightly.
The building process is only part of the game though and there are various modes to check out. The story mode of the game is fairly lengthy, but is also the perfect tutorial to help you understand how to construct and run a prison. It also highlights the ethical and unethical ways of going about things, which adds to the intrigue. On top of the story mode you can just construct prisons in a sandbox mode and, if you like that, you can share it with the world.
It’s the share function that really helps Prison Architect. It’s easy to find and download prisons made by other users. This means if you’re not someone that likes building things, but enjoys the management side of strategy games, you can deal with just that without having to worry about designing and constructing a prison.
There’s plenty to do in the management side of the game as well. You can set up programs to try and rehab inmates or, if you’re feeling like an unkind prison runner, lock them in solitary until they give up on life. Despite its cutesy 2D art style Prison Architect is unflinching in its dark tone and people will fight, riot and die just like in a real prison.
The animations and AI at times lead to some odd glitches, such as prisoners ending up in rooms they shouldn’t, but these are rare. Unfortunately, though the bigger the prison, the more there is to keep track of and on console it can be difficult to track across the prison quick enough. It’s a small issue, and one we’ve grown to accept in console strategy games, but frustrating none the less.
Overall Prison Architect: Console Edition hits a lot of the right spots to appeal to fans of strategy and construction games. The fact that it lets you play the game with an emphasis on one or the other if you want, means that it’ll appeal to a wider audience. It’s a great strategy and management game that makes a successful transition to console. Occasionally it is clunky, but the controls are well thought through, the text is made larger for television and the story mode is strangely captivating. It’s definitely worth a try if you’re even slightly interested in strategy or management games.