Better than Breakout – Jailbreak: Source

The raptor’s claws firmly clenched the diminutive SMG as bullets flew towards his bionic opponent, impacting with the satisfying snap of crunching servomotors as the robotic foe fell to the ground, the mechanical body fading into nothingness.  As the raptor roared his victory to the heavens like only a dinosaur can, a gigantic metallic ball suddenly crushed him, extinguising the reptilian life in an instant – and a moment later, the raptor awoke.  In jail.  With a sword.

Welcome to Jailbreak: Source.

Jailbreak: Source is the latest mod in a long, respected pedigree of Jailbreak mods, all of which were based on a simple premise: when you die, you go to jail.  If your whole team is imprisoned simultaneously, you’ll be executed by a variety of ingenious death traps – from duck cannons to laser fences and nuclear armageddon.  Realistic?  Hardly.  Amazingly good fun? Oh, hell yes.  Oh, and have I mentioned there is a rolling death ball of metallic destruction rolling around as well? You use it to score goals.  To lock people in prison. That’s how Jailbreak works: it’s full of ideas that aren’t so much original, as completely batshit insane.  At its heart, Jailbreak is little more than a deathmatch mode with a slight hint of crazy – but it’s that hint of crazy that makes the entire mod so endearing. It’s a world of maniacal, mind-boggling fun built around a solid team deathmatch core.

That core is simple, compact, and damn well built.  They’ll rarely be more than 3-4 weapons per map, and even those rely on stapple gaming convetions – expect SMGs, shotguns, sniper rifle, and possibly a mini-gun or rocket launcher if you get lucky – so expect to feel right at home.  The maps themselves also aim to please, often relying on the ever so satisfying model of a long, long corridor, with a complete bonanza of death-dealing tools lying between the two teams to quench your well honed thirst for multiplayer bloodshed.

Or oilshed as the case may be, seeing the two teams are dinosaurs and robots.  Undeniably crazy and illogical, but also a great way to make the teams fun, diverse, and beautifully differentiated – friendly fire really isn’t likely to be a huge problem on this front.  I’m not sure causing dinosaur genocide is a great gaming moral incentive, but it sure as hell makes the shooty stuff in Jailbreak clean, clear cut, and fun.

It’s also an symptom of the sheer spirit of Jailbreak – a spirit based on fun, ridiculous ideas, and that’s probably rather enjoyable on a variety of illicit substances – that manages to so successfully permeate the entire mod. You remember the giant ball of death and destruction I mentioned earlier?  You roll it around the map – by smacking it with your sword – and crush the life out of your foes. It’s a crazy, ludicrous idea, that would make absolutely no bloody sense in any mod other than this – but here, it just seems to fit. Nearly more importantly, if you do somehow managed to propel it to the enemy starting zone through sheer force of will, explosives, and dinosaur sword pummeling, it’ll lock the enemy prison, condemning them to impotent flailing while you mercilessly hunt down their remaining brethren – denying them an otherwise all but inevitable escape.

The jail system is what makes Jailbreak so compelling – the inane, largely irrelevant, yet hugely addictive mechanic that focuses the mod’s ridiculous ideas into one coherent package. If you’ve ever played dodge ball as a child – and if you haven’t, you’re missing out, lost child that you are – you’ll understand the basic mechanics: any fragged players are locked in jail, hoping their teammates can break through enemy defenses to release them.  Unlike dodge ball however, every twenty or seconds, you’ll be given the opportunity to force your way out of jail of your own volition – assuming you succeed.

Each of Jailbreak’s diverse maps has its own prison system, but they’ll all give you a chance at freedom – the main difference being how easy you’ll find your escape.  Some maps will simply release you straight back onto the map, but most will make you work for your freedom.  A depraved, ludicrously difficult platforming section over deadly pits, or avoiding moving trains, or any other set of danger-filled trials the Jailbreak team will have come up with.  It’s a compelling, easy to grasp, yet still painfully harsh system for the new player.  Fail to escape for long enough however, and you’ll face Jailbreak’s most entertaining, yet heartbreaking sequence yet: your execution.

You may be incinerated by a rocket ignition, or sliced-n-diced by a moving death-train, or even assailed by a flock of canon-fired rubber ducks, but it’ll be ridiculous, funny, terrifying, and some of the most entertaining moments in a jailbreak game.  Often, you’ll be given one, last ditch escape route – an escape hatch, or conveniently placed ledge – and the sight of your entire team desperately scrambling to safety is somewhere between sheer schadenfreude gaming satisfaction and genuine comedy gold.

That line is always one that Jailbreak treads so expertly well, and a compromise that explains why it’s garnered such a secure place in the HL modding community’s heart.  Funny yet addictive, crazy yet balanced, ludicrous, yet so instantly simple – the Jailbreak team has managed to capture everything we love about HL multiplayer and mix it in with good, old fashioned fun – but at its heart, it’s still a damn good game of team deathmatch. You owe it to yourself to go play it.

Official Jailbreak:Source Website

ModDB Page

Installer Download Page

Installation of Jailbreak is about as simple as it gets: as long as you’ve got a Source game, run the installer, restart Steam, and you’re good to go.  Good luck, and I’ll see you online!