{"id":11290,"date":"2025-12-05T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/?p=11290"},"modified":"2025-12-06T12:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T18:44:07","slug":"top-25-of-25-prison-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/?p=11290","title":{"rendered":"Top 25 of &#8217;25: Prison City"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Some retro games are just retro as an aesthetic. Other retro games are retro because they are top-down love letters to the 80s. The next entry on my list, <strong>Prison City<\/strong>, rests firmly in the latter camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Release Year: 2023<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Developer: Retroware, Programancer<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Platform: All of them<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Top 25 of &#039;25: Prison City\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jje6FX-8ZRI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Prison City, as per the Steam store&#8217;s description, is a &#8220;dystopian, action-packed side-scroller with tight mechanics and intricate level design.&#8221; That&#8217;s all 100% true. It&#8217;s also more or less <em>Escape From New York<\/em> but with the serial numbers filed off. And I adore that about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You play as Hal Bruzer, a retired solider who has been called back to duty to infiltrate Detroit, which has been turned into a gigantic prison colony, and take down the techno-terrorists who have taken over the city and are presumably plotting something nefarious. The game opens with eight stages that you get to choose from freely, and then gives you a few more stages that serve as the finale, Mega Man-style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The initial eight stages can be explored rather freely, and your goal is typically to find one of Hal&#8217;s allies, then locate and defeat the boss. Each stage also has a hidden power-up that will improve Hal&#8217;s abilities permanently, and a mini-game that you can play afterward to earn extra lives. One of the final stages is a huge map that you can roam around freely, where your objective is to place a number of bombs in specific locations. It reminded me strongly of the NES <strong>G.I. Joe<\/strong> game that I had as a kid and could never beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s also a ton of replay value in this one, with several different difficulty levels, a rather large list of achievements to earn, and even an extra &#8220;bomber mode&#8221; that unlocks once you beat the game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Obviously the old-school action-platformer gameplay is the main thing that caught my attention, but I also ended up being completely charmed by the 80s aesthetic and references to movies and games of the era. Each boss is radically different, and quite honestly, I accidentally started with the hardest one, and it almost frustrated me enough that I was going to quit the game. But I pressed on, and I&#8217;m so glad that I did, because everything that came afterward seemed as if it was crafted specifically to my tastes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The thing that really won me over, though, was the fact that there&#8217;s a cheesy (but incredible) rap song that plays over the credits. Which is just so very 80s, in all the ways. The whole soundtrack is pretty damn good, actually, and <a href=\"https:\/\/retroware.bandcamp.com\/album\/prison-city-original-soundtrack\">it&#8217;s available on Bandcamp<\/a>. I played this game all the way back in January and I <em>still<\/em> listen to the soundtrack all the time while working, drawing, and driving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah, there&#8217;s no question here. Prison City is absolutely one of the best games I&#8217;ve played this year. It&#8217;s a rock-solid platformer that boasts a killer soundtrack and has character to spare. What else could you even ask for? &#8230;Some spare time to play through it again, would be my answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some retro games are just retro as an aesthetic. Other retro games are retro because they are top-down love letters to the 80s. The next entry on my list, Prison City, rests firmly in the latter camp. Prison City, as per the Steam store&#8217;s description, is a &#8220;dystopian, action-packed side-scroller with tight mechanics and intricate &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/?p=11290\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Top 25 of &#8217;25: Prison City<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-retro-gaming","category-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11290"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11307,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11290\/revisions\/11307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torrentialequilibrium.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}