This video game was originally in production under the company Brash Entertainment, who brought us classics such as Jumper and Alvin & the Chipmunks. You didn't buy these games? Well, that's probably why Brash Entertainment went out of business...nobody else did, either. A company called Deep Silver picked up the title, and now it's ours to own.After my experience with the Lost video game, I figured I'd never buy another game based off a TV show. But this game had a few things going for it - most of the cast came back to provide their voices for the game characters, and I found out the game was selling for a lower price than new PS3 games. So, I decided to take the chance.PLOT:We play a Company agent named Tom Paxton. He's been sent undercover as a convict to observe and report on Michael Scofield, a structural engineer who got himself thrown into Fox River. Anyone who watched the TV show knows how this played out - Michael plans to break his brother out of prison, and the map of the prison was hidden in Michael's tattoo. In this game, we see Michael's tattoo a whopping total of ONE TIME - and no, the loading screen and the title screen don't count.Fans of the TV show will catch all the subtle references to events that occurred in the first season of Prison Break. For example, at one point Sucre had a falling out with Michael and requested a new cellmate, in the game he temporarily rooms with our character. Over the course of the game, Tom realizes that he may be getting set up.Tom carries around a voice recorder that's about the size of an iPod nano and periodically talks to it...IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. Do I even want to know where he hid this to smuggle it inside Fox River? Not really.GRAPHICS & MUSIC:On the positive side, Deep Silver clearly did their homework and worked hard to make the Fox River prison look like it did in the TV show. They successfully recreated places like the genpop section, the yard, and the infirmary. I give them high marks for that.On the negative, the characters look like wax sculptures. These are the kind of graphics you would see in a Playstation 2 game, not a Playstation 3 game. Some of the character models are really accurate, and others are way off. There's something unsettling about watching Michael Scofield talk when his speech and lip movements don't match.I will say that the music was TOP NOTCH. Ramin Djawadi composed the music for the TV show and most of it was used in the game. I was surprised the episode coda theme wasn't used at the end of each chapter, and the "commercial" noise would have been great whenever you get caught by the guards, but those are minor gripes.This game is rated T (Teen), most likely to open up sales to the "under 17" demographic of gamers. What's the trade off? There's no blood.No blood...in a Prison Break game? "Do they tell Picasso 'no brush'?"GAMEPLAY:So what does Tom do for most of his time in Fox River? Here's a typical plotline:[C-Note]: I need you to bring me some PUGNAc.[Tom]: I can't get to it, the door is locked.[C-Note]: Talk to Abruzzi, he has a lockpick.[Tom]: I need a lockpick.[Abruzzi]: I need a shank. Bring me a shank and I'll give you a lockpick.Yep, that's pretty much it. For most of the chapters in this game, you're told to go...somewhere and get...something. To avoid being seen, you have to hide from guards or dodge security cameras by tipping them up to the ceiling.Sometimes there are Quicktime Events - better known as "QUICK, PRESS THE RIGHT BUTTON OR YOU DIE!" moments. This is designed to break up the monotony of the game - for the low, low price of making the game more irritating.I noticed a glitch in the game that occasionally happens when you crouch near some objects. Sometimes Tom will get stuck in a wall, or a shelving unit, or something else. It's very, VERY annoying to have this happen near the end of a level, because there's no option except going back to the last checkpoint.FIGHTING:There's a tutorial that pops up before you have your first fight with T-Bag, and it's pretty simple. There are two fight modes: 2-player VS mode, and single player (story) mode. There's an important distinction between the two.2-player VS is separate from the main game. You choose from a list of characters and each fighter has a life bar, there are clear distances between them, and you can change the camera angle with the right stick.But when you fight during the single-player story mode, there are no life bars! The only way you know if you're doing any damage is when you hit the other guy - a circle with a fist shows up and it disappears real quick.Next, you have no depth perception! You can't tell how far away someone is until their fist is hitting your face. Unlike the VS. mode, you can't change the camera angle, so you'll get whooped a few times until you learn the patterns of each fighter - then it's wash, rinse, repeat time. Some of the fighters are stronger than you, but never fear, there's tutorials to build up your strength and speed!When you win a fight, you can earn money to buy tattoos for your chest, back, shoulders and forearms. This is a tacked-on gameplay element to make Tom Paxton "look like a real convict". As I understand it, getting a tattoo in prison isn't exactly sanitary, so why is this part of the game? Oh, that's right, because we hardly ever see Michael's tattoo.TROPHIES:You can earn 46 trophies in this game. A lot of them are hidden, and many of them can be earned just by playing the game from beginning to end. At one point you earn a trophy for arriving at Fox River. Umm...the game rewarded me for arriving there? The game TAKES PLACE there!!!There are some trophies that require patience, such as trying to earn $5,000.00 in prison fights, beating up 100 people on Shark mode, or trying to complete the game without being seen during all the stealth missions.But in all honesty, do you really want to play this game over and over just to memorize the guard's walking patterns and sneak around Fox River like Solid Snake to earn the Platinum trophy? Yeah, me neither.FINAL VERDICT:I thought the character of Tom Paxton was scripted well into the events of Prison Break's first season, and the locations were rendered accurately.However, the game is brought down by repetitive stealth missions, a substandard fight engine, a "stuck-in-the-wall" glitch, and low replay value.It was a smart decision of the creators to not charge the standard price for a new Playstation 3 game. If there were extra features like a making-of video or bloopers or something, I might have rated this a little higher, but I can't give it more than 3 out of 5 stars.If you're a PS3 Trophy addict, there's plenty of easy ones to earn here. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend this for anything more than a rental.