Tag: Hostage

Breakout Greensboro – Hostage (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 2 Comments

Location: Greensboro, NC (There are locations nationwide, however.)

Price: $25.99 per person

Players: 2-7 (We recommend 3-4)

Time to Escape: 60 Minutes

Where’s Sully when you need him?

Theme:

You were on an international flight when the cabin suddenly depressurized, sending you into unconsciousness. Rather than wake up in the middle of the Hudson River, you find yourself handcuffed to a bench in the dark! Looking around, you find that you must be in some sort of hijacker’s lair. Luckily these terrorists have left loads of puzzles around for you to solve in the meantime, so figure them out and escape!

First Impressions:

The airplane hijacking theme is definitely a risky subject to take on in an escape room, and it definitely wasn’t our first choice, but we had to reschedule one of our other escapes due to a booking hiccup, and we decided we’d just try it out rather than reschedule everything. Breakout’s other rooms are great fun, however, so at least we knew the puzzles would more than likely be a good time.

High Points:

The theme of the room is more of a kidnapping, keeping overt references to airplane hijacking to a minimum, which I thought was better than the alternative. Our GM was fantastic, and provided humorous and conversational hints when we needed them. There was one great puzzle that used a part of the room that you usually don’t see implemented as a prop, allowing for some interesting solving. There weren’t a lot of standout moments beyond this, but the game itself was otherwise mostly average and non-offensive.

Low Points:

One technical interaction involved way too many red herrings for it to be introduced so early, leading us to hyper-focus on it entirely too much. Blessedly, our GM let us know we shouldn’t worry about that yet. Two particular puzzles include my least favorite escape room trope, inputs that lock out for a time if incorrect answers are entered. Luckily, we didn’t suffer from that issue, but there should never be the possibility of dead time within a room. There is a specific instance of a puzzle being destructible state, meaning that if you move certain objects, it could render a section of the room unsolvable, which tied in with the red herring issue as well, frustrating us greatly. Again, we thankfully had an amazing GM to help us out unprompted when he realized something had gone wrong. One moment of the room that should feel really climactic and open up a new mystery fell completely flat when all we were given was a bank of locks, the lamest of escape room items. The story flow ends immediately upon the end of the introduction, making this more of a puzzle room, and unfortunately ensuring that the climax never feels like much of a payoff other than the escape itself.

Verdict:

Hostage was a very basic escape game that may be alright for beginners, but does little to impress for those that have a few games under their belts. With five other games to choose from at Breakout Greensboro, you can definitely do better than Hostage, however. If you’ve run out of other games, though, it’ll do the job, just don’t expect anything too exciting. You can check out Hostage at your local Breakout here.

5/10 (Mediocre)

Psycho 60 – Hostage (Review)

~ EscapeAdventurer ~ 1 Comment

Location: Kernersville, NC

Players:  2-8

Price: $25 per person Fri-Sun, $20 Mon-Thurs

Time to Escape: 60 minutes

It’s worse than I thought.

Theme:

You are bank employees who have been taken hostage during a bank robbery and forced into the manager’s office with bombs strapped to your legs. The bombs are set to go off in an hour, and you’ll be disappointed when they don’t, really.

First Impressions:

After the Infected Lab, I was not expecting much, and was still greatly disappointed. I’m not a huge fan of writing bad reviews, but trust me, this one deserves it.

High Points:

Eventually, you are allowed to leave. I’m not trying to be facetious here, I discussed the room at length with my team later, and we could not come up with one thing we liked about this room, it’s that bad.

Low Points:

There are more problems in this room than I initially thought possible. Puzzles ran the gamut of unintuitive, illogical, and off theme, most were a combination of all of these. We were made to strap chain “bombs” to our legs at the beginning of the game, which were uncomfortable and unnecessary. I took mine off immediately, but others on my team who did not reported varying levels of discomfort and pain. Outside knowledge is required at two points of the game, a definite no no, and the hints given to overcome these poor puzzles were confusing and delivered condescendingly. The connective tissue of the room is completely absent, and there is no flow to gameplay whatsoever. When doing the after game walkthrough, it was revealed that many of the puzzles relied on guess and check, which is an unsatisfying time sink. One guess and check puzzle, we were assured each item appeared only once, but this was patently wrong once we took a closer look. There were random puzzles boxes about, with tenuous clues as to how they should be opened. Cluing is extremely vague, in a misguided effort to be “difficult.” Don’t get me wrong, I like a difficult room, as two of my favorite rooms of all time was a failure and one in which we escaped with :27 to go! The difference between those rooms and this one was that those were fair, and solvable without hints. This was just a disaster overall, and the worst part is, I have no idea how this could be fixed.

Verdict:

This was the first room I have ever been in which after 20 minutes in, I did not care if we escaped. It is touted as “difficult,” but in truth, it’s just an exercise in frustration. I recommend you stay very far away from this one. Beginners will not get a good introduction to escape rooms, and enthusiasts will balk at this poor imitation of an escape experience. However if you want to check it out, you can do so here.

1/10 (Rubbish)

Full Disclosure: Psycho60 provided media discounted tickets for our team.