We're back with a review of the second heist added to GTA Online, The Prison Break. This heist sees four players all working together unlike the previous heist, which was only limited to two players. This is also the first time we see teams and roles making a major appearance for set-up.
Be sure to check out the review of the first heist, The Fleeca Job, if you missed it.
Again, let's get the bad parts out of the way first. Connection problems are still persisting, with players in our group getting booted out of the mission set-up or booted from GTA Online semi-frequently. After playing for three-four hours last night, we only managed to get one heist done. This was largely due to the massive wait times and server issues from Rockstar. I will say that things do seem to be overall smoother, so hopefully in the next few days all of the wrinkles will be ironed out.
The Prison Break also felt more disconnected from its story than The Fleeca Job. I had to ask multiple times why we were doing what we were doing, because I couldn't remember the game actually telling me this information. The action was still tense and fun, but some parts of the Heist didn't feel connected to each other.
The basic premise? Break someone out of prison. That is, obviously, more easily said than done. The group of four must first split into a team, but teams for this mission are uneven. Three players need to be muscle and one gets to be a pilot. Break onto a runway and have the three men defend an airplane while the fourth man gets in and takes off. Once in air, that pilot needs to fly the plane to the Los Santos airport and drop it off at Devin Westin's hangar. This is actually pretty much as easy as it sounds.
The second set-up mission sees the four players all on the same team. The goal is to find a prison transport bus and hijack it. Get someone to put a car in front of the bus and another few people to come up the side to take out the driver. Once the driver has been killed, simply hop on the bus and drive it to the target storage location. This one is really easy if you have the van with the massive machine gun in the back.
The third set-up mission is more involved. Again the team splits into two, this time evenly. The first team must steal a cop car and evade the police. Once done with that, the team will then slip into a police station while disguised to get a look at prison transport documents. The second team must sneak onto a large shipping boat out on the docks. Once there, they must locate a specific shipping container and break it open to steal the cool car inside. This car is a bribe or something, one of the narrative points I was unclear on.
The fourth and final set-up mission involved some wetwork. Again, the group broke up into two even teams. One group has to go eliminate lawyers to steal important documents while the second team has to go take out the business partner of the man you are breaking out of prison. With the lawyer's documents preventing a legal case and the business partner killed, nobody will be able to get to your prisoner now. This mission involved tons of shooting, so be prepared with armor, ammo, snacks, and guns.
Once all the pieces are in place, you can now take on the Prison Break heist finale. Each player takes on a specific role such as the pilot, demolitions man, impersonator prison guard and impersonator prisoner. The prison guard and prisoner impersonators must get to the prison, get inside, then get the target out and into a car. The pilot needs to get the airplane from the second set-up mission and fly it out to the prison. The demolitions man needs to steal a second prison bus, destroy said bus, steal a helicopter, then provide cover fire with rockets and a machine gun. This section was incredibly tense, as other airplanes and helicopters become suicidal just to take your heist crew down.
Once everyone but the demo man is safe in the plane, take off for clear skies. Fly to a checkpoint and you will all jump out of the plane and parachute down to a beach. The demo man in the helicopter will come swing around and pick everyone up and fly on home.
The Prison Break is tense, action packed, and a ton of fun. Despite dying and having to do each mission several times, all four of us in the heist party still enjoyed every minute of gameplay. With all of the different roles to play, I am already looking forward to trying the Prison Break heist again to try and get the Elite Challenges complete. That will have to wait until I can tackle the remaining three heists though. Make sure to check back for reviews of the other heists as well, which will be coming as soon as I can play them.
So what do you think? Did you like Prison Break more or less than The Fleeca Job? Which roles have you found are your favorites to play as so far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
