[In-Depth Review] Jail Lords.

[Alex Riley]

Hey, well i said i was coming back for a reason, and my reason is to share some of my In Depth knowledge of the gaming sites on this wonderful wold wide web... Now, i have choosen to start with Jail Lords as it is a game i have played for a long time, There will be reviews on here which have been done before, the point is i don't care if they've been done before, if i haven't done it, then it's not been done :p Joking aside, i want to share my knowledge of almost 7 years playing these amazing games on the internet with the rest of you.

 

So here goes my first throw of the dice:

 

- Game Title: Jail Lords

- Game URL: http://www.jaillords.com

- Game Owner: Warden Bis

 

These reviews as always are going to be split up into 5 different sections, these are as follows;

 

- Login/Register (Easy sign-up, Layouts, What could be improved, What i personally like)

- Logging In (Logging in for the first time, Information provided on game)

- Exploring the game (Are things easily found, Are things made clearer, Layout of the game)

- Staff (Are the staff friendly, How do they help, Different staff roles)

- Misc Information (Game statistics and a general overview of the games userbase, Key feautres)

 

So, lets get it started.

 

Login/Register:

Looking at both pages, i can't honestly find anything wrong, they are both well designed and thought out, and they both contain the right ammount of information for anyone that is signing up to the game.

 

Login: The login page is very informative in my opinion, which is something that i really like about Jail Lords, i like the fact that before you've even signed up the top 5 players are shown in a box, this for me makes the game more competative as you know from the word go, who the biggest and the best are in the game, and who you as a character have to be better than. Also with the login page, i like the fact that the screenshots are actually relevant, some games just post screenshots of things that are in every game, however Jail Lords goes above and beyond that by highlighting their "Key Features" if you will, which makes more people want to play the game to find out what the deal is.

 

Register: Register is fairly the same, contains the same screenshots and the same layout, overall signing up is fairly easy, There is a captcha test but it's not like the eye-sore MCV2 versions, this is more up to date and fits in with the general design of the page. I would personally add to the reigster page a Terms & Conditions section, this Login & Register combination has so much information about the game in general but it doesn't really show the rules before a player enters.

 

In all i would give the Login/Register section of this game a 8/10.

 

Logging In:

Whether it be for the first time, or any other time after it, It's pretty much the same with all Text Based Games, your main objective is to get money and be the best, only with Jail Lords this is made clear to you in a direct message from the Warden himself, he tells you in this message just what you have to do to be the very best and that it's a hard life in prison, and from there your on your own, which i like because in reality prison is like this, so it kinda' fits with real life. I don't think i had any problems when i signed up on getting started everything was made clear right away, the basics, Do Crimes ect... so nothing major, and if your a regular visitor to this game then you will know how easy it is to get started on the game.

 

The whole logging in in my opinion based on being user friendly and informative i'd give a kind 7/10

 

Exploring the game:

Now this is where the game really gets me, i love the fact that games want to show everything all over the show, and have no strucutre, well with Jail Lords sturcture is one of the main points, they have a menu on the right hand side of the web page which has all the neccesary details e.g.

 

- Stat Bars

- Basic Character Info

- Messages & Events

- Hospital & Jail

- User Preferences

 

But underneath the banner is all of the main links or the VMO's as i call them (Visited More Often) these include the "Money Makers" and "Character Builers" such as:

 

- Gym

- Crimes

- Explore

- Education

- Job

- Street Turns

- Voting

- Donating

 

I love the way that Jail Lords seperates the two and in my opinion it just makes the game easier to use and more user friendly.

 

The explore page isn't anything to shout about, just a basic explore page, nothing really done to it, which i'm not saying is bad, sometimes being simple is better, and in Jail Lords case that is nothing but the truth.

 

So for Exploring the game i'm going to give Jail Lords a 9/10

 

Staff:

Now i've not had the chance to really speak to much of the staff other than the owner and a few others, but from what i have been told by other users and the way the users respect the staff i'm going to have to say they do a pretty damn good job, They are always active and willing to help and you can always find them posting on there in game forums, i like this about staff, and even though they have jobs they are still competitive in game aswell i would hate to see staff memebers as NPC's as aposed to being Competetors. the staff positions in Jail Lords are as follows:

 

- Wardens (Admins/Creators)

- Supervisors (Secreatries)

- Seasoned Officers (Forum Mods/Assistants)

- Green Officers (Forum Mods/Player Laison)

 

I am not actually sure what each of the staff roles mean, the writing in brackets is what i assume there roles to be, i could be totally wrong but it seems the most feaisable.

 

So for staff helpfulness and activity i'm giving Jail Lords a 7/10

 

Misc Information:

And finally we come to the last part of this review, this is the misc information section where i basically ramble about the userbase of the game and the key features in the game, so when this review was done the game had 4700+ signups in nearly 400 days of the game being open, i am going to say that the activity on this game could be alot more i'd say out of that 4700 maybe 700 have actually stuck around to play the game, which don't get me wrong is good, i would just expect a higher number for such a good and well thought out game.

 

Some Key Features of this game would be the following;

 

- In-Game Forums (Why? ... They are active on a daily bases with all of the users coming in and giving their opinions)

- Chat Box (Why? ... It's a unique chat box that once again is bringing the users together)

- Personal Profile (Why? ... It is an easy way for the users to share information if they so choose and for others to find this information)

- Achivements (Why? ... So the users actually feel like they are going somewhere in the game)

- Re-Vamped User Page (Why? ... Everything you need to know about your character is in the home page, from forum posts, to your favourite in-mate)

 

... So in closing i'm going to give Jail Lords an overall rating of 8/10 ... i thoroughly enjoy playing this game and i enjoyed even more making this Review, i hope you all check out Jail Lords, and i would appreciate feedback on my first review.

 

Thanks for reading, As always... The Apprentice - Alex Riley.

[fbiss]

Hi Alex,

I was doing a google search today and came across your review.

 

I truly appreciate that you took the time and effort to write a honest unsolicited review of my game. It deffinitely helps me to visulize what a new player coming to the game would experience.

I like your writting style and you do well to explain the overall structure of the game.

Keep up the great work! :thumbsup: