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Minecraft: Story Mode: Season Two: Episode 3 - Jailhouse Block
Score: 95%
Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
Media: Download/1
Players: 1; 2 - 12 (Crowd Play)
Genre: Adventure

Previously on Minecraft: Story Mode:
Minecraft: Story Mode: Season Two: Episode 3 - Jailhouse Block has Jesse facing the consequences of defying the Admin by putting him/her into a massive prison in the center of an onyx maze patrolled by an assortment of creatures that will test Jesse's skill and luck just to survive, much less escape.

It seems that Jesse's attempts to out-maneuver the Admin in his deadly game didn't go over all that well, and when he shuffled off his disguise to reveal that he was secretly one of Jesse's party all this time, he shows just how far his opinion of the hero has fallen by not only throwing Jesse and friends into the aforementioned prison, but also taking one of the companions as his new champion. Who exactly he takes depended on which character, Petra or Jack, you sent to stop the timepiece at the end of the Admin's game, and not only does that shape who is in the prison with Jesse, but it will also come up in this episode when the Admin sends in his champion to fight Jesse to the death.


Orange Is The New Block:
Minecraft: Story Mode: Season Two: Episode 3 - Jailhouse Block finds Jesse stripped of armor, weapons, and inventory and with only a jumpsuit to his/her name. Jesse quickly meets the prison's warden who strongly advises our hero to go along with the rules else there will be consequences, both to Jesse and to the other people the Admin has just thrown in prison, Radar, Nurm and Jack/Petra.

One of your first choices in Jailhouse Block can lead to a drastically different experience in this episode. Basically, you can choose to either be one of the prisoners, or one of the guards. As one, you will find yourself having to fight for your food, as the other, you will be managing the inmates. While the overall direction the story goes doesn't change with these options, many of the details are different. In both cases though, Jesse is plotting on a way to escape the prison and get back to the surface.

Similar to the decision of joining the Warden's team or not, Jesse will have to make another choice. Either way, it will get the team into a different part of the prison that houses a notorious inmate known only as Prisoner X, a person with a reputation of constant escape attempts.


Prison Break:
Minecraft: Story Mode: Season Two: Episode 3 - Jailhouse Block's escape plan is fairly basic, but Prisoner X's knowledge is the key. First, Jesse and team must get to the mysterious inmate, and yet another terrible choice will have to be made in order to gain the person as an ally.

With Prisoner X at their side, Jesse and friends will have to make their way out of the prison itself and then navigate the winding maze all the while facing off against strange mixed versions of mobs that the Admin has created. Especially troublesome are the hybrid spider/creeper monsters that crawl all over the place and like to explode when they get too close. Like a few other times in this episode, the game will switch to its new fighting system that mimics Minecraft's style rather well, but these action sequences are just the primer for a much more intense scene later in the episode.


Next Time on Minecraft: Story Mode:
While Minecraft: Story Mode: Season Two: Episode 3 - Jailhouse Block does have Jesse and most of the friends leaving the prison and labyrinth proper, it seems to put them in an even more perilous location. Convinced by Prisoner X that the secret to stopping the Admin lies in a strange and dark cave, the team proceed into the depths below the bedrock layer and the story deviates even farther from where it began with Jesse trying to get a gauntlet off of his/her hand.

What's worse is that the Admin has a new plan up his sleeve and if Jesse can't stop it, it could spell the end of not only Beacontown, but all of her friends in the Order of the Stone as well. It will be interesting to see where Episode 4 - Below the Bedrock takes this story and with the season finale, Above and Beyond not long afterwards, Season Two is shaping up to be an action-packed and eventful adventure for Jesse.


-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications
AKA Chris Meyer

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