Escape from Hell

There are three (released) games in all that used the Wasteland engine:

1. Wasteland itself,
2. Fountain of Dreams, and
3. Escape from Hell.

Of these three, Escape from Hell is the least known, less even than the never finished Meantime. This may be because it is not a post-apocalyptic game, and therefore does not seem to fit in quite as well. Its title is to be taken quite literally, and the game, of course, is quite spoofy. You can get Stalin, Hamlet, Horatio, Hitler, Dr. Jekyll or Genghis Khan to join your party, fight Al Capone and Dillinger, get blood from Bonnie and Clyde, or, in Limbo, learn archery from Thucydides and melee from Marc Anthony.

Escape from Hell was created by Richard Seaborne (your character is always named Richard) and Alan Murphy.

Escape from Hell and Bill & Ted

In many ways Escape from Hell is a parody of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. It starts with the title (which is, in full, Richard & Alan's Escape from Hell), many of the characters you find in hell are the same as the dudes the excellent duo has to collect, sometimes even misspelled the same way (Napolean), and you start in hell beside a telephone booth, just like their time machine.

Escape from Hell and Fallout

This spoofiness and the religious and pop-culture references have greatly influenced the Fallout games, especially the second one. Even a number of details are similar:

• In Escape from Hell, there are mirrored shades that protect you against psychic attacks. In Fallout, there is a psychic nullifier that does exactly that, and in Fallout 2, there are mirrored shades, but they do not protect you, they raise your charisma.
• In Escape from Hell, you can sign up as a Hell Guard and receive a Hell Badge, which enables you to use healing statues. In Fallout 2, you can get a Sheriff's badge and a Ranger pin, though they don't do anything.

Reviews and Links

• Highly recommended for anyone wanting to try a good RPG parody, Home of the Underdogs says.

  A "light" RPG with a healthy dose of humor, Escape from Hell is based on an interesting premise: you are a typical guy who's one day mysteriously "zapped" into Hell. And now you must find a way out alive. Talk to lots of Hellish creatures, see inventive tortures and why, aside from the apologetic note in Hell's phone booth, your guardian angel never shows up.

• Hunt down a copy, GameOver recommends. This review sports several screenshots, unfortunately in JPG format.

  Escape From Hell (c) Electronic Arts doesn't have super fantastic graphics or a really great interface, but it does have a novel and interesting plot and lots of non-player characters to talk to and interact with, but a disappointing endgame.

• Walkthrough by Ed "Buzzard" Reedy
• Screenshots
• Codes

Not to be Confused with…

Inevitably, a title as generic as Escape from Hell can never be unique. Best known is probably the 1979 women in prison movie by Eduardo Mulargia (Femmine Infernali)…

After years of rape, torture, and degradation, a group of scantily clad female prisoners devise a plan to rise up against their male oppressors and go over the wall. All the women that have attempted to escape in the past have been killed or worse, but extreme situations call for extreme measures. Unfortunately, the lustful, blood thirsty guards aren't the only things standing between the ravishing prisoners and freedom. They must also overcome snakes, leeches, quicksand, and the nightmares of past atrocities if they want to Escape From Hell.

…but there are some others as well:

• An Atari 8-bit game by Tony Barnes and Charles Jackson from 1988;
• A Zen Buddhism Koan;
• The autobiography of a WWII pilot;
• A 1977 record, produced by Tappa Zukie;
• a 1999 2D action-adventure game, that probably never was finished;
• and a 2001 Christian movie about life after death experiences.