I finally got around to playing Runaway and...
 

Wow, I was disappointed! I want to be measured in how I say this because it's clear that while I was not impressed, people worked hard on this game. It didn't appear to be a throwaway attempt at making a good adventure and I respect their efforts. I just feel they missed the mark.

I didn't get through the first five minutes of the game. The things that were major turnoffs were as follows:

1) The opening scene where the main character was monologueing showed a fast forward montage of a bunch of action sequences that apparently were forthcoming. Why did they do this? They took out all the mystery in the game. It was the equivalent of renting a movie and seeing the preview right before watching.

2) The voice acting and dialog felt very stilted, very forced. It was just jarring to listen to.

3) The dialogue pacing was very poor, and awkward.

Many might say I didn't give it enough of a chance. I might revisit it, but it was not a strong opening.

What do I compare it to? For me the gold standard of all games in the genre is Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars.

I was definitely hoping for more.

I may have mentioned this before, but the only reason I enjoyed Runaway at all - not that I played much of it - was that a few of my friends were round, I put it on and we were literally in stitches, laughing at how terrible the game was. Within the first 20 minutes, it does everything an adventure game shouldn't do. It blows my mind that this game got such a good review here on Adventure Gamers - the same review that persuaded me to waste a good $20 on it.

Err...? Movies and TV do this all the time. (Have you ever seen an episode of Battlestar Galactica?) In Runaway, I thought it served as a nice glimpse of what was to come. In fact I really liked how that game opened, it's very cinematic.

Runaway has its problems, but it has a unique art style and I remember being pretty impressed with it when it came out. (It gripped me a lot more than Broken Sword, for sure!) I don't think five minutes is enough time to give a valid critique but I certainly wouldn't suggest continuing to play a game if you're not enjoying it. To each their own. :)

I don't plan to get involved in any kind of "love Runaway-hate Runaway" discusion, but as the fan of the series I'm only going to say this: Runaway's shortcomings are part of it's charm. Just my two cents.

Runaway is a masterpiece compared to Runaway 2, the antichrist of adventure games.

+1

I didn't like the opening of Runaway either, for the reasons mentioned (why the flash forwards? :crazy: ). However, although I don't like anything remotely spoiler-ish, it is not that it says a lot. It just goes too quick for that. So, unless you pay a lot of attention to it and watch the intro again and again, you have nothing to fear about the game being spoiled.
On the other hand, better to have something to look at than just Brian in a black background narrating...

I'd say, give the game a try. It gets better after the weird opening sequence. It is not as good a game as Broken Sword, and when playing you should definately try to refrain from make such a comparison. Runaway is worse, don't expect too much, but all in all it's a nice little game to play, so if you have some spare time, give it one more try ;)

I could not put it better myself.


I'm fine with other people actually liking the game, but it's irritating when they get defensive when we clearly state that we... um... hate it. It was hilarious though — not when it was trying to be, mind you — I couldn't believe what a monumental disaster of character development, voice acting, horrid dialogue (laughably so), general out-of-character "bastardy-ness" (does Brian ever visit a location in the game where he doesn't get someone killed, destroy a building, destroy priceless art, or do some sort of illicit activity without seeming to care or have it trouble him in the least?), and all of these complaints are only addressing the story. The puzzles are a whole extra can of worms, that, while okay and somewhat funny in some areas, were too ridiculously badly designed to make up for it. I cannot possibly see how making 5 trips from the water cooler to the steam engine could possibly be viewed as charming.

No, that is not a spoiler. If you haven't played this game yet (and plan to), you will thank me, seeing how once you do it the first time, there is no feedback — none at all — that would suggest in any way that four more trips are necessary. How many people would think of this on their own, AND think "Aha! What a clever puzzle."

OK, rant over. I feel like I've said this many a time, so I'm going nowhere. I hate this game... but it's okay if anyone else likes it. I won't judge you, this game just reeeeeaaaally rubs me the wrong way.

Oh... my... God. That is frightening. Perhaps I'll have to go and play it after all, just to see how low it's sunk...

NOOOOOOOOO! If you play it, then the terrorists win.

If you're talking about the old Runaway that was first published in Spain in 2001, and wasn't available in English until 2003, you compare it with other 3rd person games that were published around that time. Fans of 3rd person point-and-click adventure games didn't have much to choose from if they wanted to play a new game. There was Syberia, and that was about it. Broken Sword Sleeping Dragon came out in 2003, and disappointed many people with its lack of point-and-click controls, its blocky 3D graphics, its problem with viewing angles, and its timed sequences (which often involved having to sit through the same cut scene multiple times). Runaway had its problems, but it was closer in gameplay to the old Broken Sword games than BS3 was (even if the story and dialogue in BS3 was better). Runaway was popular because it didn't really have any competition. But it's not the sort of game that's going to hold up over the years.

Runaway isn't a classic in the way that the Gabriel Knight or Broken Sword games are -- where gamers can play it for the first time many years after it was made and still be drawn in by it. But at the time it came out, it was the closest thing to the old Broken Sword point-and-clicks that had been available for years.

I sure recognize the faults in "Runaway", but like the above poster mentioned, it was the only adventure game around, at least the only one that I noticed in our stores, in a long time. So even when replaying all the old classics can still be great fun, it gets tedious after a decade so a fresh new game, even if faulty, is certainly welcomed.

I also don't like it when people push others to either love or hate something. That's something you just can't change. Arguments one person uses can be meaningless to the other and vice versa. It's all personal preference.

I tried to like this game. It being from Spain, and all. But I failed. Its only strong point, imho, and as somebody has just pointed out, is that its gameplay is very classic AG. We'll always have Paris, I guess.

This seems to be a general characteristic of Pendulo Studios games. Their first title, Igor: Objective Uikokahonia (which used to be available from Home of the Underdogs), featured a similarly unlikeable protagonist, presented uncritically as the "hero". It seriously makes me think that the designers are not very nice people.

Yeah, the gameplay was full of annoying crap like that.

While I was not too impressed with Runaway, I don't remember it being *that* bad. It was just a little bland. Except for the visuals. It's been a while, though, so I could be off.

I agree that the main character is not easy to identify yourself with.

Spoilers, minor.

Oh man, the main character is such a clueless tool. He "gets the girl" who throughout has been nothing but a lying [insert favorite word]. And then he decides to skip out on college for her? Ugh, what a terrible guy. It's like some kind of teen movie where at the end the main boy just goes with the bitch cheerleader and then it ends and acts like thats ok because she's hot, right? I mean of course there's no Rachel Leigh Cook crying in the game, but it still seems really douche-y.

You said it man. Brian was annoyingly stupid, but unfortunately not stupid enough to be funny.

I wanted to replay "Runaway" but it seems I can't run the game in Vista. I get error messages during the starforce protection and I can't even enter the id-code. When I try the update from their site, I get an error that he can't find any drivers to update.

Ugh. Starforce. It's turning people to piracy, I tell you.

not that im saying do this and not saying that i did but the runaway 1 does work on vista if you acquire the game from a certain way using a certain type of program, faster than when i used my dads original disk.

as for the game it was very good, reminded me of traditional point and click and i am looking forward to number 3 i will admit it is not like the classics but it is a game i will play again and there were some very good characters in it lol.

I've just finished the game liked it overall but I hated the opening scene (I hate spoilers) and didn't really like the main characters... (but I kind of liked the transvestites and Sushi... ).
The voices from the supporting cast were not bad but Bryan and Gina's voice were both very bland (I played the spanish version).

It's not a great game (I would give it 3 stars and a quarter), but it was fun and I think I'll go on to play the sequels...