[ragnar]

Escaping the mafia, a review of Runaway by Ragnar Ouchterlony

Introduction

When Runaway, a road adventure was lying in my mail one day, I was pleasantly surprised after the long wait and pushing of release dates. When you put the cd into the drive and begin to play the game you will meet the face of Brian Basco, a student of Physics that has been accepted to do his doctoral studies for a famous professor in the Physics Department at the University of Berkeley. He has forgotten to get a book that he had ordered so he decided to go into Manhattan to get it. On the way there he ran over a girl, though she wasn't badly injured and he takes her to the hospital where she tells a strange tale about her going to be killed by mafia thugs. Together they will go on a trip around USA to unravel a mystery and for Brian to understand this girl who he find mesmerising.

Game play

The game features a traditional point and click interface. You move your mouse where you want it and chooses from some actions to do on the selected objects. When you talk to somebody you get a set of talk options and if you should forget what you talked about you can most of the time go back and ask the same questions again. And don't forget to go back to talk to people several times, they might get more to say after you've done other things!

The game is not hard, but not very easy either. The puzzles you come across are well made and you do not feel that you should combine random object with another random object without any connection to the result of the combination. There are times though, when you feel that what you do has little relation to what you want to accomplish. With the exception of chapter one, the game tells you what your objectives are, so you don't feel totally lost in what you should do.

The in-game graphics is nicely hand drawn in colourful cartoon style. The cut-scenes consists of pre-rendered 3D video and have a little different look than the normal play. I think it would have looked better if they had stuck to the hand drawn in the cut-scenes, it would have made for a much more consistent graphic presentation. But overall it is a very well done work and you always have some rich backgrounds and interesting details to look at.

Music isn't quite as good as the graphics. It doesn't disturb you, but most of the time it does nothing more either. There are a couple of tunes (the main theme specifically) that are nice, but the rest you will have forgotten the moment you leave that part of the game. Music should be a tool to enhance the game play so you feel immersed instead of just being something that sounds in the background. Also it is important to overuse the music so it feels repetitive. While Runaway doesn't overuse the music, it certainly doesn't enhance the game play. Other types sounds are of fairly good quality.

In difference to some of the recent adventure games, Runaway features some rather good voice acting. And to top that, they actually have lip synchronisation that works well. It isn't perfect, but well above par.

Conclusions

The atmosphere of Runaway is rather relaxed and you don't feel that the overall story is very important to the game, which it isn't. You shouldn't expect any deep characters or really interesting thoughts about life. What you do get is a rather neatly wrapped up story that holds enough interest for you to go on playing but not much more. It is good enough for you to be entertained many hours and you happily goes on to experience the different characters and locations in the game. It is quite enjoying playing the game nevertheless and you can always relax and examine the world without fear of biting the grass and having to start over. Instead you can enjoy the quiet humour, which is done with warmth and well carried out.

It is always possible to ask more of a game, but this game does what it intends to do rather well, namely making you have a pleasant time. If you enjoy adventure games, you will probably want to buy the game. The long wait for the game was worth it.

Ratings

Story: 5 / 10
Puzzles: 7 / 10
(Voice) acting: 7 / 10
Graphics: 8 / 10
Sound and Music: 5 / 10
Originality: 4 / 10
Overall: 6 / 10

[ragnar]

My reviews are also available here:
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~ragnar/Reviews/

If there are interest, I can repost all of the old reviews I have done and posted on the old (now dead) forum.

[Marek]

I'm pretty sure everyone would want to read more of your reviews

[ragnar]

Ok, then I'll repost them here. This subforum could use some more topics.

[djsouza]

I thought Runaway was just an OK game, nothing exceptional.

The reasons for this are:
- I HATED the annoying extreme pixel hunting (looking for a NAIL? Come on!. The saloon was obviously hidden, another example that shows the game designers were trying to hid the objects and locations just the make the game FEEL longer).

- I did not liked the story that much. The basic premise was just OK (guy meets mysterious woman in danger), and the rest of the story was nothing really new (ancient civilization and a lost treasure). My opinion is that there was nothing special about the story or the way it was developed.

- The main characters were rather bland IMO, especially Gina, who seems to be absent in all of the chapters There is always some cheap excuse for her not being with Brian during his investigations.

- I thought the characters faces looked really horrid in the close-ups. It really looked like bad animated stop motion. I thought the lip synching was incredibly awfull in the close-ups.

What I DID like was the game interface, the puzzles in general, some of the dialogues and the background graphics. I also enjoyed some of the characters like the drag queen trio and the janitor guy in the museum.

By the way, interesting review!

[GreatPumpkin]

I would agree that I thought Runaway suffered from quite a few "cheap" tactics. I didn't like the little nails and knobs and the like. (There's a reason small objects always glistened back in the day). I didn't like the way these small objects were often hidden near bigger objects. I didn't like the way locations were hidden. I didn't like having to pump certain objects for items repeatedly. (I hope I'm not giving too much away by giving Gina's bag in the first room as an example.)

I really didn't like the way that you not only had to solve a puzzle, but had to get Brian to solve it (usually via a totally unrelated conversation or item interaction) before you could do anything about it. I know what I want to do, I have all the items, just let me get on with it.

I also didn't like the way you would have items that would work but didn't for no apparent reason. For instance there is one part of the game where you are carrying 3 water containers, but you can only put water in one, with no good explaination of why being given. Also, despite the fact that you are wandering around in the middle of the desert, Brian will protest he has no good reason to carry around water. Huh?
There's another instance where you need to pry something open and Brian just refuses to use a pickaxe for no other reason than to force you to waste 30 minutes of your life trying to find a well-hidden crowbar that is never mentioned by anybody. (At least give me "The pick axe looks like it might break under the strain. I'd better find something better suited for a little breaking and entering." What? Where would I find a tool used for breaking and entering? Maybe at the jail? Great. Now I've got something to work with. Was that so hard?) There were several incidents where Brian seemed to fight you for no good reason other than the designers apparently wanted to game to be insanely linear.

Conversely, I had severe problems with some of the later chapters. I have been playing adventure games for close to 15 years and it had been a long time since I've been so frustrated by so many non-sensical puzzles. Apparently it is just me, but once I got out of the cabin, virtually nothing made any sense at all. I breezed through the game up to that point like it was practically a cut sequence, then came to a screeching halt. I thought this game had some of the worst "put random inventory items on each other" "puzzles" I'd seen since Sierra's ignoble decline. I like puzzles I can figure out with logic, not "puzzles" where I use everything with everything and hope something happens for no apparent reason.

On the plus side, the game looked great. Coming from the southwest U.S. I thought everything looked reasonably on, especially for a Spanish company. Except for a few Kermit-y moments from Brian, I thought the voice acting was reasonably good. Some of the accents were a little soft, but it gave the game sort of a B-movie feel, which went along with its B-move plot. I'm not really into cutesy Euro-pop, but the theme sounded like a "real" song, which added to the polished presentation.

The best part of this game is that it is part of the 3rd Person Adventure comeback (BS3, Black Mirror, Syberia 1 & 2, Sam & Max 2, etc.) Other than that, there is not too much to recommend it. I love 3rd person adventures, and I am lukewarm on this game at best. If these types of games had been coming out more frequently than about 1 a year for the last few years, I don't think I'd even be that hot on it.

[davez82]

This game is harder than where's waldo, nuff said.

[syntheticgerbil]

Hey Ragnar, I want to let you know that you are my most favorite adventure critic ever. I like how your small amount of reviews are simple and straight to the point of what plagues and what is praised. I like the reviews less self-indulgent than most people would like to be. Please write more as soon as possible. I'm interested.

Now all you need is a panel of screenshots with every review on your site and captions that make light of exactly what is going on the the shot. I love when people do that.

[remixor]

One major problem I had with this game that I have not seen brought up very often (if ever) is the dynamic between Brian and What's-her-name. When

Spoiler:

Brian thought What's-her-face died after falling down the hole (and by the way, why on earth would he just assume she's DEAD after falling down a hole?! Talk about jumping to conclusions...), he was completely distraught and there was this big montage of scenes highlighting the best times they had with each other--except, since she'd only had approximately 17 seconds of screen up until that point (during much of which she was comatose), they had to use just about every single scene. Was I supposed to feel for this girl?? We hardly know her, even Brian just met her like yesterday, her character is not developed at all, and then when she falls down a hole the game acts like Brian just lost his life-long soulmate. I mean, this is a pretty lame excuse for character development.
But by the end of the game, we hardly know her any better! For practically the entire game, she's ofscreen, and when she is around, she's never involved in anything. The ending cutscene didn't inspire anything in my except eye-rolling. It's like the developers just decided that giving her huge boobs was a way out of making her anything more than a one-dimensional prop character.

EDIT: Oh, and another thing! Despite the game's inconsistant and often incorrect wording, Brian will be attending THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY or UC BERKELEY, not The University of Berkeley (there's no such thing). I'm not pointing fingers at Ragnar, btw He made the mistake only because the game did. But the developers should have known better, especially since the sign in the game's ending cutscene was correct (but I must say, the actual illustration of the school is literally as far from what it really looks like as possible. I quite honestly could not have drawn a more different-looking campus. And I DO go to UC Berkeley, so I know what I'm talking about).

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by syntheticgerbil

Hey Ragnar, I want to let you know that you are my most favorite adventure critic ever. I like how your small amount of reviews are simple and straight to the point of what plagues and what is praised. I like the reviews less self-indulgent than most people would like to be. Please write more as soon as possible. I'm interested.

Now all you need is a panel of screenshots with every review on your site and captions that make light of exactly what is going on the the shot. I love when people do that.

I'm glad you find my reviews enjoyable. As to when I write new reviews: When I play a game and want to write something about it. I write the reviews mostly as a way to put down thought etc. I have about the game in question. I probably will play Syberia 2 and The Black Mirror and BS3. I think I most probably will do a BS3 review in the future. However I must buy a new computer first.

And as to screenshots: It is nice with screenshots, but I need to get round to taking them in appropriate places first.

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by remixor

One major problem I had with this game that I have not seen brought up very often (if ever) is the dynamic between Brian and What's-her-name. When

Spoiler:

Brian thought What's-her-face died after falling down the hole (and by the way, why on earth would he just assume she's DEAD after falling down a hole?! Talk about jumping to conclusions...), he was completely distraught and there was this big montage of scenes highlighting the best times they had with each other--except, since she'd only had approximately 17 seconds of screen up until that point (during much of which she was comatose), they had to use just about every single scene. Was I supposed to feel for this girl?? We hardly know her, even Brian just met her like yesterday, her character is not developed at all, and then when she falls down a hole the game acts like Brian just lost his life-long soulmate. I mean, this is a pretty lame excuse for character development.
But by the end of the game, we hardly know her any better! For practically the entire game, she's ofscreen, and when she is around, she's never involved in anything. The ending cutscene didn't inspire anything in my except eye-rolling. It's like the developers just decided that giving her huge boobs was a way out of making her anything more than a one-dimensional prop character.

EDIT: Oh, and another thing! Despite the game's inconsistant and often incorrect wording, Brian will be attending THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY or UC BERKELEY, not The University of Berkeley (there's no such thing). I'm not pointing fingers at Ragnar, btw He made the mistake only because the game did. But the developers should have known better, especially since the sign in the game's ending cutscene was correct (but I must say, the actual illustration of the school is literally as far from what it really looks like as possible. I quite honestly could not have drawn a more different-looking campus. And I DO go to UC Berkeley, so I know what I'm talking about).

Spoiler:

Yes, What's her name is one of the most shallow characters I've seen in an adventure game. She's just a bimbo and I refuse to accept that Brian is smart enough to be so smart in is subject (physics was it I think) and at the same time be so stupid about this girl. If he should choose anything apart from the University I think that hacker girl in the ghost western town to be much better.

And the university: The only Californian university I know of is Stanford (which has some cooperation with my own university in Linköping) and I thought I double-checked with the game what the name of it where.

[remixor]

Originally Posted by ragnar

Spoiler:

Yes, What's her name is one of the most shallow characters I've seen in an adventure game. She's just a bimbo and I refuse to accept that Brian is smart enough to be so smart in is subject (physics was it I think) and at the same time be so stupid about this girl. If he should choose anything apart from the University I think that hacker girl in the ghost western town to be much better.

Spoiler:

Yeah, I was actually really hoping he was going to get together with the hacker girl. It's not that I really needed him to get in a relationship with someone, but I knew he would anyway, so to me the hacker girl would have made a whole lot more sense than What's-her-name. It seemed like he actually made a connection with her. Considering the skill the team put into the game's other character development, it was probably an accident.

[spoiler]And the university: The only Californian university I know of is Stanford (which has some cooperation with my own university in Linköping) and I thought I double-checked with the game what the name of it where. [/QUOTE]

Yeah, if you checked with the game, that's why you got it wrong Not your fault of course.

[ragnar]

Originally Posted by remixor

Spoiler:

Yeah, I was actually really hoping he was going to get together with the hacker girl. It's not that I really needed him to get in a relationship with someone, but I knew he would anyway, so to me the hacker girl would have made a whole lot more sense than What's-her-name. It seemed like he actually made a connection with her. Considering the skill the team put into the game's other character development, it was probably an accident.

Spoiler:

Yes, I voted for the hacker girl all along. And it would have been better if that Whats-her-name bimbo was shot instead. But you can't get everything I guess.
It think that the hacker girl (she was called Sushi, I think) and Brian would make a great team. Whats-her-name is more of a nuisance than anything else.

[Ninth]

Hm, I wonder if the whole what's-her-name issue is not what made me find the game only "good enough". And I definetly agree with you two about Sushi.
Shallow's the word for this game: shallow girl, shallow plot, shallow game.
And the hole thingy disturbed me as well, Remixor, actually I though it was funny. Ludicrous, that is.