Customer Reviews

Runaway: A Road Adventure

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

_Runaway_ starts with a movie: an attractive young man in a director's chair on a dark stage tells you about the strange turn his life took recently. Brian Basco, you learn, is a brilliant physics student on his way to dream position at UC Berkeley. As he's leaving New York, he remembers he has an errand to run and heads to SoHo. A beautiful woman runs out in front of his car. He takes her to the hospital and tried to continue on his way, but she tells him her life is in danger. Being a kind-hearted soul, he can't just leave her, and soon enough the two of them are on the run.

This is another recent release that I avoided for some time due to various negative reviews. Well, I know everyone can't like everything but seriously! were those reviewers playing the same game? In my experience, _Runaway_ was beautiful, well-plotted, exceptionally acted, humourous and highly entertaining, with an interface that was easy to understand and use. It ran incredibly smoothly--no bugs here!-- and the soundtrack kept me humming long after I was done playing. All in all, a game in the best tradition of 3rd person adventure.

The game was highly linear. In some ways it played more like an interactive movie. There were many cut-scenes, some of them quite long. On the plus side, lots of conversations went along without any participation; it always annoys me when there's a contrived interactive quality to portions of a game that are basically information dumps. Sometimes a character would tell Brian to "Go away and come back in an hour," and instead of wandering around waiting for time to pass, you'd get a little movie where Brian said, "Well, I think an hour has gone by." I like this a lot. On the negative side, you couldn't pick up invetory until you needed it, or at least until you had some clue you needed SOMETHING. So you had to go back to locations quite a bit and keep looking at things to be sure there wasn't anything new. In some games this REALLY bothers me, but in _Runaway_ it didn't so much. I could understand not wanting to carry around fifteen tons of stuff until you had a use for it.

The puzzles were classic inventory/conversation: get information and find what you need to solve a problem. I found that the solutions generally made sense; there were only a few that seemed unthinkably silly or even downright wrong (in terms of real life). There were a lot of multi-part tasks--places where just as you thought you finally had it solved, something else would come up. And there were a couple of pixel hunts. But mostly, the game moved right along.

The characters were wonderful, if somewhat stereotyped. The voice acting was very good; I especially liked the Currandera, Mama Dorita. The main character had a slight tendancy to talk too much, but that was easily overlooked. I thought Brian's development was also well-done. You could see that his experiences were transforming him, but his core personality remained the same.

_Runaway_ took me about 20 hours to complete and I resorted to UHS hints 2 or 3 times (about average for me). I really, really enjoyed it and hope there will be a sequel. If you like the Monkey Island games, you'll like this one.

I loved this game at first, but after I got a while into it, I got extremely bored with it. The game looks great and starts off with some interesting puzzles, but in the middle it starts moving at a snail's pace. The storyline progresses at an excruciatingly slow rate while you are stuck in some huge areas trying to solve poorly designed puzzles. The bane of any adventure gamer is the pixel hunt, and this game has plenty of them. When you're not pixel hunting, then chances are you are solving some silly illogical puzzle. And when you are not doing that, you're solving some unoriginal puzzle that you have seen in other adventure games or brain teaser books.

The best part about this game is the graphics. This game is beautiful to look at and has a style that is unmatched by any other adventure game. The cartoony cel-shaded look really adds a lot to this game. The characters fit in perfectly. Every character is exaggerated in some cartoonish way - exaggerated facial features, exaggerated accents, exaggerated personalities, etc. All of the characters in the game are likeable and show that the game was made with lots of inspiration. The game's soundtrack is really good and most of the voice-acting is top-notch. The main character has this "gee whiz" dorkiness that actually ends up being kind of charming.

But it's just so hard to get into this game. The storyline is decent enough, but it progresses so slowly that you can almost forget what's going on in it. Gina (the beautiful girl on the box) disappears from the game for long periods of time, leaving her character totally undeveloped. Since the puzzles are not fun and interesting enough to keep you interested, you have to labor through the game to enjoy it. Many times you will find yourself resorting to a walkthrough, and then rolling your eyes at some of the absurd things that you are supposed to do to make it through the game. This is the problem with mediocre adventure games. The good ones manage to have logical and predictable solutions. The mediocre ones like this force you to try to read the developers' minds and guess at an inane solution. I really wanted to like this game, but it was a disappointment.

I am a huge fan of the Monkey Island series, mostly for the sytle of gameplay, but also for the humor and interesting "twists". Runaway has all of the aspects that I love of that series but with a sytle completely of its own. Runaway takes you on a roller coaster of adventure and suspense, but does it in a supremely crazy and comedic way.

I completely agree with the other reviewers that Runaway should have a "Mature" rating. A few people are killed right in front of you, and there is some mild drug use that is required for the character to complete a puzzle. There are other elements (drag queens, some racy dialogue, and skimpy clothing), but nothing more than what you see on TV.

I really had a lot of fun with this game. I did not realize how much I missed these games until I started playing Runaway. I am definitely hoping for a sequel.

This game is worth buying, i don't know how i never heard of it before!! Graphics are similar to Curse of Monkey Island. This game is an adventure game where you control Brian and what he does. It's a fun mystery and funny at times too! The difficulty of this game is i'd say a 3 out of 5...I had to cheat a couple of times cuz i missed things that were right in front of my face. The game is not hard but not too easy either.
There are a few puzzles and some that involve a little knowledge of math, which were very fun for me. They're not that hard to figure out, just a little time. Oh and my favorite part is you can never die in the game so your palms don't sweat when you play it.

Spare 10 bucks and play it.

This is a great game in the way "Amerzone" was; for the time it was released, it had some pretty righteous effects, animation, and music. It's still impressive, and extremely clever!
As a fan of the "walk around, find things, use things" games, I am completely in love with this game's style! Think "Monkey Island" as a mystery/action/satire. (Love the reference to "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"!!!)
I'm actually still playing, but am only slow because of time limitations. Hyper-gamers will blast through this, but it runs at or slightly above my speed, which I can appreciate. Great game, and worth the time for gamers like me!

This game is so different from many of the adventures that are out there right now. It is no wonder that it's been such a huge hit all over Europe, and if the word gets out here in the US, I think people will really enjoy it, too, since the characters are excellent, the screen art is absolutely amazing and different and the story is entertaining and fun.

The game starts out in New York but turns into a sort of road trip across America, passing through ghost towns, deserts, chicago and a whole assortment of other places. Like I said before, the artwork in this game is so great (the portrayals of the Indian lands and ruins are awesome) and is much different from the other games I've seen lately. You can spend lots of time just looking at the amusing details in the background, but that is only a small part of it all...

The game in general and puzzles are neither too difficult nor too easy, the secondary characters (especially Rutger the yawaskel-growing dude and Sushi the teenage computer brain girl who helps you out of the mess you're in) are all hilarious...and the situations are just so different from other games I've played (enlisting the help of a trio of drag queen commandos!, meeting with Hopi Indian spirits)...

I definitely recommend playing this adventure if you feel like getting addicted to a game for a while and want something different but highly entertaining.

Compared to other recent adventure titles, I have to agree with most reviews here that the graphics, sound, and voice acting are top-notch, as are the controls and interface. However, many of the puzzles are completely illogical and take a trial and error approach. In fact, I had to check the walkthough on several occasions after spending hours trying to figure out that item A needs to be combined with item B before using it on item C.

Overall, it was enjoyable at first and some of the humor was on-spot (especially the bus full of drag queens), but it lost something when the puzzles became obscure and irrelevant.

To the person who complained that the cut-scenes were upside-down, I think you need to get your graphics checked out. The cut-scenes were all normal on my system...

Last year has been a very fruitful one for adventure gamers. Runaway is a fine example of last year's harvest.

It is a "typical" point and click adventure game, which has all the necessary ingredients to make it a success:
(1) Great Plot
(2) Fun, logical puzzles, with no pixel hunting
(3) Very nice graphics, atmospheric and humorous
(4) Pleasant main characters with good voice acting, that dont irritate the player
(5) Atmospheric ambient music and great rock themes.

Conclusion: Another fine example of European programming and and a must have game for all adventure games fans.
Please note that Runaway could become the introductory title for nonadventure games fans, as well!

I've been an adventure gamer for many, many years now. My first adventure games were created by Sierra. I loved their games. I remember having to type in what you wanted your main character to do. Talk about frustrating. They were also very expensive...mostly $40-$50. But I still loved it. (Can't wait for the new Leisure Suit Larry to come out!!!)
Adventure games have come a long way since then...most have lost something along the way. I didn't feel that way with this game. I loved this game!!! I don't think I could've gotten a better game for the money. I highy recommend it to all old and new adventurers alike!!

It has been quite a while since I played an adventure game (5 years?), and I felt the desire and nostalgia to play some lately. I browsed through the videogames and looked for a graphic adventure old monkey island cartoonish style. Why, Runaway was the perfect pick!! I loved it and I long for more! The puzzles were perfect and challenging and, in some cases, even surprisingly well done. Many players might think that some of the puzzles were non-sensical; however these kind of puzzles lead you to think about things differently than what you ordinarily expect. You really have to use your brain and pay A LOT of attention to the dialogues and to the description of the objects, which are fundamental clues to the solution of the quizzes; pay also some attention to the little anecdotes told by Brian from time to time. It is very important also to check even the tiniest places on the screen for objects you might need. I even laughed when, not knowing what to do, madly explored the screen and found the items I so bad needed.
To conclude, here are some tips that I already mentioned briefly
stated: a)This is a game, but REALLY use your brain b) Pay attention to dialogues, descriptions and anecdotes c) explore, explore, explore without getting frustrated!
This is a great adventure game, and gives so many hours of entertainment with such a cheap price. I also haven't encountered any issues like installation problems, compatibility, freezing screen or such things. The whole was just perfect. I strongly recommend this game to whoever appreciates graphic adventures, and also to those that might want to try a different game genre.
I LOOK FORWARD TO RUNAWAY 2, which shouldn't be long before its release.
CIAO