Runaway: A Road Adventure

Moby ID: 5453
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

For New Yorker, Brian Basco, scientific study and having a career in Applied Physics is everything! He is as "excited as a kid in a candy store" when his application for a position at the University of Berkeley is accepted. Before setting out on the long trip from New York to California, Brian remembers one last errand to do. Little does he know that this slight detour would change his life, and his life style, forever!

Minding his own business driving along the New York streets on the way to a bookstore, he cannot avoid hitting the beautiful girl who runs out in front of his car! He does the right thing and takes her to the hospital. When she comes to, he learns that she witnessed a murder and that vicious gangsters are after her! Because Brian helped her, his life is also in danger! And so the story of Brian and Gina begins...

In this point-and-click adventure, you play Brian in 3rd person as he figures out how to avoid and escape the Mafia-like thugs chasing them. Their travels will take them to a variety of different places (a Museum, the Arizona desert etc.) during the six game chapters. Put your thinking cap on to solve situations and puzzles using objects and conversation with people they meet.

The game features drawn cartoon-like 2D and 3D graphics and cut-scenes. Its original soundtrack includes over 24 songs. Interact with almost 30 different characters with interesting, and often comical, personalities. Find and use a multitude of items that can be manipulated within the inventory window.

Spellings

  • Runaway. Дорожное приключение - Russian spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

152 People (108 developers, 44 thanks) · View all

Story & Design
Project Manager
Game Engine Developed By
Lead Programmer
Assistant Programmers
Art Director
Storyboard and Backdrop Developement
Backdrop Coloring for Chapter 1
3D Design and Backdrop Animation
3D 2D-Integration
Character Development
Character Design
Character Animation
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 55 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 95 ratings with 5 reviews)

If you liked the Broken Sword games, you'll love Runaway!

The Good
I couldn't wait to get Runaway, but I never thought I'd get a chance to play it. It was released first in Spanish and it took 2 years for publisher to be found for the English version. It was well worth the wait!

First of all, Runaway is good and long. It takes quite awhile to get all the way through the Six Chapters. Each scenario is different than the last, so the plot keeps you interested. The story is modern and unique with twist and turns - you really don't know how it will come out in the end. And speaking of the ending, it's great! (Be sure to watch the entire thing ... all the way through the credits and beyond. You'll be glad you did!)

The colorful graphics are as realistic as can be expected from drawings. Some of the locations are truly picturesque. The characters are rendered to depict their personalities - eccentric and quirky. The animators did a great job on coordinating the lip-sync with the speech as well as everything else that moved. Objects don't stick out like sore thumbs like in other games and look like part of the scenery or room. (More on this below.)

Overall I'd rate the sound as excellent. The music is modern and original with an upbeat pace. I enjoyed every single song and tapped my foot to quite a few of them. A subtle melody can be heard when an important objective has been accomplished. Sound effects are blended in so well that none of them seem out of place. The voice acting was also well done (in the English version). Each character's voice sounded like you'd expect it to sound. I did notice duplicate voices for several of the characters, however - Gina's especially.

I enjoyed the puzzles, which are based on interaction with inventory objects and other characters. Although none of them are particularly hard, some of them had me scratching my head - only to find out that I had missed finding the right item. The linearity of the game might bother some players, but after awhile I got used to it. So many things don't become available until Brian has done something else. The first time Brian searches a trash can, for instance, he says he doesn't see anything he can use ... UNTIL someone mentions it. Digging into the trash can a second time, after the conversation, he will find something new.

There are no action elements whatsoever .. it's pure adventure style play. I was glad there were no mazes or slider puzzles. And all of the puzzles seem necessary to the story - none of them were added needlessly. And ... you can't die!

I had absolutely no technical problems installing or playing the game, even though my Pentium II 200MMX barely meets the minimum requirements. (I did need to use the Low resolution setting, though, to smooth out the scrolling graphics.)

The Bad
Only a very few things detracted from my gaming experience. Most of them are design elements.

  • Each time you start the game, you must insert the first disc, no matter where you last saved.
  • The chosen options don't seem to "stick". In other words, if you want the volume at its loudest point, you must set it with each new start.
  • Brian walks too slowly through some of the scenes, and there is no way to make him run.
  • Finding items on the screen can be tedious because they blend in so well with their surroundings. You must use your peripheral vision to watch the words at the bottom of the screen. You should scan the cursor across the entire screen slowly and carefully, looking for changes in the text.
  • When saving a game, a new slot is picked automatically. Although you can erase saved games, it would have been nice to be able to choose to overwrite an old one. (On the plus side, there seems to be no limit to the number of games you can save.)

    **The Bottom Line**
    This is a modern tale with upbeat music and an engaging story. It's an adventure about two young people running away from danger and using whatever resources they come upon to do it. Help comes from the people they meet and things they find during their escape. What begins with a chance meeting turns into a friendship and then a romance. By the end of the game, you may find yourself actually caring what happens to Gina and Brian. Heed the "Teen" rating because of the Mafia-type violence (killing), but there is no blood or gore. There are also some "drag queen" characters and nuances to that effect. Otherwise, there is no offensive language or sexual content and everything is tactfully presented.
  • Windows · by Jeanne (75956) · 2003

    Reviving the adventure Genre? Yes and No

    The Good
    Runaway appeared on the games market in a time where everybody wondered: Will the graphic adventure genre survive? It made a bold statement by winning dozens of awards in the computer gaming press for being a fun game with smooth comic graphics and good voice overs. (I can only speak for the German version here).

    The Bad
    But Runaway has a major downside and that is its pixel hunting puzzles. In every chapter of the game there are at least two puzzles that require you to find a grey item on a grey wall. You can either spend hours searching the locations with your nose glued to the screen, or refer to a walkthrough.

    The Bottom Line
    Nonetheless, the game is worth its money. It is almost a classic comic adventure with fresh characters (a physics nerd and a femme fatale). It features a relatively intriguing story and keeps you motivated with good in-game animations.
    Adventure fans should definetely give it a shot. Everyone else might want to check out the demo first.

    Windows · by Isdaron (715) · 2003

    Worth playing, definitely.

    The Good
    Runaway's greatest asset is its characters. Both Brian and Gina are quite engaging, revealing enough of themselves to draw in the gamer, while still being mysterious enough (particularly Gina, who doesn't have a lot of screen time) to keep up interest in a sequel. The side characters are a blast as well, especially the residents of Douglasville.

    I prefer game soundtracks that are a little more tuneful than they are atmospheric, and Runaway's is the opposite. Nevertheless, the music serves its purpose. It isn't particularly memorable, but it does create atmosphere, tension, and relief when it should. The sound effects, however, are as good as any I've ever heard in an adventure game. As you play the game, you'll never be reminding yourself of the fact that these sounds were recorded in a studio. Everything plays back clearly and at an appropriate volume - including the voices, but I'll be talking more about that later.

    It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of cel animation, and Runaway does it one better by using cel-shaded 3D models. The backdrops are gorgeous, the character designs are perfect, and it all comes together to make the best graphical presentation that I have yet seen in an adventure game. You may disagree if you don't care for cel animation, but there's my opinion. Runaway's graphics can be best appreciated during the ending, which I won't give away - but I will say that it is visually beautiful.

    And speaking of the ending, I definitely consider it to be among the game's strengths. It has an unmistakably cinematic feel that many other games have tried (and most often failed) to evoke. I could probably name a few of the creators' favorite movies now, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

    The Bad
    I'll start with a negative point that others may find in Runaway, which did not detract from my enjoyment: The game is very linear and, as such, does not have much replay value. There are no alternate endings, no alternate ways around puzzles. If you've played the game through once, you've seen it all. That said, linearity doesn't stop me from playing through the first Gabriel Knight game every couple of years. Give me a great linear story over a mediocre story with many paths, any day.

    That said, Runaway doesn't have a great story. I was really looking forward to playing a game with a storyline like a classic road movie, and Runaway isn't it. (Talk about an untapped mine of ideas for another adventure game, though!) In fact, as it is, Runaway's story is pretty ordinary. Aside from one unexpected plot twist, you'll probably be able to call each upcoming shot before it happens. This is less of a shortcoming than one might think, though; the characters will hold your interest even when what happens to them is exactly what you expected. More on this later.

    I disliked the fact that Pendulo created an intriguing character in Gina, then didn't use her as anything other than eye candy. In fact, aside from the fact that Gina is quite an attractive bundle of polygons, you'll probably end up liking Sushi Douglas, spunky mayor of Douglasville, quite a bit more. For all her prominence in being splashed over every advertisement, Gina is basically a bit player and does little more than pop up on occasion to remind you why you're on this adventure. The fact that there is virtually no interaction between the two leads makes the love interest factor seem too contrived.

    I mentioned Runaway's voice acting earlier. Regretfully, I consider it among the game's weak elements. Sure, the accents are fairly fake-sounding, but I don't have a huge problem with this. After all, it is only a computer game (although that kind of statement is exactly what separates computer games from films - ironic, when you consider the fact that fifteen years ago we all thought that computer adventure games would be the dominant form of entertainment in America today). The voice actors actually read their lines well, and the vocals are recorded as well as I've seen/heard in an adventure game, with little to no artifacts from compression. The problem - and it's a terribly distracting one - is that the actors obviously read from scripts that contained no information about the context in which the lines should be delivered. This is a difficult issue to describe without actually being able to show an example - but it results, all too often, in characters speaking with way more emotion than a situation requires. This creates conversations, for example, when a character might say, "WHAT?!" (As in, "WHAT?! You washed my white dress shirts with your pink undies?") When, in fact, the character was supposed to be saying, "What?" (As in, "What? Yes, I'm listening.") It's a huge distraction, as I mentioned, and it makes the game come off looking like an amateur production - in stark contrast to the visual element, which holds up very well when compared to any other title on the market today, regardless of genre.

    Lastly, Runaway's puzzles are just not very good. I found myself dipping into a hint book way more often than I should have, and it was always due to one of two reasons: Either the object I was looking for blended too much into the background and I didn't see it despite lots of pixel hunting, or the object was always there, and I saw it, but Brian didn't see it and couldn't do anything with it until some other requirement was satisfied. The fact that you have to pixel hunt in practically every screen, then come back and do it again later to find what Brian missed, artificially lengthens the game and seems to have been done to disguise the weak puzzles. If you have actually managed to find the item that you need, the puzzles in Runaway probably won't present that much of a problem. This is obviously the game's weakest point, in my opinion. The challenge shouldn't be in hunting for the right pixel. We've had mouse-driven adventure games for more than a decade now, folks. The earliest text adventures clearly told you what items were available in each room, but you'd hardly detract from most Infocom titles due to a lack of challenge. Make the tools more clearly defined, and challenge us to figure out how to use them. That's how you create great playability in an adventure game.

    The Bottom Line
    I'm going to be blunt, here. Given the characters and basic premise, Runaway isn't the game that I would have made. The game is enjoyable more for what it promises than what it actually delivers. Ten years ago when heavy hitters like Sierra On-Line and Lucasfilm Games could be counted on to release a half dozen great new titles each year, a game like Runaway might have been lost in the shuffle. These days you won't find a half dozen great adventure games in any given year by any number of developers, and that works to Pendulo's advantage. Since adventure gamers don't exactly have a wealth of choices, Runaway comes off feeling like a hit title. Let's be honest - if you've been playing adventure games at least since the early '90s, Runaway probably won't crack your all time Top Ten.

    Don't let this stop you from buying it, though. At a price (currently) of under fifteen dollars US, it's an easy call to buy Runaway and get a couple nights of quality entertainment. Despite the few detracting elements, Runaway has an extremely high fun factor. The memorable characters and excellent production value should keep you glued to the screen until you finish.

    Adventure gamers love their sequels, and it should come as no surprise that Runaway 2 has already been announced. I pulled no punches in criticizing the weak elements of this game not because I didn't enjoy it - quite the opposite, actually - but because I would love to see Pendulo achieve greatness with their next game, rather than merely hinting at it. Things like weak puzzles and under-realized voiceovers are the kinds of things you'd expect from a first project, but atmosphere and memorable characters are more important. With a great basic premise, two charismatic leads, and an engaging realistic modern-day setting underutilized in a genre too laden with fantasy, Runaway has everything that an adventure game series needs to be truly classic. With a little luck, Pendulo might get there with its next title.

    Windows · by Eurythmic (2663) · 2004

    [ View all 5 player reviews ]

    Discussion

    Subject By Date
    missing files san ti Jun 19, 2007

    Trivia

    Legend (and PR) says: Runaway wasn't planned to be released in germany, when it's publisher Dinamix got insolvent... but after many fans started petitions, mail-terror,... (tiny) german publisher DTP got the game, started the localisation and threw it into our shops. And Runaway is a Top10-Success, here! :)

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    Contributors to this Entry

    Game added by Jeanne.

    Macintosh added by Cavalary. iPhone, iPad added by Kabushi.

    Additional contributors: Felix Knoke, Klaster_1.

    Game added December 20, 2001. Last modified March 15, 2024.