Runaway: A Road Adventure

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.