Unofficial Tex Murphy

Well today whilst browsing my local EB Games store I came across Runaway at a discount price... I had seen previews of Runaway 2 and thought it looked good and decided to get the first one: Runaway, A Road Adventure. I am probably just past half way now and I have some thoughts on the game…


Graphically:

The cartoon graphics are amazing… they are the best I have seen. It looks exactly like full throttle, but much, much better. The characters use shading, soft edges and soft shadowing, blending them in seamlessly with the beautifully crafted environments.

For those of you who have played the game XIII you will know what I mean when I say they use an ink-and-paint rendering to draw their characters… giving them some definition.

The cut-scenes usually use more 3D in the characters, but they still use 16-bit ink shaders to give them the tool look. Very interesting and it works.


Sound and Music:

The fist thing I noticed was the noise during the opening voiceover… it seems most of the characters voice-overs are accompanied by some white noise, which sounds like they have been compressed for the game and/or recorded at a lower bitrate. Anyhow, being an audiophile myself I guess it only would bug me, and am probably being particular, because I tend to forget about it when I get into the game… but that was one thing I picked up on. Other than that, it all fits in nicely.

The sound effects work is above average, but no where near as rich as it could be. There are often long spaces between ambient sounds and when they do play something like a gust of wind or a bird tweet, because of the amount of silence between it becomes noticeable. Now, from my past experiences with games and sound the best thing you can do it to design your sound so that it is ‘Ambiant’ which means you don’t notice it, but it is there. But in my opinion, the sound design when it comes to ambiance is not very well paced.

The sound effects however are pretty darn good and fit together well with the actions and cut-scenes.

The Music is a mix of Original Score and Original Songs… when the game first started it had a really nice Hollywood style into, with the beginning of a road trip and a nice rock/pop soundtrack. Then as you get into the thick of the story the soundtrack turns to instrumental and orchestration. Whilst the music is good and is placed nicely throughout the game, after listening to Matt Heider and Jeff Abbots handywork in the Tex Murphy series this game could use a few tips on atmosphere. Don’t get me wrong, like I said; the music placed well, but I don’t really get the same ‘feel’ I did with games like Pandora, or Grim Fandango, or Full Throttle. Perhaps that’s just me.


Acting:

I noticed a lot of things about this game are Spanish (the developers, the website) which makes me hope it was originally done in a foreign language because the voice acting just does not seem to fit. The main character, Brian fits well, but the female voices (including that of the main character, Gina) sounds like they were all recorded by the same woman. There are a lot of stereotypical voices in the game, and very few of them really pull it of (I should talk, I attempted a Louie once, you all remember! LOL!). And for me, many of them were downright so annoying to listen to I had to tear of my headphones and take a 5 min break, and sometimes skipped lines of dialogue just to get the conversations over with. Annoying imitations aside, the acting was okay, like I said; it did not seem to pull the action though. Seems like they did not have professional talent behind the voice-over team… which would have REALLY helped.


Puzzles:

I love puzzles (being a Myst fan, who would have guessed it!) but I am a fan of practical puzzles. Ones like: do something, see what it does, do something else, see what that does, think about it, then realise you can use A with B to get you C. Basically, logical puzzles. But I am afraid this game hasn’t many of those. The whole game is full of puzzles, but the kind you will spend hours scratching you head over, and then finally try something TOTALLY stupid and it would work, leaving you screaming to yourself “What the heck!?”

Like for example (Spoiler to come if you don’t want to read, but honestly, its really dumb)… there is one part where you have to open a stuck door. You have a crowbar on you, but instead of using it to open the door; you have to find about 5 different objects to create you own peanut butter, smear it on the door and wait for wants to devour the wood! I was like “USE THE CROWBAR YOU FOOL!” There are many instances like this throughout the game so be warned… you might spend ages looking for a solution that requires something so ‘out there’ that you will probably drive yourself nuts. There were times where there were a few logical puzzles, very Tex Murphy like… but then as soon as they were over it was back to pounding the pixels looking for some weird things.


Story:

Here is the most important part. After playing Grim Fandango again recently I was reminded of how much of a great Adventure it was! Hollywood material! This game starts out VERY promising: You are heading over to Berkeley University to kick start your career in Physics and you accidentally run over a woman who happens to be running away from a gang of mobsters. She is a striptease dancer whose father was a top secret agent, and has given her something important before he is killed. Now it’s up to you to protect her and find out what the mysterious artefact is. Well, it had me hooked. But to be honest… even though I have not completely finished the game things had become so obscure throughout the game’s progression that I honestly lost interest in the main story. I am more interested in solving the puzzles and getting it over with more than anything. Perhaps I am loosing patience, but I don’t really feel why my character needs or wants to complete this adventure. Tex Murphy needed to save the world, Manny Calavera wants to uncover the wave of corruption in the department of death, Ben wants to clear his gang’s name and avenge Malcolm Corely’s death, and now Brian wants to find out the meaning behind an artefact. Hmm… not as exciting to me. But then again, like I said, I have yet to finish it completely, so lets hope it leads to something that will blow my mind… but considering I am already ¾ through, I should have been hooked onto something big by now… for that is the rule of scriptwriting. I will wait and see.


The Adventure Feel:

Well, this game is definitely an adventure. And does a fair enough job of pulling it off… but it is no where near as cinematic as the classics I have mentioned, and I was surprised to find that certain parts that would have looked great with cut-scenes were replaced with simple blank screen and voice-overs. The intro felt REALLY good and I was thinking we were onto a winner, but as it progressed it was as if they were trying to be too funny and ‘out-there’, and with this many stereotypes in one game it gets pretty tiering.



My overall Wrap:

Graphics: 9
Sound: 6.5
Music: 7.5
Acting: 6.5
Puzzles: 5
Story: TBA
The Adventure Feel: 7

Overall: 6.5


I will keep you posted on how it pans out at the end. A decent adventure game, and worth a look, but I was glad I payed only $19.95 for it, because at full price I would be a little dirty. Perhaps I am just loosing patience, I don't know... but if Full Throttle can still entertain me surely I still got the right adventure vibe resonating through me right?

Only adventure fanatics and I mean REAL fanatics would rate this game ‘up-there’: but with the big P.I. in the sky running the show up there it's a pretty select club, and this game has no membership unfortunately.

-Cub. =o)

Interesting.....


I lost interest after the scene at the museum. Dont know exactly why I just did.

I pretty much agree with you. It's a decent adventure game in many ways, but just like you I lost interest in the story. This isn't a good sign at all. And some of the puzzles are quite frustrating (not in a good way). 6/10 would be my verdict. But that comes from having high demands on adventure games, not the least when it comes to story. And some parts of the game would rate much higher.

Hopefully they have listened to the gamers and made some changes for Runaway 2.

I played this through once and haven't gone back to replay since. I did enjoy it, but I guess not enough to replay it. I agree that some of the situations could've been solved so logically, but you are for no reason forced to take the long and ill-logical way around it.
Not one of my favourite games, but I'm still looking forward for the sequel.

I enjoyed runaway......it looked nice but some of the story elements seemed a bit stuck together....it wasnt a grim fandango or mi3.....perhaps something got lost in translation tho. Despite its flaws it was fun and enjoyable adventure. Get it and play it if you havnt.

I didn't really like it. I tried to give it a chance, and played up to the museum part. Then I stopped, and I think I threw it away, into the trash where it belongs.

No really, it's that bad. You know why? Because, it's a game that just isn't fun. Games are supposed to be fun, right? First and foremost, you can have a game with an amazing story (Primal), or quite impressive art direction (Devil May Cry), but when the game itself is as fun as watching paint dry, none of it matters.

So, in saying that, the idea of spending the entire game dragging my mouse along the screen in search of something to click on that I can't quite spot that happens to be in the far right corner behind a box and is the size of a pixel just isn't fun to me. So I don't care.

Buy your copy, hate it, and throw it in the trash!

Vracar wrote:I didn't really like it. I tried to give it a chance, and played up to the museum part. Then I stopped, and I think I threw it away, into the trash where it belongs.

No really, it's that bad. You know why? Because, it's a game that just isn't fun. Games are supposed to be fun, right? First and foremost, you can have a game with an amazing story (Primal), or quite impressive art direction (Devil May Cry), but when the game itself is as fun as watching paint dry, none of it matters.

So, in saying that, the idea of spending the entire game dragging my mouse along the screen in search of something to click on that I can't quite spot that happens to be in the far right corner behind a box and is the size of a pixel just isn't fun to me. So I don't care.

Buy your copy, hate it, and throw it in the trash!

So this means you think all point and click games with at least modest pixel hunting are bad? That's a whole heck of a lot of games.

Pixel hunting is a feature. Some like it, I don't. Still I do enjoy playing point and click games, and sometimes use walkthroughs if there is something I don't have the patience to find.

The pixel hunting in Runaway happens to be some of the worst I've seen. Combined with the illogical puzzles, and it just gets worse.

But yeah, I've realized I don't like games that are about pixel hunting. I like games like "Day of the Tentacle", where all the objects are big and vibrant.

I've also realized I don't really like adventue games. Exceptions include...

The Pandora Directive
Any game with Tim Schafer as the lead developer. He's a genius!
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Also, how is pixel hunting a feature? Imagine the back cover of a game. Highly advanced puzzles! Amazing graphics! Pixel hunting! It just doesn't make sense. It's not a feature, it's a hinderence. Pixel hunting exists because the art team failed to convey an important object with enough significance to stand out.

I think I agree with you vracar...

Especially when, for example, you need to do something like cut a piece of string, you find a box of scalpels standing out like a saw thumb, but you cannot get them... instead you have to hunt for 1 pixels worth of hot-sopt which are linked to some hidden pair of scissors!

I think it frustrates me when you freedom is limited by the poor intelligence of the main character! An example; In Runaway, you have to wake someone up with water... instead of grabbing the many objects that would easily hold water and filling it up in the sink which was available, you have to find the components to make a makeshift flamethrower and set off the fire sprinker system! And your character is meant to be hiding from people!

Damn frustrating!

-Cub. =o)

Cubase wrote:I think it frustrates me when you freedom is limited by the poor intelligence of the main character! An example; In Runaway, you have to wake someone up with water... instead of grabbing the many objects that would easily hold water and filling it up in the sink which was available, you have to find the components to make a makeshift flamethrower and set off the fire sprinker system! And your character is meant to be hiding from people!

Hehe that sounds pretty funny
Sounds pretty obvious they were trying to make things 'more challenging' but in a totally wrong way...

Vracar wrote:Also, how is pixel hunting a feature? Imagine the back cover of a game. Highly advanced puzzles! Amazing graphics! Pixel hunting! It just doesn't make sense. It's not a feature, it's a hinderence. Pixel hunting exists because the art team failed to convey an important object with enough significance to stand out.

Needing a keen eye to spot things in your environment to pick up or use is a feature. Quite intentional, and one that is used in most adventure games. It's just a matter of how difficult they try to make it, and how difficult it turns out to be.

The game looks pretty slick, I'll admit. I'm hoping that abstract way of solving puzzles is simply just because the game is trying to be quirky. Otherwise, that sounds like a horrid game design.

~Keck