 Review By: Jared Black |
Developer: | Pendulo Studios |
| Publisher: | CDV | |
| Genre: | Adventure | |
| ESRB: | Teen | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | · P4 1.6GHz/AMD Athlon XP 1600 · 256MB RAM · Nvidia GeForce 2 MX/ATI Radeon 7000 or higher · 7GB hard drive space |
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| Buy Now: |   |
Unfortunately, the conventional clunky gameplay mechanics that turned many gamers off of the genre in the first place are still present here, but at least Pendulo made some effort to lessen the sting of them a bit. Sure, you’ve got plenty of standard switch flipping, ingredient gathering, and item-combining puzzles that won’t tax even the most novice adventurers. Yet, there are several occasions where the solutions to problems don’t make any sense, forcing the player to resort to the tried and true method of pixel-hunting and combining everything until he or she stumbles across the right answer needed to advance. Still, once you finally do stumble across the answer, it almost always involves using objects logically (ex: using a chainsaw to cut something). As always with this genre, the rule of thumb is to pick up anything not nailed down, and get as creative as possible when trying to think of uses for certain objects.
Worse than the pixel-hunting though, there were times in the game where it was painfully obvious to me what the next move to be made was, but the game still forced me to jump through hoops (such as trying out incorrect things first) and follow the proper procedure before I could actually advance to the next area. This is even more frustrating than pixel hunting, since you can at least proceed quickly when all you have to do is find the right thing you need and trigger it. Then again, most of the time other characters provided clues to what I needed to do next (even if it was buried under reams of dialog), and Brian himself would frequently point something out when it required a leap in logic the player might not make. Also, the pop-up messages when dragging one item over another usually give clues as to whether a combination of items may or may not work. So for the most part, the game flows better than your average old-school adventure game, but in the end it’s still just an old-school style adventure game.
What sold me on Runaway before I even got the game was its unique art style, and indeed the final product doesn’t disappoint. From Hawaii to Alaska (and several other locales), each location is drawn with a semi-realistic, but unique style. The shadowing in particular is impressive and virtually every area has some animation to liven it up a bit. In general, there’s a great amount of detail to be found throughout the game, and the treasure room in particular (you’ll know it when you see it, trust me) must’ve taken forever to draw. You only need to look at the screenshots we’ve included here to see that the game’s pleasing to the eyes, even if some animations are repeated a bit too often. Yeah, honey, we saw you provocatively flip your hair ten times before now, so give it a rest already!
The sound is a more hit-or-miss though, with some decent voice acting mixed in with a couple of grating characters. Brian is voiced adequately enough, although conversation with other characters occasionally feels disjointed and doesn’t flow well. The rest of the characters range from the very good to the very bad, and are hampered by some lame jokes and stiff writing. When the jokes are good though, they’re very good, and I found myself laughing out loud on several occasions. The music while exploring is pretty good also and appropriate for each location, but the Euro-trash that plays at the beginning of the game and during certain cutscenes is boy band quality in the worst way.
Bottom Line:
Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle is good enough that I now plan on going back and playing the original game, but it’s not quite the masterpiece I hoped it’d be. On the whole though, it’s a charming and entertaining adventure game with a unique look and enough personality to largely overcome its shortcomings.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 7.1 |
Posted: 2007-03-14 15:07:46 PST