Whispering Rogue

Shade's taken total control of:              

Runaway: A Twist of Fate for PC

How many years was I waiting on this game? 3…4? Whatever it was, it shares the same shelf with Guns N’ Roses: Chinese Democracy- They made us wait WAY too long for such a sub-par release and we may never know why!

Runaway: A Twist of Fate is the third instalment in the trilogy- Runaway: A Road Adventure and Runaway: Dream of the Turtle coming before it- and it really is a pretty bad conclusion to an absolutely stunning trilogy!

GAMEPLAY

Even if you hadn’t picked up any of the other Runaway games,the gameplay is very simple to get a hang of- Just a typical point-n-click adventure game really, nothing much more to say about it.It was fun, a little too easy sometimes, but there was no annoyingpixel-hunting or combining items that made no sense- It was all pretty straight forward as long as you knew what you were doing! But if youweren’t too sure of where to go next, there is actually an in-game helpsystem- where you effectively contact Pendulo Studios and a familiarface helps you out of the bind you’re in. At first, this system wasmeant to be a little cryptic- give you a clue of a clue- but in the endI think they got bored and it couldn’t have been more obvious what todo. I got stuck a few times, but the hint system was so blatant andobvious it hardly made anything a real challenge, so that just suckedthe fun right out of the whole game.

GRAPHICS

Theanimation that Pendulo Studios turns out is just brilliant- Bright,colourful, has that awesome cartoony affect, unfortunately there isn’tmuch expression going on- all the characters look relatively the sameno matter what they may be feeling, but nevertheless everything isabsolutely gorgeous and if you select PROGRESS from the menu, you canwatch all the cut-scenes you experienced so far to view a sort ofmovie- Very cool. But that’s about it.

MUSIC

SinceRunaway 3 was so far behind the first 2, Pendulo were unable to get anyof the original voices that made the series so iconic in the beginning-the voice actress who voices Nancy Drew in the games of the same name,played Gina at the start giving her an almost Boston-Italian dialectnow she just sounds like a stuck-up tart with a chip on her shoulder,and the voice of Brian was done in a slightly nerdy way (without beingannoying) and slightly loveable, but in the latest addition, he soundslike a superficial surfer that you want to punch repeatedly, and formost of the game he looks like a junkie and sounds like a criminal.

Themusic on its own was good enough, not really meant to be a big part ofthe games, so you can’t really judge it one way or the other. Well, Iguess you can, but you shouldn’t.

STORYLINE

Runawayis definitely a series where the writers didn’t think the storythrough- the first game finished very nicely and completely, with thesecond seeing the lead characters taking a ‘vacation’, but the third…It was one of those games that told you about all that happened in aflashback, what I mean is that in the 2nd game, you were ona mission to find your girlfriend- trite but fun- and I am pretty damnpositive I didn’t find her- but in the 3rd I apparently didand that information was only revealed to me in a flashback. Man, thatpissed me off. The story didn’t flow- Pendulo Studios wrote the 1st game, THEN the 2nd THEN quickly penned the 3rdgame, so as not to make us wait any longer than we already bloody had!The storyline was pretty easy to figure out early on, with not too manyof its boasted ‘twists and turns’ or in fact any of the humour (don’tthink I laughed once actually), and it switched between Brian (thehero) and Gina (his girlfriend) but when you played as Brian, you wereplaying the past. UGH, all these constant time warps were reallyfrustrating and really screwed up the fluidity of the story.

Rifling through the adventure titles at the store, found Runaway: A Road Adventure-an absolute diamond in the rough that completely stunned me when Iloaded it up on my computer. Then I wanted more, so bought the nexttitle Dream of the Turtle which again took my breath away withthe humour, the voices, the little stuffed dog that I could fill withlemonade and make pee- All the little things that made the games reallyspecial. Then they dump A Twist of Fate on us. Hmm… Not thesmartest business decision ever made, but so anticipated they had topull ‘something’ outta there arses and fast! It really was a sadconclusion, and unfortunately all the amazing graphics were NOT enoughto redeem this one! I think Gun N’ Roses and Pendulo Studios share thesame PR company.

TTFN- Ta Ta For Now!

Shade is an avidgamer and loves playing them just for you so we hope you enjoy thesereviews as it all just comes flowing out and it ain't stopping anytimesoon!