Runaway: Dream of the Turtle
© N/A

Mania Grade: C
Platform: PC
ESRB: T
Genre: Point and Click
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: Pendulo Studios
Publisher: CDV / Focus Home Interactive
Suggested Retail: $29.99
Graphics: B
Sound: C
Gameplay: C
Replay: D
Fun Factor: C

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"Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle"

Do you enjoy point and click adventures? Well I used to back as a wee lad but times have changed since then. Point and click adventures are almost a thing of the past as newer game types have all but killed this genre, but it does not mean that these games are obsolete? It is great to go back to your roots every once in a while to re-experience what games used to be like, but truthfully I have evolved being a fan of these games. It seems that there are more engaging ways to tell a story, but I understand some stories can only be told in this method. It would probably just be weird to have this game turned into an RPG or even a FPS. 

This is the sequel to the original Runaway game, and it starts off on the ground where Brian is talking to a friend over the computer, while looking back on the recent past and trying to figure out what to do next. While this bit of storyline is slightly amusing, it does not help you out with your current objective. He reflects on how he and his girlfriend Gina were flying in an airplane before the pilot falls unconscious. Brian straps his girlfriend into the only parachute on the plane and kicks her out the door, leaving him to try and survive the crash. Luckily he does and after the crash he must find a way to meet up with her again. 

The controls are similar to any other point and click adventure that you have experienced before. There are areas that you must walk through hovering your mouse over possibly anything that you think you can interact with. When interacting with the environment you can either attempt to simply look at the object, or you can try and pick the item up. Of course some items cannot be picked up, and looking at other items will get you nowhere. Mainly when you find any item you will need to either examine it or pick it up to progress deeper into the storyline and hopefully continue in the game. 

Now the annoying part about point and click adventures are the puzzle aspects. Before you are allowed to move onto the next part of the storyline you must experience each and every piece of the current map. This means that if you even missed the smallest piece item, perhaps just a shard of glass, you could spend ten minutes just trying to figure out what you could have missed. The other irritating thing involves needing to combine current tools by having them interact with each other. Sometimes these things will not interact with each other until you try and fail to do things a different way. This can be very annoying since you should be able to skip a few steps. Sometimes these little steps are just annoying as well, which lengthens the game without a good reason to. One way of showing this involves welding a broken key back together with a magnifying glass, and then after using the key you find out it is too large because of the weld, you must use a piece of glass to file it down to the proper size.  

The graphics of the game are very appealing. There is a general character theme of cell shading, while basic flat pictures for the background. The character designs are done quite well, though they lack fluent actions. A character will be unable to move their head and talk in the cut-scenes, which is a little odd.  Backgrounds range from being beautiful to mediocre. Most of it is top-notch work and a joy to look at, but obviously the poor stuff makes you wish to pass them without care in the world. The sound work is interesting as well, where it seems to be geared towards those who like boy bands. I personally did not mind the music, but I felt that it could be a bit more engaging. The voice acting in the game was a little on the light side for my liking. While there was plenty of talking the main character did not seem to be interested in what was going on around him. 

In the end, this will be one of the better point and click games on the shelves. If you are interested in those types of games you should find a lot of enjoyment with them, perhaps even more than any other genre title this year. The game contains a lot of humour, like a drunken monkey, but it also teased a bit of nudity, but it did not show anything major. It seems they mixed several different age ranges into a pot, rather than trying to market the game to any specific one, which I think turned the game into a bit of a lost opportunity. While it is a better point and click adventure, it is not a better overall game. It seems to fall into the role of an average game for the average gamer. Wrapping up, Captain Gordon gives Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle a C. 

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? CaptainGordonEdward@Gmail.com