By Kurt Kalata
Pendulo Studio themselves started as independent studio in the mid-90s, and made a game called "Igor: Objetivo Uikokahonia", the first graphic adventure developed in Spain. The studio is something of a source of national pride for the country, being one of the few that had created a bona fide hit, at least around Europe.
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: A Road Adventure - IBM PC (2001)
European Cover
European Cover
Runaway: A Road Adventure
From the get go, Runaway presents a number of problems, most of which has to do with the weak writing. The most prominent issue stems from her hero himself - Brian is an awkward, nerdy character, who exuberantly comments on every single thing that you do. You can't try to solve a puzzle or pick something up without him remarking "Yes!" or "That will do it!" and then reiterating the situation out loud. Many works of fiction revolve around hapless underdogs, but they need to be at least somewhat charming. Brian isn't, because nothing that comes out of his mouth is ever even remotely funny. Each of the game's six chapters are introduced with Brian sitting against a black background, regaling his story in flashbacks and elaborating on the crazy situations he's gotten himself into. It would've been much more beneficial to, you know, actually show them, instead of having some mook talk about his TOTALLY CRAZY escapades. The running theme is Brian's evolution from a weenie to a totally cool dude, although how his adventures triggers this change isn't entirely evident. The only note is that Brian switches clothes a few times throughout the game, a welcome albeit primarily useless feature.
The subpar writing completely affects everything. Brian's prime motivation throughout the whole adventure is due to his infatuation with Gina, who's largely absent through most of the journey anyway. The narrative simply assumes that her pretty hair and ample melons are compelling enough characteristics, despite the fact that she has a somewhat bitchy attitude. It just doesn't work. Furthermore, there are some moments that should be funny, like when Brian ends up stranded in the desert along with a trio of crossdressers. It's like the developers thought that the very concept of transvestites was hilarious enough to carry itself, without actually going through the effort to write any jokes. Many of characters like to namedrop famous movies and other pop culture references, but never to any great affect.
Then there are the witless supporting characters, like the upbeat techonerd girl Sushi and her gang of hippie pals. One of them really likes marijuana, and that's about as funny as the jokes get. Even worse is the UFO conspiracy nut Joshua, a vaguely offensive Asian caricature with gigantic glasses, embarrassing buck teeth and an unfortunately racist accent. They might be slightly funny in concept, but nothing that comes out of their mouth is. Maybe the dialogue is actually much better in its native Spanish, but in English, it's all quite bland. The English voice acting doesn't help either. Although most of it isn't explicitly bad (despite one actor clearly voicing several roles), it is quite dull, and never relates any of the humor that's assumedly supposed to be there. It doesn't help that a good chunk of the game is just a random series of escapades up until the final chapter, when the plot takes a few interesting twists, but it's a bit too little, too late.
Beyond the story, the game isn't terribly well designed either. The puzzle solving is all rigidly linear, because Brian won't pick up certain objects unless he knows there's a specific use for it. This means that you'll spend lots of time looking for event triggers and then retracing your steps to find what you weren't allowed to grab in the first place. The artists also had the terrible idea of sticking tiny objects against dark shadows, making the hotspots incredibly difficult to find.
The puzzle designs themselves constantly devolve into absurdity. In one instance, you need to find some lubricant so you can fix a machine gun. One of the crossdressers has some tanning lotion, but won't let you have it because her tan's not done. In order to obtain it from her, you need to steal her sunglasses and dip them in a pool of oil. The logic is that the oil makes the glasses darker, so when you give them back to her, she'll think her tan is darker than it really is, so she willfully givers you the lotion. There are all kinds of problems with this puzzle. First off, if you can steal her sunglasses without her noticing, why can't you steal her lotion too? Secondly, if the tanning lotion works as suitable lubricant, why doesn't the pool of oil? Thirdly, under no circumstance would oil make sunglasses darker - it would just look really messy.
This is far from the only moronic puzzle. One character will give you a trowel, except he accidentally chucks out the window, where it lands in a dirty trough. Brian won't man up and just stick his hand into it to grab it. Instead, you need to find a flower pot and drop it from a ledge into the trough, displacing the water and causing the trowel to overflow out onto the ground. Try not to think about the physics about this, much less the stupidity behind it.
These are both quite moronic, but there's an even more troublesome one, one more representative of Runaway's problems as a whole. Out in the desert, you need to get into a shack, which is predictably locked. However, one of the guards lets loose a hint that the local fire ant population, which are astoundingly vicious, are attracted to peanut butter. The only jar of peanut butter you find is empty, so you need to make your own by grabbing an army helmet, mixing butter and peanuts together, and leaving it to melt in the sun. Then, you smear your homemade concoction on to the shed, attracting the ants to eat it entirely. It's kind of stupid, because anyone can clearly tell you that's not how to make peanut butter. But a puzzle like this would work in something like Monkey Island, because it's
the sort of ridiculous game where that kind of lateral logic applies. Runaway, on the other hand, might look cartoony, but the world itself, outside of the puzzles and a few isolated instances involving aliens and mysticism, is largely grounded in reality.
Indeed, Runaway's biggest problem is that its tone is all over the place. Early in the game, you meet a goofy surfer dude janitor, who, shortly thereafter, is brutally shot to death. That's...not funny at all. Later, when Gina accidentally falls down a mine shaft and is presumed dead, there's a scene where Brian mopes and remembers their sparse time together, complete with a ghostly montage scene and sappy music. Here, Brian is monumentally shaken up that some girl he just met and has spent maybe five minutes of completely charmless screen time together. Is this totally absurd scene meant to be ironic? Or are we actually expected to take this seriously? If the game's supposed to be a comedic adventure, why is it so violent, and not in the light hearted Wile E. Coyote kind of way? And if the game is trying to be a vaguely serious mafia heist story, then why does it keep trying to be funny? It never pulls off the balance it's aiming for, and just comes across as really uncomfortable.
It's a real shame that Runaway is so terribly written, because the game does indeed look damn good. The backgrounds are all hand drawn and scanned at a very high 1024x768 resolution, which only get prettier as you get farther into the adventure. The art style recalls European comic books, fundamentally different than the American variety, and lends a nice bit of variation from the norm. The characters are rendered in cel shaded 3D, with filters applied to appear two dimensional. It purposefully limits the framerate so it looks choppier than normal 3D, but at the same time, looks much more similar to a classic 2D game. Overall it doesn't look quite as pleasant looking as Revolution's Broken Sword, it still looks pretty damn good. It's also a stark contrast to all of the other games released around the same time, like Micronic's Syberia and Funcom's The Longest Journey, which uses a darker, more realistic style. The only real failing comes in the cutscenes, whose limited facial animations make everyone look like robots when speaking.
The music is strangely jazzy and dramatic, another aspect which totally clashes with the tone of the game. The poppy opening vocal song, suitably dubbed "Runaway" and sung by Vera Dominguez, then of the Spanish band Liquor and more recently of My Haircut. Her English is a bit slurred, but it's a surprisingly catchy song, if a bit cheesy.
It's easy to see why Runaway holds some appeal. At the time it was released, it was an oasis amongst a desert of other dry and/or badly designed European entries, and the fact that it consciously emulated the classic style of point and click adventuring was a distinct plus. While it may have seemed fresh, and its usages of modern technology makes it look totally fantastic, beneath that veneer is dully written and questionably designed. If you can forgive its sloppy writing and annoying caricatures, it's possible to enjoy it, but it's nowhere near the level of classic adventure games.
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway: A Road Adventure
Runaway, a trilogy of adventure games developed by Spanish developers Pendulo Studios, might be one of the most controversial series in the genre. When the first was released in Europe in 2001, many proclaimed the cartoonish adventure to be a return to form, the true successor to Lucasarts' legendarily humorous. Others found it a harrowingly shallow experience, one with gorgeous graphics but completely lacking both the sole and the wit of the genre's golden years. Despite the gigantic schism in the audience, Runaway spawned two sequels, to the delight of fans and apathy of everyone else.
Runaway tells the story of the nerdy Brian Basco, just as he's preparing to make a cross country journey from New York to California. Just before his trek gets started, he accidentally runs over a gorgeous nightclub dancer named Gina Timmins, who's being pursued by a group of unpleasant gangsters. Out of obligation, Brian takes her to the hospital and helps her recover, once again saving her life from her pursuers. Once she regains consciousness, Gina recounts the events that got the both of them in hot water. Not only was she a witness of a brutal murder, but she's also in possession of a mysterious cross passed down from her father. After checking in with one of Brian's friends, the two learn that the cross is an artifact from the Hopi Indian tribe, but before they can investigate further, the two are captured by the gangster henchmen. Separated from each other, it's up to Brian alone to not only save Gina once again, but discover the secret behind her cross.
