RLH: Run Like Hell

"Half-Life in a Third Person view"

Ok, so I'm walking through our local Video King rental shop. ''Grandia Xtreme? Tired of it. Wild Arms 3? Looks too cartoony. Suikoden 3? Own it. Run Like Hell!? Hahahaha, what a name!'' Almost passed the game up when I saw an Interplay logo staring back at me. Picked it up, read the back, and decided that I was tired of RPGs for a while. Don't let the... ''original'' name fool you. If you like shooters, you should enjoy this one.

Gameplay: Overall 7/10
Controls: 9/10
Easy and customizable. If you've played the Resident Evil series you already know the basis of the controls. You have aim, fire, secondary fire, dodge, and reload. If it weren't for the menu controls this'd get a 10. Now I'm not saying the controls are all that confusing. It's just that they needlessly mapped buttons and split control between both sticks when one could have easily performed almost any action on the menu. Just wasteful.

AI: 6/10
Ok, I have to give the programmers props here, at least for the baddies The AI of the baddies here realistic. Slow to react at times, but those times were rare. On the other hand, the companion AI had a literally fatal flaw. ''Oh, there's a target. My friend's in the way? I hope he can move before this plasma bolt hits him.'' The companion AI makes no checks to see if it's attack is obstructed. Whether a box or your body, they'll blast away. Oddly enough, if they hit a box they'll keep firing, but attempt to correct their aim. If you're in the way, you better move, because they sure as hell won't. There are also times where a target is 2 feet away from they and they decide that cleaning their fingernails is more important that killing their enemy, though this is rare. Also, they do not know how to control a crowd. Sure, if something comes close they'll knock it away and start shooting, but if there's more than one target on them they make no move to get to a better position. They just allow all but their current target to wail on them. Thankfully from my experience, your companions can't die.

Difficulty: 7/10
During my play I only changed from the starting weapon when I was forced to to get through one area, then to a better one that used the same, low power, infinite ammo as the starting weapon. Though the AI was good, either the baddies' strength was under par, or your life was too high. The bosses were pretty well balanced, though the final bosses were less than impressive. What bothered me the most was that, wherever there was something you could pick up or interact with, a ''!'' appeared, taking away from the difficulty by handing you everything.

Audio: Overall 10/10
Sound Effects: 10/10
Weapons sounded real. Mechanical background sounded real. Alien sounds fit their sources. And nothing was overpowering. No complaints here.

Music: 9/10
I'm kinda torn here. The music was great, no doubt about it. The problem is that sometimes it didn't fit. I'm not going to let that knock too much off, since the music was so good.

Voice Acting: 10/10
Can't say I saw... err... heard a problem here.

On a side note, this game takes on Interplay's views on ''language control''. In other words, there is no language control. Nothing crude, but expect a couple uses of the ''F'' word, so to speak. In my gaming career, this is the first console game to contain it. Just a warning to those players that are shy around such language. I, however, will not ding the game's score for this, because I don't mind such language at all.

Graphics: Overall 8/10
In game: 8/10
There were a couple sharp corners, some of the characters that talked during non-FMV scenes didn't move their lips, and some stretch effects were used instead of using another joint on some of the models, though this was noticeable only during a scarce few scenes. Other than that, character models were smooth and well designed. Flat backgrounds were flawless, from what I say. 3D and organic backgrounds were sharp at times, but with the lighting used this was rarely seen.

FMV: 7/10
Two problems I saw here:
During spoken segments, the characters lips made little attempt to shape the words, and stretch effects were used at times instead of adding another joint. Other than that I have to say they did pretty well. Nice, smooth, and realistic.

Play Value: 9/10
I would definitely rent this game, but I wouldn't really buy it unless I really wanted to add something to my collection.

Replay Value: 5/10
Unless you like blowing the hell out of the same baddies over and over with no variation, I doubt you'll play this game too many times after you beat it the first time.

On a side note, I have to drop this game's overall score by at least one point I do not like it when a game is used to market a product, in this case BAWLS Energy Drink.

Overall: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/02, Updated 11/13/02