"A ridiculous and far-fetched sequel that tries too hard."

You may not have even heard of it but the first Runaway was fairly successful (both in terms of sales and critical acclaim) here in Europe and a sequel was inevitable and to a certain extent welcome. Not this continuation though.

Plot:
Runaway 2 picks ups a couple of hours after the end of the first one. A lot of the repellent characters from the previous game return so even though there`s a brief explanation of the plot of first game in the option menu I think it would be a good idea to play the first one first if you are planning on giving this one a chance.

Okay, the first Runaway wasn`t groundbreaking at all as far as story goes, but at least it was serviceable, which is not Runaway 2`s case. This time the story is way too over the top and all over the place, filled with absurd sci-fi references, pathetic attempts at zany humor and even more nonsensical and incredibly uninteresting and irritating and unappealing and stereotypical and mind-bendingly unfunny characters. Sometimes the situations that come up are so ridiculous and random that you can`t help but feel vaguely amused, however most of the time they are just dumb and there is one particular part that not only isn`t funny in the slightest, but also horribly contrived and pretty offensive towards women. I honestly don`t know what were they thinking when they decided to include that.

And then we have the mighty ending. Let`s be honest, most video game endings stink, but Runaway 2 sets a whole new standard of stinkyness. It is such a sick joke that words cannot even begin to describe what an inhumanly sick joke it is, so I`ll just say that everyone directly related to it in any way should be deeply ashamed of themselves, you don`t do that to your audiences m`kay?

Graphics:
This sequel features the same graphic style of its predecessor, in fact I would say it looks exactly the same as far as quality goes, the only thing that`s substantially better are the fantastic in-game character animations. Sadly, but expectedly, the characters have been updated for modern MTV times, which basically means their new ``hip`` look sucks even more than the original, which was merely lame. Brian is no longer a nerdy teacher, this time he`s basically a Gossip Girl-like idiot with stupid hair and a goatee. As for the women, Gina and the rest of the female cast look either like porn stars or downtown skaters.

The cut scenes are ok except when there is a close-up of someone talking. Just like in the first game they are incredibly poorly animated and that, together with the nauseating character designs make a huge and terrible contrast.

Music:
The brothel music from the first game has been replaced with nauseating Backstreet Boys-like songs and Hawaiian themes. The Hawaiian themes are ok and this time there is music through the whole adventure instead of just during the key parts of the story, but you can`t manipulate the voices and the music individually and the music is so low in the end it is nearly impossible to listen to it properly without having to endure unbearably loud voices.

The Spanish voice acting is every bit as good as that of the first game, which means it`s ok but nothing fancy despite the well respected actors behind the dub. As for the English one, it`s hockey and sometimes the actors clearly try to hard, but it`s passable.

Gameplay:
The interface remains exactly the same, and although it is not the most simple point and click system you could possibly imagine it`s very traditional and works perfectly, even if you have never played a graphic adventure before.

Too bad the puzzles are totally outlandish and over the top this time around. In the first Runaway there was a puzzle in which you had to do something unbelievably stupid with a bunch of lipsticks, but that was pretty much the only particularly ridiculous part in the whole game and it wasn`t that hard to figure out. In this sequel the more improbable the solution the more likely it may work. The point is, the difficulty is quite high, specially during the first two chapters, so chances are you`ll get stuck every two steps, which means you should better have a lot of patience and a high tolerance for highly implausible or downright stupid ways to make your way.

Fortunately it seems like the makes of the game were well aware of this unfortunate circumstance because Joshua, the sorry and almost unbereably ugly nerd from the first game gives you hints whenever you ask him (and you can ask him as many times as you want). The problem with this is that it makes everything way too easy, but at the same time it is hard to resist the temptation to pay him a visit, specially after wasting two hours trying to solve an incredibly obvious puzzle simply because what you have to do to get it right is beyond ridiculous. Anyway this stops being a problem once you figure out that the story is not good enough to waste too much time playing, you`ll just want to finish the damn thing as quickly as possible so use this at will, it is not worth the effort.

This time you can also choose which chapter you want to start playing right from the very beginning, which is something I have never understood. I mean what`s the point, seriously, who in their right mind would skip entire chapter?, because if you get stuck, isn`t that what walkthroughts and guides are made for?. And if you want to replay a certain sequence again, isn`t it easier to load a saved game and then move on?, not to mention that I can`t imagine anyone eager to replay a single sequence of this debacle after completing the whole game, and that is assuming you are patient enough to play till the end.

Although this may sound like nitpicking, another small annoyance is that you can`t overwrite your saved games, you have to create a new one every time you want to save. Other than being incredibly dumb it is not a problem at all because you can easily delete your old saves in one second but what the hell?. Another weird thing is that every time you clear a chapter the game automatically deletes said chapter and installs the next one. This is automatic and therefore not a big deal (kind of works like a loading screen) but, well, it`s odd, just as much as the amount of memory the installation requires considering that you only have one chapter at a time in your hard drive.

Overall:
Dream of the Turtle tries too hard to look and feel hip and cool with its colorful and exotic locations, big breasted half naked babes, flamboyant (annoying) characters, absurd sci-fi elements and lame jokes but fails miserably, I mean the first one wasn`t a masterpiece but at least it was focused and reasonably straightforward, this is just stupid and completely outlandish. Not only this follow up fails to live up to the first one, it`s a terrible game in its own right and if this is any indication of the future of the franchise then I`m over with it.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/22/09

Game Release: Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle (EU, 03/09/07)