I played the original Runaway long ago, so I was excited to see there were two sequels for this game. I'll admit I don't remember a lot of Runaway 1, but I don't think it was as "meh" as "The Dream of the Turtle" was. The story leaves a lot to be desired. Mainly because it ends on a pretty significant cliffhanger that, as I understand it, isn't really addressed in Runaway 3. Which is a shame because I was starting to get intrigued. Instead it just rolls the credits. There was no indication as to what was coming. With regards to the puzzles, I had to use guides pretty early on. Being an "older" point and click game, the pixel hunt is real. Many times I thought I had inspected or grabbed everything, moving all over the place, going through all the dialog options over and over, only to have the guide tell me that I missed one little item in one spot. The pixel hunt shouldn't be part of the puzzle. Because a few of the puzzles are just like "WTF??" on their own. The "Watch-Fork" on the yacht is the archetypical example. There's no way I would've come up with that on my own. Puzzles should be challenging, sure, but that was out of left-field. It reminded me a bit of Grim Fandango, which to me is the worst when it comes to nonsensical solutions. As far as visuals, I did have some issues right at the start with stuttering cutscenes. A free program called dgVoodoo helped solved that. I thought the art and style was great. Lots of vivid, detailed locations. I thought the dialog was fine, but a lot of the voice acting was average at best. All in all, I spent probably 20-25 hrs actually playing the game. Was I entertained? Yeah. Did I enjoy it? Mostly, I guess. But the cliffhanger and a few bizarre solutions definitely left me disappointed in the end. I bought this game at 80% off. That's the only way it's worth it. Anyway, on to Runaway 3, which I hear is a must better experience.
