Runaway - A Twist of Fate Review

After 4 years since the sequel's cliff hangar, we finally get to learn what happened to Brian Basco in this third instalment of the Runaway adventure game series, Runaway - A Twist of Fate. He is accused of murder and is sent to the mental hospital of Happy Dale due to the possibility that he's crazy. However, he manages to escape and now his girlfriend Gina must help prove his innocence while trying to find him.

Gameplay

Odd thing about the game is that you have to create a profile before you can start playing and you're even given the option to set a password. First time I came across something like this and feels pointless to be honest.

Most of the story is told backwards which kind of acts as an incentive for you to play on. Especially if you're interested in how the story continues like me. You play the present as Gina and then the past with the original hero, Brian until they finally reunite. Puzzles seem easier this time round because they're not as bizarre as the others where there some very odd item combinations to figure out. This time it's a little more down-to-earth.

The interesting thing is you actually switch between characters to solve some puzzles unlike most adventure games which adds a little element of fresh gameplay.

And if you remember playing adventure games in the old days, there was something called "pixel hunting" because you had to move the pointer everywhere to see what you could click. Fortunately there's a "hotspot" option to show you everything you can use now if you don't like playing the old skool way.

Also, it's good that you can make the protagonist jump from place to place so you don't have to wait for Gina or Brian to walk from one point to the other. Especially when you have to keep walking everywhere to collect and combine items but in this case, you don't have too many screens to jump between and there's few items to find. I have yet to come across any decoy items that throws you off the right answer.

Presentation

The game's not very up-to-date running at a maximum resolution of 1280x720. If you set the resolution beyond that, it'll have some big ugly black frame. Other than that, the cell shaded graphics have a fairly good hand-drawn look to it all and feels very much like the prequels. Characters still look a bit expressionless and wooden most of the time but they haven't skipped out on the sensual fan service if you like that kind of thing.

Funnily enough, there seems to be surround sound support although the central speaker isn't used for dialogue. Brian's voice sounds a little too faked than before.

The previous Runaway games were funny - Not quite as entertaining as Lucasart's classic Grim Fandango or Monkey Island series (the original one) but, still funny. I'm glad it stays the same here with Gina and Brian making smart comments about anything you choose to look at or use during the game. They even talk to the player once in a while and there's plenty of references to other works.

And since it's been over 10 years since the first game, I'm sure most people will have forgotten most of the story so it's good to see they do a recap of both prequels.

Summary

Runaway A Twist of Fate seems like a nice wrap up to the Spanish adventure game series with the same sense of humour that made the two prequels fun to play but with puzzles that makes more sense. Probably why it feels a lot shorter this time round too. Now if the presentation was more up-to-date...