Run Like Hell – XB – Review

Run Like Hell
slipped under the radar last year when it was released for the Playstation 2
just before the holiday crunch.  Billed as part action/adventure and part
survival/horror, RLH didn’t enjoy much success critically and posted lackluster
sales when it hit the shelves last September.  Interplay still forged on and
decided to release RLH for the Microsoft Xbox with a new level, downloadable
content via Xbox Live, and the better looks and sound that the superior Xbox
processor offers.

RLH’s plot, one of
the stronger points of the game, tells the story of Captain Nick Conner, a
decorated war hero riding out the end of his career overseeing a science lab in
the depths of space.  Upon returning to the space station after a routine
mission to gather soil samples from asteroids, Nick and co-pilot Amanda Bethune
lose communication with the space station, find blood spilled in the ship bay,
and watch disturbing video of slaughtered space station inhabitants.  Bad turns
to worse in what follows, one of the better video game cutscenes in recent
memory (I won’t spoil it for you, but let’s just say something does a little
‘Chomp Chomp’).  It’s time for Nick to literally Run Like Hell, find a way to
defeat the aliens, and save any survivors on the space station, especially his
fiancée. 

Run Like Hell
accurately draws several comparisons to John Carpenter’s The Thing and James
Cameron’s Aliens, not only for their dark sci-fi content and xenophobic subject
material, but also for its cinematic style.  RLH does an excellent job of moving
the game along as though it were featured in the local Cineplex.  With voice
talent from Lance Henriksen (Aliens, Near Dark, and Red Faction II) and Michael
Ironside (Scanners and Sam Fischer of Splinter Cell), cutscenes that emphasize
character development, and a constantly evolving storyline, RLH plays like an
interactive movie. 

This makes or breaks the game
depending on gamer’s playing style.  RLH is constantly broken up by
inconsistencies in gameplay and lengthy cutscenes.  Although they are fairly
well done, the cutscenes will frustrate action-oriented gamers by breaking up
their alien-slaughtering flow.  Other players may get deeply involved in the
rich story and play on just to figure what the H is going on.  Run Like Hell
suffers from video game schizophrenia: is it a horror survival title or is it an
action adventure?  Is it an interactive movie or a video game?  No amount of
lithium can straighten this title out, and that may (pardon the pun) alienate
many gamers from this otherwise average title. 

The action portion
of RLH is the weakest link in the game.  Fighting aliens rapidly becomes
repetitive, and the only X-factor is how many aliens you fight at once and how
much room you have to maneuver around.  A simple targeting system (hold down the
R trigger) auto-targets aliens eliminating the need for aiming, so just sit back
and unleash your fury.  Aliens often magically drop from the ceiling, and
turning them into mincemeat is merely a matter of how fast one can press a
button.  Besides kicking the aliens down when they get too close and an
assortment of weapons (shotguns, grenade launchers, and alien weapons), there’s
little to do other than shoot like hell.  It’s a simple case of shoot or be
lunch. 

When not shooting
aliens or sitting through cutscenes, Nick Conner is either searching for an item
to advance (a crowbar to get pry open a door for example) or solving puzzles and
playing mini-games to get out of a jam.  These situations aren’t foreign to
other successful games, but when combined with the tedious gunfighting, the
tasks become mundane.  The mini-games are no more difficult than anything you’ll
find in Mario Party, but they are at times entertaining visually.  One of the
first games you’ll encounter is a simple exercise in jumping or ducking at the
right time with a hulking mass of alien in hot pursuit.   Miss time a jump and
the alien lurches closer, eventually beating Nick into the ground with his
fists.  Other mini-games include simple button mashing exercises and timely
button pushing to get out of predicaments.  If only life were that easy.

One traditionally
great thing about alien games is seeing hordes of new life forms and blowing
them to unrecognizable pieces.  For whatever reason, RLH only gives virtual
space soldiers a whopping total of three aliens to send to the alien afterlife.
Scouts look like the egg-laying trilobites that attach to human faces in the
Alien series, Cutters, the bulk of the alien army, look like the fully-grown
aliens from the Alien series, and Brutes are huge muscle heads who smash first
and ask questions later.  The aliens show little sign of intelligence, and have
only their claws as weapons.  Thankfully humans are smarter, and the
near-indestructible Brutes can be dispatched by solving simple puzzles or
piloting service robots to do the dirty work. 

The graphics of
RLH will leave pickier gamers with a lot to desire.  The overall atmosphere of
the game is incredibly dark.  Too dark.  Some of the areas of the space station
are almost pitch black, rendering navigating small rooms a huge chore.  The
darkness troubles gameplay as nearly every corner of every room needs to be
scoured for access codes, weapons and medkits, and doors to other rooms.  Many
of the characters in the game, particularly the aliens, could use a lot more
animations to bring more life to their movements.  Cutscenes are divided between
real in-game models and excellent full 3-D model cinematics.  There are some
sloppy cuts in action, and it appears to be a result of a hurried push to get
the game on shelves as soon as possible.

One of the
highlights of the game is the well done audio.  The eerie score keeps pulses
racing and the suspense thick.  Breaking Benjamin provides the industrial
soundtrack for intense battle scenes, and the designers did an excellent job of
mixing the soundtrack with the score to keep the sound fresh instead of
repetitive.  The voice talent reads like a who’s who of Sci-Fi B-movies, and
they do an excellent job voicing the characters.  The only glitch in the audio
is a minor inconsistency in the volume levels. 

Run Like Hell will
no doubt disappoint many gamers with its simple action and repetitive gameplay,
but it’s hard to deny that RLH is the future of interactive entertainment,
seamlessly combining cinematic presentation with interactive media.  Once the
gameplay catches up with the presentation, this blend of movie and gaming should
rule the industry. 

Run Like Hell is
rated M for mature with elements of Blood and Gore, Violence, and Strong
Language.

Gameplay: 5.0

Gameplay makes or
breaks a game, and unfortunately in this case breaks it.  Repetitive shooting
and exploring gets old fast, and with only three different aliens to kill, it
gets boring as well.

Graphics: 6.5

Pretty standard
graphics are masked by a severe lack of brightness.  I realize that the darkness
is supposed to add to the horror element of the game, but the low light levels
are at times ridiculous.  On the other hand, many of the cutscenes are well done
and look great, and most of the points in the score are on their account.

Sound: 8.5

When the action
gets tiresome, it’s the sound that propels the gamer to play on.  Great spooky
sci-fi score. 

Difficulty: Easy

Aside the
occasional smashing from a near indestructible Brute, the only challenge in the
game is finding time to play it.  There are more health packs in this game than
any other.

Concept: 7.0

I absolutely love
the idea of the game playing like an interactive movie.  I absolutely loathe the
fact that I enjoyed watching the cutscenes more than actually playing the game.
Once they get it right, these fusions of film and game will be awesome.

Overall: 6.0

There is a lot to
be desired in RLH, but there are several promising points in the game as well.
If you like your games with an involving storyline and easy, RLH will probably
be right down your alley.  Other gamers will find a multitude of other Xbox
titles to better occupy their time.