Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Run Like Hell

Written by John Scalzo on October 29, 2002

Full Review: Do you have the Bawls to play Run Like Hell?

Run Like Hell has been in development a long time. I mean Milton Berle long. And everyone that gets that joke is my new best friend. All joking aside, when a game is in development for a long time, people begin to make assumptions. And one of those assumptions is that any game that is delayed so many times must have something wrong with it. When you couple this with the fact that Run Like Hell was originally being designed as Silent Hill in Space where avoiding a fight would have been just as important as winning a fight you get raised eyebrows. I can't say what version of the game would have been better. But I do know that I like very much the game of Run Like Hell that was released.

Run Like Hell wants desperately to be considered high quality cinema. Or at least have high quality cinema scenes. The game opens with Captain Nick Connor quoting Shakespeare about the capacity for good and evil in the universe. We soon learn that the universe has had many great conflicts over the years. Many people have died over the years and rather than continue with that bloodshed, Nick has decided to live a quiet life on the Forsetti Research Station with his fiancщ. One day after returning from a standard excavation mission on one of the surrounding asteroids, Nick and his partner Amanda find the station deserted and the walls stained with blood. Amanda is gruesomely killed by an ugly alien called a Brute and this is all before you even touch the controller. Actually though, before you see this part the tutorial level is a must. Not only does it teach the basics of the game, but if you explore the level enough you'll start with quite the cache of Health Kits. And for the second boss you'll need 'em.

Now you can touch the controller and here's where you "run like hell" in a mini game to get away from the Brute. It's pretty much the only justification for the title staying Run Like Hell left in the game and it's actually pretty fun. Running side to side down a corridor dodging obstacles and jumping over cracks in the floor. Pretty cool, a few more mini games dot the rest of the game and I think were probably a much bigger portion of the game before the redesign. After a few more cut scenes later after you're saved by an alien security officer on the Forsetti and your mission becomes clear. You must kill every alien you see, find any survivors, and especially, find your fiancщ.

Run Like Hell plays much like your standard third person action title. Take your big gun that does surprisingly little damage around the levels looking for the keys needed to get you from point A to point B. Run Like Hell is a very linear shooter in that you're always being pushed forward. The way you came is often blocked to keep that forward mobility, well forward. Although in an interesting twist, the keys you're looking for aren't actual keys but passwords you enter at the doors. So if you're truly determined (or bored) you could just stand at the door until you guess what the password is. This is actually quite useful when you start finding partial passwords and can't seem to find the last piece. You can just guess what that last symbol is.

Of course complicating matters somewhat are the aliens roaming around everywhere. This is the more action oriented style Run Like Hell has taken on comes in. The game features a lock on mode and and a quick dodge button to help with the fighting. The action is always very fast and that has both it's good and it's bad. It's great because fast fighting in a game like this is key to a good game. Run Like Hell has that part down in spades. The problem comes in that the lock on target doesn't work half as well as it should. Once you lock on to the first alien you see there's no real way to toggle it between other aliens until the first one is dead. This works fine in the earlier levels when the aliens go down rather easy. But once it starts taking more than a few bullets to make these things go splat you'll be filling to sell out all the survivors for a targeting system that will allow you to switch the focus of the bullets. It's not a terrible system, but it's the one major gripe that keeps this game from it's potential.

The rest of the controls are pretty good. The control is tight and the right analog stick moves the camera to any angle you want. I also really like the Quick Health button that will instantly use one of your Health Kits without interrupting a heated battle. The Quick Dodge is also a godsend in a firefight. Another little trick that I thought was cool is that Nick can use his gun to push the aliens back if they get too close. There's actually quite a few tricks in his magic bag and they all work well.

The targeting system may be a little rough, but everything else in Run Like Hell comes off as high quality. The first thing you'll notice is the FMV and cut scenes. A lot of them. I mean a really lot. It's weird too because I'm of a slight split mind on the cut scenes and FMV. They're all done amazingly well and look and sound great. They feature some great voice talent. Just a partial list of the voice talent includes Lance Henriksen (of Aliens fame) as Nick, Michael Ironside as Commander Mason, Cree Summer (the voice of Max from Batman Beyond) as Nick's fiancщ, and Kate Mulgrew as one of the station's resident aliens, Dr. Mek. The music (in game and in cut scenes) is appropriately creepy and menacing. But then here's the thing. The FMV and cut scenes have all this good stuff, but there's so many of them. You can't go more than ten minutes without being stopped for another one. If they had been bad it would have completely sunk the game. But because they're so good you just sit back and watch. Occasionally having to sit through yet another argument over who's the bigger hero gets on your nerves, but on the whole these scenes just add to the already pervasive Aliens feel.

After talking about all the Aliens stuff it's actually pretty interesting to see all the similarities Run Like Hell shares with two other recently released games (both conveniently based on horror movies): Terminator: Dawn of Fate and The Thing. Run Like Hell plays very similarly to Dawn of Fate yet doesn't fall into the same traps of piss-poor camera work. The camera in Run Like Hell actually works, yet they both use the lame lock on system. But what it really comes down to is Run Like Hell plays almost exactly like Dawn of Fate should have. In fact they even have a similar look. Dawn of Fate was more bleak future, but Run Like Hell had a similar futuristic space look. The fancy lighted corridors. Blood stained walls. And the cool aliens...

Much like The Thing, Run Like Hell uses a standard set of three aliens and then mutates them throughout the game to add in a little variety. In Run Like Hell there are Cutters, quick, upright aliens that have knife like blades for arms. Then there's Brutes, massive creatures that can't be killed by bullets, you have to think creatively to dispatch them (what I believe is another holdover from the old game style). Finally you have Spiders, which are exactly like The Thing's scuttlers. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but Run Like Hell desperately wants to be like a horror movie.

There's just one last thing, there are Bawls all over this game. No, that's not a subtle way to sneak some naughty words into my review. Bawls is a hyper caffeinated beverage that I am actually a big fan of that is everywhere in this game. Bawls must have bankrolled the game with this kind of product placement. Vending machines show off the logo prominently. They even dispense Bawls for an in game health boost. It's actually kind of strange, the stuff is easier to find in the game than it is in the real world. And stranger still, if I didn't like it I'd probably be seriously outraged at this kind of selling out. But I figure if these two niche products help spread the word to people that might not know about them, I'm all for it.