Gaming Target - Game Boy: Minority Report: Everybody Runs

Written by Tim McGrew on March 14, 2003

Review: Run away from this game and run as far and as fast as you can.

The ideas behind the Minority Report film are sound and intriguing at the same time. Are you guilty of a crime that you have yet to commit? Thankfully, the Gameboy Advance rendition of this futuristic film that takes place in a murder ridden Washington DC is successfully brought to life. You play as John Anderton, the chief of police for Washington DC's all new pre-crime division where three psychic beings predict murders before they happen and it's up to John and pre-crime to investigate the premonitions of the psychics in order to prevent the crime from occurring. As was said in the film however, the only flaw in the system is human and that's where the story starts to pick up steam as a crime is predicted that you have yet to commit and it's up to you to try and prevent that from happening and unravel this entire story to save yourself and your perpetual victim.

The story laced with Minority Report: Everybody Runs is very well done. The game does a great job of adapting the film's story even going so far as to include stills from the film on the tiny handheld with the game's character standing in for Tom Cruise. I suppose his likeness was far too costly for the GBA game, but that is of no consequence since the presentation is still excellent without him. The game even reenacts the high budget special effects laden action scenes with its own particular charm making them quite interesting right from the start.

However, like most film based games, there are flaws that completely draw you out of this surreal reenactment and slam you right back into your room with the game cartridge ripped out of your GBA and smashed into a million pieces on the floor. The primary problem is with the games targeting system. Although this should be a fairly simple tool to implement that can aid you greatly in your quest, it's by far the game's virtual Achilles heal. Using the L and R buttons, players can cycle through different targets as they appear on screen, but the game does not have the ability to differentiate between perpetually lethal targets or civilians simply passing by. This particular flaw is even taken advantage of as civilians will often pass in the middle of a heated sonic gun battle only to slow your targeting while the enemies shoot around them all day and continually chip away your health. When a problem exists in the general gameplay of a particular title, it's poor taste when a developer takes advantage of it, but it's becoming a rather common mistake in game development that only results in frustrated players. There's a fine line between genuine game difficulty and intentional difficulty due to poor game mechanics and it's sad to see that this game is one of those particular culprits.

Otherwise, the game plays just fine and actually has tons of potential. The graphics take place on a 2D plane that can be scaled in a similar fashion to older arcade beat-em ups such as The Avengers or The Punisher. As you progress through the levels, you can collect a number of different weapons, ammunition, and health from fallen foes. The game even has a simple melee attack Anderton can use when he is close enough to an enemy. The levels are also quite lengthy, of which there are eight in all, and are comprised of a number of repetitive backgrounds, but there a very large number of rooms to explore within each level. During the course of the game, the number of enemies you fight will number in the thousands since they just keep coming and coming one right after the other. Even the music is decent with samples from the film's score tossed in to accentuate the action.