Runaway: A Twist of Fate (2009) Review

Considering how the last game ended, I was fully expecting it to start with the great big rescue. Imagine my surprise when it starts with Brian’s funeral. I was further surprised when he was not only convicted of murdering Colonel Kordsmeier but also declared insane and put in a psychiatric hospital. Like, wow, that’s a lot to take in at once. Then it turns out Brian faked his death to escape the hospital to try and clear his name? Honestly, that sounds like something he would do. A welcome twist on the series’ formula is that Gina was much more involved this time. No longer is she a damsel in distress, but a playable character. And her breasts are actually covered for once, thankfully. There is some narrating the past, as per usual, but things do mostly take place in the present time with new, quirky characters.

The sad thing about Brian’s funeral is that the only people that showed up were Gina and his ‘favorite’ orderly from the hospital, Ernie, who might as well be an Elvis impersonator. Did the devs forget Brian had parents or what? Even Gina’s dad was mentioned again. In any case, after Gina buries the coffin, she gets a call from who she thinks is Brian, saying they were buried alive. She has to solve quite a few egregious puzzles to reveal the coffin. These mostly required helping some NPC’s that I personally felt were a little unnecessary. Once Gina gets the coffin open, it’s not Brian, but Gabbo, his friend from the hospital, who bears a resemblance to Steve Buscemi (apparently, I don’t really see it). He then regales Gina about Brian’s time among the ‘crazy’ people.

As far as fictional psychiatric hospitals go, this one actually seemed to be mostly okay. Genuine beds with side tables, desks and bookshelves, patients freely able to express themselves through art, etc. Considering most of them end up being portrayed as torture chambers, it was a nice change of pace to see one being a halfway decent place to be. It’s not all sunshine and roses, of course; one rotten patient called Kurgan not only bullied Brian but also hijacked his original escape plan. This, obviously, opened the door for many ridiculous puzzles for Brian to solve for an alternate escape route. He does eventually catch up to Kurgan, but the guy got his head cut off, even further complicating things. What’s funny is that despite the decapitation, there was no blood. I guess the game had to keep its Pegi 12 rating somehow. The fact that Brian thought it was a good idea to hide the head in an incinerator (which burned it instantly) made me chuckle.

Despite the new and funny bits, Runaway: A Twist of Fate still had about the same amount of problems as the previous games. There were a few offensive words used (refer to my other reviews on this series for examples) but significantly less, thankfully. There was no mention or sight of Joshua either. I guess the devs finally figured out how offensive he was (took them long enough). However, Sushi, Saturn, and Rutger weren’t seen or heard from either. Which is a little confusing, as they were supposed to be helping with the big rescue mission. In a flashback, Brian appears to do everything mostly on his own. While Brian using an alien mind control device to try and get the Colonel to confess his crimes was clever, explaining almost everything through words wasn’t. Though I will admit, Tarantula using the device on Brian to kill the Colonel was something I probably should’ve seen coming. She was only working with the Colonel as long as he was useful to her. And disguising herself as an orderly at the hospital to keep Brian there was pretty genius too.

Another thing I wasn’t thrilled about was some of the voices. Brian in particular was vastly different than the first two games. And the Colonel didn’t sound right either; his voice in the second game was very distinctive. The only ones that sounded like themselves were Gina and maybe Tarantula. Why this decision was made is beyond me. It’s kinda hard to get into a game if characters you’re familiar with don’t sound the same. And while it was a nice trip down memory lane, I felt like the whole situation with the homeless screenwriter was needless filler. Though the Groucho Marx waiter/actor was a bit useful. Despite my grievances, I can appreciate attempting to come full circle with Brian and Gina stealing millions from the same mafia they stole from in the first game. They’re on the run again, with brand-new adventures ahead of them. It’s a shame we were robbed of a bigger ‘rescue Gina’ operation, I would’ve loved to see that.