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Run Like Hell

When I first saw the name of this game I thought to myself, "Wow! A game about my commute to work!"  I'd be able to re-enact my frantic dash to the bus stop, hope I make all my connections, all the while pretending to be asleep so the crazy person sitting across from me doesn't try to strike up a conversation.  Then I found out this game is actually an adventure title with elements similar to Resident Evil in it.  While blasting stuff is no comparison to my harrowing journey to my day job, Run Like Hell for the Playstation 2 could still have its charms.

The story isn't looking rip-roaringly inspiring at this point as you play a military man living on a space station.  After returning from a mission the whole place is beaten to a pulp by an aggressive alien race who you must now get rid of from the station through seven chapters of sci-fi-ish survival horror.

All this time you'll have to deal with the usual mix of meanies that range from tiny little buggers to the giant, lumbering beasts, all of which want to destroy you.  The scariness in all of this doesn't come in the boo!-factor that we see a lot in other such games, but in the fact that once an enemy spots you they'll come after you and won't stop until either their path has been blocked or you've disposed of them.  I'm guessing this is where the name Run Like Hell comes from.  All in all it is likely that it's this feature that will either make or break the game as it taps into our primal fight or flight mentalities.

So far the look of the game is a cross between a comic book style and something in the spirit of H.G. Giger.  It looks like there is some work still to be done as the detail really isn't there for the humans yet.  The aliens and environments look pretty spiffy, but the people need some touch-ups and then some.

While there have been quite a number of survival horror games to come out since the inception of the Resident Evil series, they've always gone for a horror film sort of setup where they lull you in then bam!, but if Run Like Hell plays its cards right it could get a sense of panic put into the game, not just brief frights.

Previewed by Mr. Nash

Platform: Playstation 2

Genre: Survival-Horror

Developer: Digital Mayhem

Publisher: Interplay

ETA: September 2001