Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating: 9 out of 10

Run Like Hell! is an action platform variant of the endless runner genre; available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS Vita. The game is from the same developer that brought the excellent Draw Slasher to the PlayStation Vita in April 2013.

There are two game modes including a story mode and an endless mode. The story mode is called The Great Escape and sees the lead character (Joe) progressing level by level as the story unfolds with Joe thinking that he has escaped a cannibalistic local tribe on a remote island; only to discover that the boat is missing due to him having wondered so far off course that he is now on the opposite side of the island to where his boat is situated and still having the tribe chasing him down.

The endless mode is called Arcade and allows the player to attempt to outrun the chasing enemies for as long a distance as possible across the five environments of a beach; a jungle; ruins; a village and even a Yeti with the best run displayed clearly for the player to know exactly what they are going up against. However, there are far more differences between the story mode and endless mode as the endless version allows players to collect gold coins that provide the opportunity to spend on unlocking new characters, which is a superb design choice as it makes the endless mode its own entity, rather than a slightly altered version of the story mode.

There are collectable power-ups, such as an adrenaline boost to speed up running, a lightning bolt to slow down the chasing tribe upon striking them and a magnet which applies to the endless mode as the magnet attracts gold coins without having to jump towards or reach them in order to collect them, amongst other power-ups.

The five environments are unique and varied in comparison to each other as they all have their own hazards, such as the beach environment generally has obstacles to clamber over as do all of the environments, but the jungle introduces far more hazards that players have to slide under as well as jump over, alongside a swam of bees that will join the chase if bumped into and small boulders being dropped from above just in front that must be jumped over very quickly or otherwise Joe will fall over them and provide the chasing tribe a chance to gain in on him. Another hazard that is important to avoid is the large swinging boulders that are introduced in the great ruins as are boulders that are lowered quickly into the path on chains, alongside many more hazards throughout each of the five environments.

A new gameplay element is introduced on the fourth (or the fifth if players are including the tutorial) level as there is a bar moving across a gauge that has to be followed carefully by pressing L when the bar is in the left of the gauge and pressing R when the bar is in the right of the gauge, which will enable Joe to sprint beyond everything and onto temporary safety each time the pllayer enters the following environment. As new environments provide new hazards and introduce new gameplay mechanics such as multiple ways of approaching the same part of the level from jumping over an obstacle or sliding underneath it; it becomes an excellent design choice as it makes each new environment more than just a re-skin of what has went before it.

The lead character looks like the charming explorer type that you would expect from the likes of Nathan Drake from the Uncharted videogames and Indiana Jones, while the enemies that are doing the chasing across the island is an entire tribe that will not stop until they have captured Joe. Beyond Joe, there are a further 11 characters that are all unlockable characters, such as the lead character Hanzo from Draw Slasher; Hope who is certainly inspired by the lead character Faith from Mirror’s Edge; Laura who is more than likely based upon Lara Croft as she is said to have a perfect English accent; a zombie that is clearly styled as another nod towards Draw Slasher; Oscar who is described as a golden boy and is a gold version of Joe; alongside many more unlockable characters who provide a fun skit on famous people and are all available for purchase from the character selection menu before playing the endless mode or online multiplayer races for between 1,000 and 250,000 golden coins each.

There are a total of 50 objectives, which will reward the player with anywhere from 200 to 1,000 gold coins upon the successful completion of each objective. The list of objectives is extensive and players will more than likely be naturally progressing towards achieving at least some of them as they play through the game, such as Private Potter for breaking 5,000 pots, Dodge City for sliding 10,000 times, Birdy for scaring 5,000 birds away, True Grit for running a total of 200,000 metres and Saving Face for falling down 1,000 times. However, there are much harder objectives that tend to revolve around the duration of the run and the online multiplayer racing, such as The Undefeated for winning 10 online races in a row, Repo Men for winning a total of 100 online races and Mission: Impossible for reaching 3,000 metres in a single run. Each objective has its own title and description on the objectives screen, which is a great design choice as it allows players to view the objectives and choose which objective they feel would be appropriate to tackle in that moment.

There is a stats screen with a listing of vital statistics that consists of analysis ranging from the total metres run; the amount of boosts used; the amount of coins, power-ups, fogs and lightning collected; the amount of online races finished and won and more besides. The stats screen is a great design choice as it allows players to analyse each area of their performance.

There is some downloadable content available for Run Like Hell! in the form of the small coin pack costing just £0.79; the medium coin pack costing £1.69; the big coin pack costing £4.99; the great coin pack costing £7.99; and the dead man’s chest pack costing £15.99, which are all available from the European PlayStation Store for their respective prices. The purpose of each of the five downloadable content packs is to enable players to still be able to unlock all of the unlockable characters and purchase one or two power-ups for a customisable loadout to assist in the competitive online multiplayer races or perhaps even buy their way into a tournament. However, it is important to state that these micro transactions are not required to complete the game as player naturally earn gold coins by completing a level in arcade mode, progressing further in an endless mode level, finishing on the podium in an online multiplayer race or collecting them during the endless mode or in online multiplayer races and they are only there for people who want to unlock characters and such content that they have not earned enough gold coins to otherwise do so, while the micro transactions can also be purchased to show support for an indie developer by effectively donating towards their future projects.

The control scheme is easy to master as it is well mapped to the Vita. The control scheme consists of pressing X or triangle to perform a short jump; holding X or triangle to perform a long jump; holding square or O to perform a slide; holding the direction of the left analogue stick to the right or holding right on the d-pad to use the adrenaline boost power-up; and pressing start to display the pause menu.

The graphics are pretty good as there are subtle touches of detail in the scenery of each environment that provides every level with a certain depth of character, while the general performance of the game runs very smoothly regardless of whether playing single or online multiplayer and the animations are exactly as would be expected from a game that needs to portray quite physical attributes across running, jumping, sliding and climbing.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great touch screen based user interface across various menus such as the main, settings and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and rear touch pad. The background of the menu screens revolves around the island that are being attempted to escape from with the logo of the game to the left looking as though it was paved with gold as wild trees are wrapped around it with the local tribe engraved into the top of it.

The audio consists of sound effects and music with the sound effects mostly revolving around the lead character, such as running, jumping, sliding, pulling upwards onto a ledge or obstacle, tripping over an obstacle as well as environmental sound effects, such as collecting power-ups, chasing birds away that are perched on obstacles and more besides. There are no voice-overs as the speech is displayed via speech bubbles, although there is a variety of shouting and mumbling from the tribe chasing close behind, while the music is quite adventurous and brings a charming layer to the audio.

The trophy list includes 9 trophies with 6 bronze, 1 silver and 2 gold trophies. The easiest trophies have to be the Tyro Canny Stir bronze trophy for completing the tutorial; the Fast Food bronze trophy for running at least 1,000 metres in a single run would be a difficult trophy during the endless mode in single player, although it becomes incredibly easy to obtain during an online multiplayer race; and the Retro Bonds bronze trophy for playing the Yeti environment in the arcade mode. There is a single online trophy that could be quite difficult as the Maj. T. Bag gold trophy requires players to win 25 competitive races in online multiplayer. The hardest trophy has to be the Marathon Matters silver trophy for running a total of 30 kilometres. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 5 to 10 hours to 100% the trophy list.

There are no difficulty levels, although the difficulty curve naturally increases particularly during the story mode as the distance required too travel until the end of the level increases from level to level; resulting in the duration that is needed have to hold off the chasing tribe progressively becoming an ever increasing challenge.

There are two sets of online competitive multiplayer including versus and challenges, which are both thoroughly entertaining due to a clear variety of gameplay and clever user friendly gameplay mechanics, such as when the lobby cannot find an opponent during the matchmaking process; it will provide players with a bot in the place of a human opponent during any type of race from versus or challenges resulting in being able to play against a combination of human and artificial intelligence controlled opponents, which enables the player too simply jump into the action, rather than having to wait around for a certain number of players to join.

The versus feature is a ranked mode comprising of three game modes, which includes a big race of 4 players with a free entry where the winner earns the 400 gold coins available as the top prize, but the runners-up take away nothing other than the gold coins they have collected during the race; a 1 on 1 mode for two players with a free entry and a tournament for 8 players. The tournament is the main area to improve ranking starting from rank E and ascending towards the summit of rank A, although the tournament has a buy in of 500 gold coins; the reward is a prize of 2,000 gold coins for the winner, 1,000 gold coins for the runner-up and 500 gold coins for a podium finish in third place with a three round knockout tournament format of a quarter final, semi final and final with the winner progressing through each stage.

The challenges feature allows the participation in an online multiplayer race with three other competitors, although as well as attempting to win the race; players are also aiming for the fastest time to complete the race on the online leaderboard for the duration the challenge is available, which is there or thereabouts a week. Players will be rewarded with golden cups depending upon where they finish on the leaderboard for that particular challenge with three golden cups if they finish in first or second position, two golden cups if they finish anywhere between third and ninth position and one golden cup if finishing anywhere between tenth and nineteenth position, although golden coins can be collected as progression is through each run to earn currency to help towards unlocking new characters or purchasing a single use adrenaline boost.

Players can essentially customise a loadout during the lobby area as they can purchase an adrenaline boost for 300 golden coins to improve performance or purchase a shield prior to the start of the race for 150 gold coins that will block any power-up from a rival. Power-ups can also be collected as progression is made through the run, such as an adrenaline boost to temporarily enhance speed, while a lightning bolt will stop all other competitors providing an ideal opportunity to increase the lead if out in front or gain on those ahead, a fog slows the movements of all of the competitors down providing another opportunity to gain or pull away from them and a magnet attracts the gold coins to the player’s location without having to reach for them in order to collect them, amongst other power-ups.

However, despite such an extensive online multiplayer it would have been a great addition to see a form of pass the Vita local co-operative multiplayer, so that the control of the lead character switches between multiple players after Joe has been captured by the chasing tribe to see if the following player can make it through the level, while a local competitive multiplayer could have been possible via a time trial system, although the depth of the online multiplayer more than makes up for this.

The online leaderboards focuses on global rankings and local rankings across both versus and challenges game modes with each leaderboard containing each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); and the amount of golden cups earned with the positioning of each player based upon the golden cups that has been accumulated on the versus or challenges game modes.

The replayability of Run Like Hell! stems from many different areas, such as the 2 game modes, power-ups to keep the action unpredictable, 11 unlockable characters available for purchase with the gold coins earned and collect along the way, online competitive multiplayer offers unlimited replayability, alongside competitive online leaderboards, which will collectively have players coming back for more for a long time to come.

Overall, the quality of Run Like Hell! is to be seen in every area of the game as the graphics and animations are smooth, the replayability is effectively endless with an amazing online multiplayer, which is just as entertaining as the brilliant single player game modes, which forms a game that possesses exceptional value and at just £3.29; Run Like Hell! becomes an absolute no-brainer purchase that will entertain for many hours longer than the price tag suggests and is perfect for short bursts of gameplay or much longer play sessions!

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: Run Like Hell!
• Developer: Mass Creation
• Publisher: Mass Creation
• System: PS Vita
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1-4 (Online Competitive Multiplayer)/Online Leaderboards
• Memory Card Space Required: 172MB